Nubian Captives

Alice C. Linsley

In this detail taken from Treasures of Egypt and Nubia, we see a reproduction of a Ippolito Rosellini painting done during the 1825 Franco-Italian expedition to Egypt. Red and black Nubian captives are roped together and the rope is pulled by the Pharaoh whose back is shown at the bottom right.

It is evident from another image that both red and black are bound.

Incense burners found at Addi Akaweh in the Tigray region of Ethiopia bear an inscription that says the region was ruled by three kings jointly ca. 2800 years ago. They ruled with their queens over a population of black and red citizens. One commentators states that the Shebans were red (like the Ainu) and the Hebrews were black. This has not be verified. It seems more likely that Nubian parents often had children of different color. This happens even today and sometimes with twins.

Genesis indicates that Esau was red. Was Jacob black?


Notes on Sheba:

The Queen of Sheba probably did not rule over the same territory as her very powerful ancestors named in Genesis. By the time of Solomon came to power Sheba's territory was diminished. David likely took control of some of those lands in the south. Remember, Sheba claimed to have a legitimate right to the throne in Jerusalem (and he probably did have a legitimate claim). He lost his life when he took refuge in the city of Abel Beth Maacah. He was beheaded there (2 Samuel 20:1-22).

Beersheba means the Well of Sheba. It was a principal settlement and very old center for metal work. Jews will deny this since Abraham lived there, as did Isaac. They interpret Beersheba to mean the well of seven.

Bilquis is mentioned in Yoruba lore. There are some problems with the alignments of the stories, however. A huge barrier wall has been discovered in Nigeria which the locals say is associated with Queen Bilquis. This seems to come from later Arabic sources though. I believe, however, the local people are correct in their association of the wall with the Shebans because they were kin to the Jebusites and the Ijebu still live in that place. Gen. 10 indicates that both the Shebans and teh Jebusties were Kushites. Jerusalem was originally a Jebusite or Ijebu shrine city. The Sheban (also spelled Sebans; Sabaeans) are clan of Joktan, son of Eber (Ebry) om Genesis 10:27-28). In Gen. 10:6-7 we find their ancestors are called Seba and Sheba and they are identified as Kushites. According to Vedic tradition, the Kushites ruled the ancient world for 7000 years.

Jesus said, "The Queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here." (Matt. 12: 42; Luke 11: 31)

Related reading: Biblical Sheba and Nubians Linked

Biblical Anthropology and the Question of Common Ancestry

Alice C. Linsley


Since Biblical Anthropology concerns itself with cultural antecedents and human origins it is natural that a Biblical anthropologist would explore the question of common ancestry as it is posed by Evolution.

If humans and apes (or humans and pigs) share a common genetic ancestry there must certainly be evidence for that in the fossil record. Frankly, I do not see it. Instead, the evidence points to humans appearing suddenly and de novo about 4 million years ago. The Australopithecus afarensis and the more recent Australopithecus africanus show every evidence of being fully human despite the small cranium. I have argued here that, given the totality of other evidence that favors human identity, brain size is a less important indicator than the binary feature of the brain and of primitive thought.

For example, the cerebral hemispheres exhibit strong bilateral symmetry in structure and function. That said, the left hemisphere has some dominant features. The lateral sulcus generally is longer in the left hemisphere than in the right, and Broca's area and Wernicke's area are present only in the left hemisphere in greater than 95% of the population. Thus the human brain exhibits both functional and structural asymmetry in the binary feature.

Levi-Strauss and others have noted that the binary sets are the basis of complex thought about the world and a commonality among primitive peoples. Similarly, computer science demonstrates that great complexity emerges from binary language.

Abraham's Nilo-Saharan ancestors named in the the Genesis king Lists observed binary sets in the order of creation, such as east-west, male-female, day-night, dry-wet, raw-cooked, life-death, and heaven-earth. The regarded one of the entities of the set to be superior in some observable way than the other. The sun is greater than the moon. The male is large and stronger than the female. In other words, the binary feature of which I am speaking entails a greater-lesser aspect which is quite different from dualism.

