Distinguishing Midrash from Historical Realities

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

The Feminist professor, Vanessa Lovelace, defines midrash as "a Jewish mode of interpretation that not only engages the words of the text, behind the text, and beyond the text, but also focuses on each letter, and the words left unsaid by each line". This approach lends itself well to Jewish mysticism, but it is not helpful for those who employ an empirical, data-seeking approach to the Bible.

Midrash is the rabbinic method of interpreting events that took place thousands of years before Judaism emerged. The centuries-long process of Midrashic accounts began with the redaction of the Bible around 400 B.C. That means that Genesis has a narrative overlayer that comes from anonymous sources dating to nearly 1700 years after the time of Jacob.

Knowledge of the social structure of the Hebrew ruler-priest caste explains why many things happened the way they did. However, the midrashim in the Old Testament often give a different explanation for events that took place before Judaism. 

Midrash is characterized by some narrative devices such as famines that drive the Hebrew people into other lands. Famines in Caanan are a device to explain why Abraham went to Egypt and why Noami and her family went to Moab. The rabbis are anxious to disguise the fact that there were Hebrew living in Egypt and in Moab. The earliest known Hebrew clans lived in the Nile Valley, and the Moabites and Hebrew share a common ancestor in Terah, Abraham’s father.

Another device of Midrash is jealousy among brothers. Though the Genesis story does not explain why Cain killed Abel, midrash supplies the explanation that he was jealous. Likewise, Joseph’s treatment by his brothers is explained as an act motivated by jealousy.

Midrash employs the ghastly practice of slavery to explain why Joseph is in Egypt, why Daniel is in Babylon, and why Mordecai and Esther are in Persia. In the sixth century B.C., many Judean noblemen were taken to Babylon, and Babylon was conquered by the Persians who took captives to Susa. These events have been historically verified. Midrash embroiders historical events to convey a theological message.

Midrash tends to point to God or supernatural intervention as an explanation for why things happened. An example is Joseph’s declaration to his brothers: “Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.” (Genesis 45:5-7)

Another example is Mordecai’s declaration to Esther: “Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house, more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:12-14)

Sermons from countless pulpits draw on midrash to make theological points. An example is Genesis Rabbah, a collection of Jewish homiletical interpretations of the Book of Genesis. Those who attend church and synagogue are more familiar with the Jewish narratives in Genesis than with the actual social structure of the biblical Hebrew.

Related reading: Midrash in Genesis; The First Lords of the Earth is a Paradigm-Shifting Book; The First Lords of the Earth and Messianic Expectation; The First Lords and Their Authority

Hebrew Daughters Presented Problems

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

The Hebrew were a ruler-priest caste that protected their identity, preserved their wealth, and expanded their territories through endogamous marriage. 

As was true of all royal fathers, virgin daughters posed both potential trouble and opportunity for the Hebrew rulers. Rulers were wary of fortune seeking men who sought to advance their careers, raise their social status, increase their wealth, or expand their territories through marriage to royal daughters. Such ambitious suitors posed a threat to the kingdom. For the sake of stability, some royal daughters were denied marriage and sent to the temples (later to monasteries).

On the other hand, royal marriages were a common way of forging alliances between Hebrew clans. These were carefully arranged marriages. It was hoped that arranged royal marriages would provide for mutual defense and prevent war. 

However, royal weddings were sometimes violent occasions. The anthropologist, Goran Pavlovic, reports, “In Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Croatia, there are many places, usually with ancient stone slabs or standing stones, which local population calls svatovska groblja or wedding party graveyards." These places are found in remote areas with ancient necropolises dating from the beginning of the fourth millennium B.C. Many ancient necropolises were royal burial grounds where ancestors were called upon to witness the marriage bond.

On the other hand, should a ruler seek to incite war with an enemy, he could deny marriage or take back a daughter who had been given in marriage. This may be what motivated King Saul to take back Michal who he had given as a wife to David. Saul sought provocation to eliminate David who, by that time, had been anointed by the prophet Samuel to be the next king.

When Shechem fell in love with Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, his father Hamor met with Jacob to arrange for his son to marry Dinah. Apparently, this marriage was approved by Jacob and the Hivite people of Shechem were kinsmen. However, Jacob’s sons, Levi, and Simeon, did not approve of the marriage and used this as an excuse to massacre Hamor’s men and loot the city. In Genesis 34:13, there is an admission that the sons of Jacob “answered Shechem and his father Hamor in a deceitful way.” The violence against the Shechem community put Jacob’s clan in jeopardy by making subsequent peaceful coexistence and marriage alliances in that region impossible. That is why Jacob reprimanded his sons for the bloodshed.

