Atheists' Invalid Science vs. Religion Argument

Alice C. Linsley

Biblical Anthropology is a relatively new science and one which I have been pioneering for thirty years. It is distinctive in its approach to the biblical text and non-traditional in its findings. As with all scientific approaches it requires rigorous investigation and verification of hypothesis.

Biblical Anthropology puts the lie to the absurd opposition of science and religion. It exposes the bias of popular spokesmen like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Hawking who has said, “There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.”[1] Hawking is correct in asserting this distinction until it comes to Biblical Anthropology, an empirical study of a textual authority.

All religions have textual authorities or, in the case of pre-literate societies, oral tradition. Science is used to verify laws, patterns and substances of the material world. However, it is invalid to argue that science is based on objective observation of the material world and religion is not. Anthropological research into the biblical material reveals that Abraham’s ancestors were acute observers of nature and kept records of their observations. In this sense the oldest religion and the newest science are not so different in their method. Both make assertions based on observation. They simply observe things differently. The scientist works with the material world and the Biblical Anthropologist works with the biblical text, an artifact of the material world.

Analysis of the marriage pattern of Abraham's Hebrew ancestors as described in Genesis reveals that the ruler-priest lines intermarried and spread out across the Ancient World (see map above). According to Lycotte's Y chromosome studies [2] migrated east and north from Africa. The migration explains the spread of R1*-M173, which is found mainly, but not exclusively in Africa. Haplogroup R1*-M173 is the pristine form of haplogroup R. We would expect such a genetic outcome based on the biblical data concerning the Hebrew ruler-priests' marriage and ascendency, a pattern that drove their expansion. 

As a biblical anthropologist, I seek data on the pages of the biblical text that either confirm or disprove my hypothesis. When it comes to analysis of the marriage and ascendency pattern of Abraham's Hebrew caste the results are replicable and would be the same regardless of who, where and when the analysis was done. When something is both replicable and produces identical results, it is authoritative. That is true in biblical anthropology as much as in any experimental science.

The ancient Kushites laid the foundation for many branches of science. They made discoveries in animal husbandry, plant cultivation, the discovery of antibiotics, metal work, astronomy, geometry and algebra. Their binary worldview paved the way for binary math and computers. They were both scientists and deeply religious, observing patterns in the heavens and on earth. St Paul says that this is how God designed things. He wrote that God's eternal power and divine nature are clearly perceived by means of what God created. In other words, the order of creation reveals the invisible qualities of the Godhead (Romans 1:20). Hawking is a very bright man, but he doesn't hold a candle to the Apostle Paul when it comes to understanding the antecedents of the natural world and its metaphysical extension.

Another spokesman who pits science against religion is Jerry Coyne, who has written:

"I’ve always maintained that this piece of the Old Testament [Adam and Eve], which is easily falsified by modern genetics (modern humans descended from a group of no fewer than 10,000 individuals), shows more than anything else the incompatibility between science and faith. For if you reject the Adam and Eve tale as literal truth, you reject two central tenets of Christianity: the Fall of Man and human specialness." 

Coyne is out of his element when speaking about the Bible. Modern genetics has not demonstrated what he claims. If anything, it validates the biblical picture of the oldest known caste originating in Africa. Further, serious scholarship requires distinguishing between the archetypal first parents and the historical Adam and Eve who are identified in Genesis as founders of the Hebrew ruler-priest caste. The Bible states that they were the parents of Cain, a city builder (Gen. 4) Clearly, Cain's parents were not the first humans on earth.

Further, from the beginning humans were humans. There is no drawer in a museum or university archive with bones of something between human and ape. Don't be fooled by the (often inconsistent) nomenclature of evolutionary theory. The oldest fossils found in Africa are easily classified as either ape (simian) or homo (human) and the morphology is quite distinct. Further for specimens under 200,000 years old DNA testing clarifies to which category the fossils belong. 

Additionally, we must consider the great antiquity of human innovation, creativity, and technological development. The reader is encouraged to read this short list of human artifacts of great antiquity.

     1. Hawking made this statement during a 2010 interview to Dianne Sawyer of ABC News. In the same interview he made the statement that human life is "insignificant in the universe.”

     2. Lycotte's Human Y chromosome haplogroup R-V88: a paternal genetic record of early mid Holocene trans-Saharan connections and the spread of Chadic languages due to the early Kushite migration. Kush was a descendant of Noah, a proto-Saharan ruler.



Related Reading: The Atheist's Fallacious Argument; Getting the Facts About Human Origins; Peter Hitchens Makes Peace as a Christian with his Atheist Brother; The Hebrew were a Caste

Identifying King Tut's Father

Alice C. Linsley

Amenhotep III, a Kushite Pharaoh

Researchers in Egypt have identified that King Tut is paternally related to a "mystery mummy" from Tomb KV55. This mummy is believed to be Akhenaten who Dr. Hawass, the head of the Egyptian Antiquities Department, believes was King Tut's father.