The Yin Yang is often cited as an example of binary thinking, but as it is understood today it represents dualism. This was likely not the case originally. The yin-yang concept appears to be rooted in a much older binary framework related to the religion of Tian, the oldest name for the Creator in China. Tian means the Most High of the Anu. The Anu or Ainu did indeed hold a binary worldview which was based on their observations of the Sun. The Sun was held to be greater than the Moon, the light greater than the shadow. So in this view too, at least in its origin, there is dominance on one side.

Further, the Ainu whose great shrine city of Heliopolis was the point to which many ancient monuments aligned, appear to have regarded this binary feature as a fixed and unchanging characteristic of Nature. I'm wondering if indeed this is a general pattern in Nature?


Related reading: The Nilotic Origin of the Ainu; African Ancestry of Chinese; The Nile-Japan Ainu Connection; Binary Sets in the Ancient World; A Kindling of Ancient Memory; The Binary Aspect of the Biblical Worldview; Questioning the Common Ancestry Hypothesis; Evolution and the Illusion of Randomness

Food Prohibitions and Religious Belief

Alice C. Linsley

Humans originated in Africa and the oldest known cohesive worldview to be identified through the study of ancient documents and artifacts is that of the Afro-Asiatics. Among them were temple and shrine attendants called Ha-piru or Ha-biru (Hebrew).

Among the Habiru were a caste of ruler-priests who were devotees of Horus, the son of Ra. These are called Horites. The oldest known site served by Horites was Nekhen (Hierakonpolis) in Sudan (4000-3000 B.C.). Votive offerings at the Nekhen temple were ten times larger than the normal mace heads and bowls found elsewhere, suggesting that this was a very prestigious site.

Nilo-Saharan women
riding cattle

This is also the point of origin of circumcision, animal sacrifice and the priesthood. The ancient Nilo-Saharan peoples enjoyed a wet Sahara and a wider Nile River. From here they spread far and wide, taking with them their languages and religious practices. These included certain food prohibitions and the veneration of the cow.

Anthropologists have gained insight into their beliefs by considering anthropologically significant data in the earliest biblical material. The early chapters of Genesis reveal that eating forbidden things was regarded as a serious violation of the order of creation. This is the likely background for the story of the forbidden fruit. The boiling of a baby goat in its mother's milk is prohibited three places in the Bible. This was regarded as especially heinous since if blurred the distinction between a life-giving substance and a life-taking action.

The message is that God established boundaries that humans fail to honor. Ancient food boundaries are still observed in Hinduism and in Eastern Orthodoxy which has long periods of fasting from meat and dairy.

Apparently, humans were never created to eat animals, but only plants, nuts, fruits and grains. In Genesis 1:29 we read that God told the first humans: "Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which there is the fruit of a tree yielding seed' for you it shall be for meat."

In Genesis 2:16-17 we read that the fruit of one specific tree was forbidden: the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God said that to eat of this tree meant death, but the serpent contradicted God. Another tree was identified as the Tree of Life. This ancient motif is found along the Nile and in India.

Blood guilt associated with eating cows

Eating meat was granted by God to Noah after the flood. Genesis 9:2-6 explains that fish and beasts were permitted, but that there would be a blood guilt involved in taking these for food.

Hathor-Meri

"The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image."

In the ancient world blood was regarded as the elemental substance of life and cows were venerated as sacred. This originated among the Nilo-Saharans for whom cows were both wealth and a sacred symbol of Hathor-Meri, the virgin mother of Horus. She is shown in images with the Sun cradled in the curve of her horns. Hathor-Meri's totem was the longhorn cow and the Sun was the emblem of the Creator. The Angel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary that she would be overshadowed and would conceive the Holy One, the Son of God. Coincidental parallel? Not really. Messianic expectation originated with Abraham's Nilo-Saharan ancestors.

The Horites carried their beliefs to southern Pakistan and India. Their influence is found in the Harappa culture. Har-appa is Dravidian for "Horus is Father." This is why about cows are venerated by Hindus.


Related reading: Horite Expectation and the Star of Bethlehem; The Origin of Animal Sacrifice; Early Metaphysics: Primal substance and cause; Jesus Fulfills the Horus Myth; Why Cows Were Sacred in the Ancient World

Is "Good and Evil" a Biblical Merism?