Bride Capture

The denial of marriage among the biblical Hebrew might result in bride capture. There are two examples of this in the Bible. The first instance is found in Numbers 31 and the second in Judges 21:8-24. In both accounts the focus is on the capture of virgins. The virgin women are captured and taken back to captor’s settlements. The consummation of sexual relations rendered these women no longer marriageable in their social context. Daughters who were bought back by their families usually remained unmarried in their fathers’ households. For most young Hebrew women, that was not a preferable state.

The Judges 21 account describes the virgins coming out to dance at an annual festival. The men of the clan of Benjamin took the number of women they needed from the dancers they caught. The festival with dancing virgins was a way of marrying low-status Hebrew daughters to low-status Hebrew bachelors. Likely, the “attack” was not a surprise. It was, as Robin Fox explains in his book Kinship and Marriage, “ceremonial” but could have “uncomfortably real overtones” and might end in an actual fight or skirmish (p. 178).

This practice should not be equated to terrorist kidnappings, rape, and forced conversions to Islam such as practiced by groups like Boko Haram. Instead, ceremonial bride abduction is a ritual performance that takes place with the knowledge and consent of the bride and her family members.

A collective form of bride capture is found in some societies even today, particularly among lower status women and men. The account in Judges 21 is an example of collective marriages taking place on one night.

Rabbinic sources report that on a single night multiple sets of Hebrew brothers married multiple sets of Hebrew sisters.

Mass marriages or collective wedding night festivities are common in India, Central Asia, and among some Muslim populations. In Imilchil, a Moroccan town in the Atlas Mountains, as many as forty couples marry as part of a Berber tradition known as the annual Imchil Marriage Festival.

Related reading: The Mother's House vs. Father's House; Marriage Partner Selection Among the Hebrew; The Marriage and Inheritance of Hebrew Daughters

Midrash in Genesis

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

The book of Genesis provides important anthropological information about the early Hebrew, a ruler-priest caste that dispersed out of Africa into Arabia, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and beyond. I have written about their social structure, religious beliefs, territorial expansion, trade routes, and influence on the populations of the Fertile Crescent and Ancient Near East in my book The First Lords of the Earth; An Anthropological Study. That book explains in great detail the distinctive Hebrew marriage and ascendancy pattern involving two wives and the hierarchy of their firstborn sons.

Understanding the kinship pattern of the biblical Hebrew is important because it proves that the people of Genesis were historical; it identifies Adam and Eve's descendants as Hebrew; and it demonstrates that there were many Hebrew clans besides the clan of Jacob (Israel). Genesis through the lens of anthropology clarifies a distorted picture. The distortion comes from later Jewish midrashim.

Midrash is a Jewish or rabbinic mode of interpretation prominent in the Talmud. The centuries-long process of Midrashic accounts began with the redaction of the Bible around 400 B.C. That means that Genesis has a narrative overlayer that comes from anonymous sources dating to nearly 1500 years after the time of Jacob.

Knowledge of the social structure of the biblical Hebrew explains why many things happened the way they did. However, the midrashim in the Old Testament often give a different explanation for events that took place thousands of years before Judaism emerged. It is characterized by some literary devices such as famines that drive the Hebrew people into Egypt, or the jealousy of brothers who sell a favored son into slavery.

Midrash tends to point to God or supernatural intervention as an explanation for why things happened. An example is Mordecai’s declaration to Esther: “Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house, more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:12-14)

Another example is Joseph’s declaration to his brothers: “Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.” (Gen. 45:5-7)

The story of Joseph according to midrash supposes that Jacob's favoritism shown to Joseph invoked jealousy among Joseph's brothers who sold him into slavery. Next, he is in Egypt serving in the household of a high-ranking Egyptian named Potiphar. We are led to believe that this Potiphar is not the same man as Potiphar, a priest of the very prestigious shrine city On (Heliopolis). Due to his ability to discern the meaning of dreams, Joseph comes to the attention of the King of Egypt who elevates him to a high government position and arranges for Joseph to marry Asenath, the daughter of Potiphar, an Onite priest.

Now, based on our knowledge of the marriage and ascendancy pattern of the biblical Hebrew, here is the story minus the midrash.

Joseph was not Jacob's heir. That was Reuben, the firstborn son of Leah. Reuben lost his father's favor when he usurped Jacob's authority by sleeping with Jacob's concubine Bilhah. However, by law Reuben remained Jacob's proper heir. The proper heir was the firstborn son of the first wife, usually a patrilineal half-sister. Leah was probably Jacob's half-sister, just as Sarah was Abraham's half-sister. Midrash would have us believe that Jacob's two wives were sisters. That is unlikely. Jacob probably married according to the pattern of his Hebrew ancestors. These were arranged marriages among high-status rulers and priests. The Hebrew only married within their caste (endogamy).

Joseph was the firstborn son of Jacob's cousin bride and as such he was to be sent away to serve in the household of his maternal uncle. This was a common pattern for sent-away sons. Jacob was sent away and he served his uncle Laban. Moses was sent away and he served his uncle Jetro, a priest of Midian. It appears that Potiphar was Joseph's maternal uncle and his avunculocal residence in Egypt was consistent with the marriage and ascendancy pattern of the early Hebrew ruler-priests caste.

Joseph's ruler-priest caste was well recognized in Egypt since that is the point of origin of the Horite and Sethite Hebrew. The Hebrew caste had a moiety structure that consisted of these two ritual groups. There were many Horite and Sethite Mounds on Nile River.

Joseph was recognized as one who opens dreams and visions. In Genesis, he is called abrikku; which is related to the Akkadian abarakku, which means grand vizier (Delitzsch, Hebrew Language Viewed in the Light of Assyrian Research, p. 26). The term abrikku is also related to the Akkadian word for priest, which is abru. Joseph's Hebrew ruler-priest caste was known to have prophets. Asaph was the chief of the Temple musicians, and he prophesied in song, a common practice in the ancient world. Among the Egyptians, the gifts of the seer were highly valued.

Joseph's marriage to his cousin Asenath was arranged by the Pharoah and Asenath's father Potiphar. Potiphar was a priest of On, the capital of the 15th Nome of Lower Egypt. Asenath's two sons did not belong to the same households. The firstborn son Manasseh belonged to the household of Potiphar and the Heliopolis shrine, whereas Ephraim, her younger son belonged to the household of Jacob. This explains why Jacob gave Ephraim the blessing that pertained to the firstborn (Gen. 48:14).

Potiphar was the high chamberlain and a member of Pharaoh’s court. He is the man with the wife who sought the amorous attention of the handsome young Joseph in her bedroom. Many do not believe that this Potiphar is the same man as an Onite priest by the same name because they do not understand that priests of the ancient world held multiple titles and served multiple roles. This easily could be the same man because the Hebrew priest's duties only took him away from his home for about 2 months of the year. We should not assume that being a priest excludes the other roles described. Consider how the Hebrew priests of Canaan were shepherds, masons, miners, carpenters, farmers, and fisherman as well as priests. There were 24 divisions of priests in Israel because each division only served twice a year at the temple in Jerusalem.

The Potiphar Stela in the Cairo Museum (c.1070–945 B.C.) is the first known mention of this specific name. It indicates that Potiphar/Potiphera was a prominent Egyptian official, keeper of the storehouse of Ptah. The stela speaks of Potiphar as the "son of Horus, may He live forever." Evidently, Asenath and her father were devotees of Horus, the son of God. That means that they shared the same religion as Jacob the Horite Hebrew. The Hebrew believed in God Father and God Son.

It is likely that Potiphar was Joseph’s maternal uncle. Sent-away sons went to live with and serve in the households of their maternal grandfathers. It is likely that Joseph’s mother Rachel was related to a noble Egyptian house and that Potiphar was Joseph's maternal uncle. If that is the case, the marriage arranged by Pharoah between Asenath and Joseph was consistent with the Hebrew custom of marrying cousins.

Joseph was placed in charge of assessments of grain paid as tribute to Pharoah and the oversight of Pharoah's granaries along the length of the Nile, the longest river on earth. This was a very high position and one that would have required the skills of a politically savvy man. 

This picture is far less distorted than the one we receive through midrash.

Related reading: The Prestige of Biblical On; The Hebrew Were a Caste, Horite and Sethite Mounds, Cousin Brides; Marriage Partner Selection Among the Hebrew; The Substance of Abraham's Faith

The Marriage and Inheritance of Hebrew Daughters

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

The daughters of the Hebrew ruler-priests are perhaps the least understood biblical population because many remain nameless in the biblical texts. However, these daughters were the brides and mothers who kept the bonds between the Hebrew clans strong. 