Good and evil spelled in the same image

Alice C. Linsley

Merisms are a convention of poetry and prose that are found in the Old and New Testaments. A merism is an example of synecdoche in which totality is expressed by contrasting parts" (e.g. high and low, young and old). In this figure of speech a pair of opposites refers to something greater than the constituents, as in the phrase, "they searched high and low," meaning that they searched everywhere.

Merisms suggest dualism, as in Yin-Yang. However, dualism is foreign to biblical theology and to the biblical worldview which is binary. In a binary set, one entity is seen as superior to the other. The Sun is greater than the Moon in that it is the source of light. The moon’s light is refulgent. The male is larger and stronger than the female. When the Bible speaks of good and evil, it is understood that good is always greater than evil. Knowing "good and evil" (Gen. 3:5) is a merism that speaks of omniscience.

The serpent tells the woman to eat of the forbidden fruit so that she will become like God, that is, "knowing good and evil" (a merism). Yet God knows more than good and evil. He knows the distinction between good and evil. Good and evil for human fallible understanding is a merism: two sides of the same coin, but for God, these are not of one piece. Good is superior in every way, eternal, and real. Evil is inferior in every way, limited, and illusory. God is Good. What is evil? Though we speak of the Devil as the author of evil, we can only point to the outcomes of evil. The Devil hides his true nature whereas God reveals His true nature.

 Sometimes figures of speech and literary conventions do not do justice to biblical theology.


A merism is a figure of speech which references parts that comprise a whole. To express this another way: a merism expresses opposite edges and unity at the same time, as can be demonstrated by a Möbius strip. To say that “they searched high and low” means that they searched everywhere. The set is often used to express the whole range of experience. The expression “night and day” represents a 24-hour cycle, a whole.

When we speak of night and day, we are speaking of two experiences with a range of in-between experiences: pre-dawn and dawn; twilight and dusk. In speaking of day and night we have a binary set. Hidden within this set is the more mysterious binary set dawn and dusk. One of the contributions of Martin Heidegger's work was to point out that Husserl's meriology has levels of complexity that Husserl failed to explore.

Paul uses merisms in Romans 8:38,39. The full meaning of this passage is not evident until we have explored what he intends by using death-life (all of human existence and experience); angels-demonic powers (all of the supernatural); present-future (all time); and height-depth (the whole cosmos). Paul intends us to understand that nothing in natural human experience, nothing in the supernatural realm, nothing in time, nothing in space, nothing exists that can separate the Christ one from the Christ, for their nature is one and inseparable.

Paul's message reflects Jesus' explanation about his relationship to the Father. Jesus spoke of his nature as being one with the Father and of the same essence with the Father. The distinction of Father and Son does not require a difference in essence or a separate existence.

Merisms are common in the Bible, but not every binary set is intended to refer to something greater. Sometimes the stress is on the distinctions between the two entities. For example, "male and female" constitute the whole of humanity, but also the distinction between them. In the biblical worldview there is no gender continuum, there is male and female with distinct roles and functions necessary to human existence and survival. It is important to pay attention to context lest every binary set be taken as a merism. It is equally important to recognize a merism as a sign pointing to something larger, a whole.

In Genesis 1:1 we find another merism: "the heavens and the earth." If "heavens and earth" is a merism, this refers to the whole cosmos. Likewise, in Psalm 139 the psalmist declares that God knows "my sitting down and my uprising up,” which is to say that God knows all the psalmist's actions.

Cyrus Herzl Gordon suggested that the biblical phrase “good and evil”( טוֹב וָרָע ) is a merism. Good and evil – as in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil - expresses a pair of opposites that refers to something greater than themselves. The tree symbolizes all that can be known. That a merism is intended is made evident from the context of the narrative. The snake tells the woman that by eating of the forbidden fruit her eyes will be opened and she will become like gods, knowing good and evil (Gen. 3:5) Adam and Eve were barred from eating this fruit because such a property rightly pertains to God alone.

Related reading: Binary Sets in the Ancient World; Levi-Strauss and Derrida on Binary Oppositions; The Biblical Worldview is Binary; Heaven or Heavens: Does it matter?; Howard Gardner on Revising Good and Evil