The exchange of brides between the descendants of two brothers was common. It is an example of “matrimonial moiety” (see Glossary). The early Hebrew moieties - the Horite Hebrew and the Sethite Hebrew - were tied together by the bride exchange among their rulers.

This is an example of matrimonial moiety, a system whereby kin groups (moieties), such as the lineages of Cain and Seth, are linked by a pattern of recurrent marriage between the clans.

Lamech the Elder was a descendant of Cain. His daughter, Naamah, married her patrilineal cousin methuselah and named their first-born son Lamech, after her father. The maternal ancestry of the Hebrew rulers can be traced mainly through the cousin brides.

Females of High Social Status

Most of the persons named in the Bible are men simply because only men served as priests and the Hebrew were a ruler-priest caste. More male ancestors are named because they assumed governance over their fathers’ territories or become high officials in the territories of their maternal grandfathers. The few wives and daughters who are named have special significance. Naamah, the first woman named after Eve, is an example. She is the key to understanding the cousin bride’s naming prerogative. She married her patrilineal cousin Methuselah and named their first-born son “Lamech” after her father.

Abraham's wife Sarah was of such high social status that she was sought by the King of Egypt. Rarely were such political "marriages" consummated because the ruler already had a queen by whom he received a rightful heir. The more sons competing for the ruler's position, the greater threat was posed to him by assassination.

Sarah and Abraham had the same father - Terah. However, they had different mothers because the high-ranking Hebrew rulers had two wives. The pattern of two wives is found throughout the Bible among the Hebrew rulers. However, the data needed to identify which wife is the first and which is the second is not always available. Some wives are not named. Moses' Kushite wife is an example, as are King Joash's two wives, chosen for him by the priest Jehoiada. 

In Genesis 36, we read about a female clan chief named Anah. She is the mother of Dishon and Oholibamah. Adah, the daughter of Elon the Hittite, married a Horite Hebrew named Esau. Apparently, bride exchanges took place between the Hittite and Hebrew rulers, suggesting that they were close kinsmen. This is likely the meaning of the Hittite recognition of Abraham as a "great prince" among them in Genesis 23.

Inheritance  

Daughters received inheritances from their mothers in the form of herds, tents, textiles, sacred objects believed to enhance fertility, jewelry, and servants. Numbers 27:8 makes it clear that daughters could inherit land. If a landowner died without a male heir his land was to go to a ranking daughter. If he died without a son or daughter, his property was to go to his brothers.

The teraphim that Rachel hid in her camel bags were probably figurines of the great patriarch Terah and his principal wife. Her possession of these ancestor figurines represented a claim to inheritance.

When Jacob proposed a plan to escape from servitude to Laban, his two wives were quick to support him, saying: "Are we still likely to inherit anything from our father's estate? Does he not think of us as outsiders now?" (Gen. 31:14) Laban sons became jealous of Jacob, saying, "Jacob has taken everything that belonged to our father; it is at our father's expense that he has acquired all this wealth." (Gen. 31:1) Clearly, Jacob's wealth was that of his wives, their servants and their flocks and herds. Other than his initial grant as a sent-away son, Jacob received no inheritance from Isaac. Nor was he to receive anything from Laban. That is why Rachel took the ancestor figurines.

Zelophehad's daughters argued that the name of their deceased father would be lost among his people were they not to inherit. However, Zelophehad's name would be perpetuated through one of his daughters. Were she to marry a patrilineal cousin, she would name her first-born son Zelophehad after her father, according to the cousin bride's naming prerogative.

Moses granted the five daughters' petition to inherit their father's holding, and we read this law: "If a man dies without a son, then the inheritance shall pass to his daughter." (Num. 27:8)

Related reading: The Cousin Bride's Naming Prerogative; Cousin Brides Among the Hebrew; The Hebrew Were a Caste

The First Hebrew Lords

 

Dear Readers,

It has been a long time coming, but my book The First Lords of the Earth: An Anthropological Study is now available for purchase on Amazon. Options include Kindle, paperback, or hard cover. All are priced to accommodate book lovers on a tight budget. 

This book identifies the social structure and religious beliefs of the early Hebrew ruler-priest caste (6000-4000 years ago), their dispersion out of Africa, their territorial expansion, trade routes, and influence on the populations of the Fertile Crescent and Ancient Near East. It is ancient history, anthropology, and Biblical studies wrapped into one fascinating read. 

I was able to make a rather complex subject easy to understand. I hope you will buy the book and discover answers to some perennial questions, such as:

• Who were the Horite Hebrew and the Sethite Hebrew?
• Where is the oldest known site of Horite Hebrew worship?
• Why did so many Hebrew men have two wives?
• What was the difference in status between wives and concubines?
• What types of authority did the biblical Hebrew recognize?
• What were some symbols of authority among the early Hebrew?
• How did their acute observation of the order of creation inform their reasoning?
• If Judaism is NOT the Faith of the early Hebrew, what did they believe?

I hope you will find the book helpful and informative. The sequel tells the story of the First Hebrew Ladies and will be available in July 2014.

Best wishes to you all,

Alice C. Linsley

Related reading: The First Lords and Their Authority; The First Lords is a Paradigm-Shifting Book; Response to a Review of First Lords of the Earth; The First Lords and Messianic Expectation

Dwarfs in Ancient Nilotic Culture

Alice C. Linsley

A famous dwarf in ancient Nilotic history was Seneb, a court official (c.2500 BC). His lavish burial arrangements suggest that his dwarfism was not an impediment to achieving high social rank. It appears that some dwarfs were thought to have magical powers.

The earliest known depictions of dwarfs in Egypt date to the early 1st Dynasty (c. 3100 – c. 2890 BC) and were found in the royal cemetery at Abydos. Royal dwarves were sometimes buried in subsidiary tombs around those of the kings. In fact, the rather high proportion of dwarfs in the royal cemeteries of the 1st Dynasty suggests their importance to early Nilotic rulers. 

According to a 1972 thesis published in "Department of Orthopedics and Orthopedic Diseases in Ancient and Modern Egypt", dwarves are depicted on the walls of at least fifty Old Kingdom tombs.

During the 1st Dynasty (c. 3150–2900 B.C.), dwarfs served the king and royal household in a number of capacities: cupbearers, tailors, zookeepers, etc. A unique relief from the mastaba of the high official Nyankhnesw (6th Dynasty) shows a dwarf taking a leopard for a walk.

Old Kingdom texts (c. 2980–2475 B.C.) mention Yam. Harkhuf', the governor of Aswan, made several journeys to Yam. On Harhuf's third trip to Yam, three hundred donkeys were brought back to Egypt. The inscription on Harkhuf's tomb explains: "The majesty of Mernere my lord, sent me, together with my father, the sole companion, and ritual priest Iry, to Yam, in order to explore a road to this country. I did it in only seven months."

Harkhuf headed four expeditions to Upper Nubia and Yam in the reigns of Merenre and Pepi II. Harkhuf traveled by land across the hill country of Irtjet northwards, and in his travels he was dependent upon the troops of Yam who accompanied him. On one of these ventures, he captured a pygmy, though he is called a "dwarf" in Breasted's translation. An excited pharaoh promised Harkhuf that he would be greatly rewarded if the pygmy were brought back alive. This letter was preserved as a lengthy inscription on Harkhuf's tomb:

Come northward to the court immediately; [...] thou shalt bring this dwarf with thee, which thou bringest living, prosperous and healthy from the land of spirits, for the dances of the god, to rejoice and [gladden] the heart of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Neferkare, who lives forever. When he goes down with thee into the vessel, appoint excellent people, who shall be beside him on each side of the vessel; take care lest he fall into the water. When he sleeps at night appoint excellent people, who shall sleep beside him in his tent, inspect ten times a night. My majesty desires to see this dwarf more than the gifts of Sinai and of Punt. If thou arrivest at court this dwarf being with thee alive, prosperous and healthy, my majesty will do for thee a greater thing than that which was done for the treasurer of the god Burded in the time of Isesi, according to the heart's desire of my majesty to see the dwarf. (James Henry Breasted Ancient Records of Egypt, Part I 328ff)

 

It is evident from the Levitical code that dwarves were not regarded with the same respect among the Israelites (Jacob's clan). They were denied participation in the assembly along with hunchbacks, men with eye defects, eczema, scabs, or crushed testicles (Lev. 21:20).

This Bes figurine dates to between 1070 and 800 B.C.

The dwarf Bes was a popular figure of good fortune who appeared on coins and amulets all over the Levant during the reign of the Ptolemies. At the end of the 6th century B.C., images of Bes had spread across the Achaemenid Empire. Bes images have been found at Susa in ancient Persia and as far away as central Asia. Excavations at Ziyaret Tepe in southeastern Turkey uncovered the body of a man who was buried with a Bes figurine.

Dwarves as royal officials

Ancient records indicate that at least four dwarves held very high positions in ancient Egypt. They are Seneb, Pereniankh, Khnumhotpe, and Djeder. The image below shows Seneb with his high-status wife and his son and daughter. Seneb's son was Ankh-ima-Radjedef. Godfrey Musila has suggested that ima means honored or revered.

Archaeologists excavated the mastaba of Seneb in 1925-1926. The tomb has a truncated pyramid shape and was constructed of mud bricks. In a side room of the mastaba, archaeologists unearthed a statue depicting the Seneb and his family. That is now at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Note that Seneb and his son are dark from exposure to the Sun and his wife and daughter are painted white to represent the Moon. This conception of male and female rulers is very ancient. The concept is found in the Song of Solomon where the royal bride is described as "fair as the moon". The Sun-Moon binary set among the early Hebrew is a reference for a married royal couple. 

Joseph dreamt of his parents in those terms. When Joseph was seventeen years old, he shared with his brothers two dreams he had: in the first dream, Joseph and his brothers gathered bundles of grain, of which those his brothers gathered, bowed to his own. In the second dream, the sun (father), the moon (mother), and eleven stars (brothers) bowed before Joseph.

The Song of Songs speaks of two brides. One is "dark as the tents of Kedar" (1:5) and the other is "fair as the Moon" (6:10). This exalts Solomon's reign as divinely appointed since in the ancient world the High God's sovereignty was expressed by the journey of the Sun between the houses of his two wives.

This is typical of the territorial claims of high kings in the Ancient Near East. The brides represent the east and the west, the territorial boundaries observed by the solar arc, the symbol of the God’s High rule over the Earth. This was a way of identifying the authority of the high king with the authority of the High God.

Court dwarves served the royal persons of Europe from 1500-1700 A.D. and appear in some famous paintings, such as Diego Velázquez's 1656 Las Meninas, at the Museo del Prado in Madrid.

Related reading: Lewis' Narnian Dwarves Hint of Africa and the Bible; The Sovereignty of Two Wives; Giants and Dwarves in the Bible

Ritual Burial Among Archaic Humans

 

Some H. naledi hands had curative but are unlike ape hands.

Carvings found near Homo naledi graves in the Rising Star cave system are the first evidence of ritual burials (c.250,000 YBP). Homo naledi was human.

250,000 years ago, humans were living and dying in communities, caring for one another, grieving with one another, and burying their dead with respect.

For at least 100,000 years humans buried their dead in red ocher, a symbolic blood covering.

Much was happening with humans before 250,000 years ago.

Evidence of butchering at 3 million YBP

2.5-3.4 million YBP 

Humans were using butchering flints. These were found in Dikika, Ethiopia. This bone shows evidence of butchering.

1.5 million YBP

Stone tools found in Saudi Arabia near the Red Sea from a time when the region was much wetter.

700,000 YBP

Lower Paleolithic Age butchering tools found in Greece.

500,000 YBP

A large assemblage of hand axes excavated at Stratum 4a and 4b at the Kathu complex in South Africa. Large mammal remains have been identified at both strata.

A trove of hand axes found in central Israel at Jaljulya.

Flint tools discovered in the Tunel Wielki Cave in Poland.

Engraved shell found in Java.

Material evidence of Humans as early as 4 million years ago.

When Jeremy DeSilva, a British anthropologist, compared the ankle joint, the tibia and the talus fossils of human ancestors ("hominins") between 4.12 million to 1.53 million years old, he discovered that all of the ankle joints resembled those of modern humans rather than those of apes. Chimpanzees flex their ankles 45 degrees from normal resting position. This makes it possible for apes to climb trees with great ease. While walking, humans flex their ankles a maximum of 20 degrees. The human ankle bones are quite distinct from those of apes.

The discovery of a complete fourth metatarsal of A. afarensis at Hadar that shows the deep, flat base and tarsal facets that "imply that its midfoot had no ape-like midtarsal break. These features show that the A. afarensis foot was functionally like that of modern humans." (Carol Ward, William H. Kimbel, Donald C. Johanson, Feb. 2011) 

Related reading: Evidence of Meat Consumption 3 Million Years Ago; Artifacts of Great Antiquity; On Blood and the Impulse to Immortality; Berger Returned to the "cave of bones"