So far, we have lots of speculation. We don't know the identity of the Mummy buried in Tomb 55.  Originally the body was believed to be that of a woman. Then it was decided that it was the body of a young man. The question of who is buried in Tomb 55 is still open.

It is interesting that the report doesn't say whether Tut's DNA aligned with Amenhotep III's DNA.

The scientists working on this project compared the Y chromosome samples of Amenhotep III and the Mystery Mummy using DNA finger printing. They found that the panels aligned perfectly. So it is clear that Amenhotep III and Mystery Mummy have a common paternal ancestor, but it doesn't mean that the Mystery Mummy is King Tut's father, nor does it identify the mummy from Tomb KV55 as Akhenaten.

Tomb KV55 near Luxor
The 4th Nome of Upper Egypt

Amenhotep III was the father of Akhenaten the Younger who was named by Amenhotep's cousin wife after her father. This means that Akhenaten the Younger ascended to the throne of his maternal grandfather, after whom he was named.

So, what does this DNA study prove?  It proves that Amenhotep III and the mummy in Tomb 55 had a common male ancestor; not surprising since intermarriage between patrilineal lines was a characteristic of the Kushites rulers. It does not prove that the Mystery Mummy was King Tut's father.

A more interesting study would involve comparing mitochrondrial samples since these are received from our mothers. This would be a way to discover the relationship of King Tut to Mystery Mummy. If the mitchondrial samples align we know that Tut's mother and Mystery Mummy had the same mother. This would prove that Tut was the nephew of Mystery Mummy. However, it doesn't prove that Tut was the grandson of Amenhotep III.

Among the Kushite rulers it was the firstborn son of the sister-wife who ascended to the throne of his biological father. The firstborn sons of cousin wives ascended to the thrones of their maternal grandfathers, after whom they were named.

Related Reading:  King Tut and the Dispersion of R1b; Who Were the Kushites?; Who Were the Horites?; The Kushite Marriage Pattern Drove Kushite Expansion; The Afro-Asiatic Dominion; The Empire of Amenhotep III

Using Totems to Trace Ancestry and Marriage Ties

Alice C. Linsley

Much has been written about the animal totems of the ancient Israelite clans, but little investigation has been done to show that these totems have antecedents among their Horites ancestors. For the Biblical Anthropologist this is a potentially productive exploration because it can render clues as to how the clans were related and which lines intermarried. This helps to round out the picture provided by analysis of the genealogical data.

Animal totems can be used to trace descent. The animal totem of the clan of Hamor (one of David’s “great men”) was the wild donkey, the totem of the tribe of Issachar. This means that Hamor was a descendant of Jacob by Leah and that he was related to the Horites listed in Genesis 36. There we are told about the association between Anah and the wild donkey (Gen. 36:24).


The Horites listed in Genesis 36

Animal totems are evident in the names of the Horites listed in the Genesis 36 diagram. These include Zibeon (the hyena), who was the father of Anah (the wild donkey), and Aiah (the kite); Dishan (the gazelle), who was the father of Aran (the wild goat); and Akan (the roe), who was the son of Ezer. Other Horites names are Cheran (the lamb) and Shobal (the young lion). Such a large number of animal names among the Horites suggests a totemic organization of the Horite clans (Abraham’s people). It has yet to be demonstrated how the totems played a role in alliances by marriage, but there is evidence that marriages took place between clans that were related by totems.


The Relationship of the Lion and the Serpent

The totem of David’s clan was the lion which appears to have connections to the clan of Nahash. Nahash is the Hebrew word for serpent. Nahash was the father of Shobi, Abigail and Zeruiah, the mother of Joab and Abishai (II Sam. 17:25). David had a sister named Abigail and a wife named Abigail. These may have been the same person, but probably not. The selection of marriage partners involved consideration of totems. The close association between the lion and the serpent suggest that Abigail, David’s wife, was probably a patrilineal cousin and the “daughter of Nahash” (II Sam. 17:25). She is said to have married Nabal of Carmel.

The dog was the totem of Caleb’s clan. This was the symbol of the brave and bold warrior. The Hebrew word for warrior is Gid'on (Gideon). This allusion to the dog clan is found in Judges 7:4-7:

But the Lord said to Gideon, "There are still too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will sift them for you there. If I say, 'This one shall go with you, he shall go; but if I say, this one shall not go with you, he shall not go."  So Gideon took the men down to the water. There the Lord told him, "Separate those who lap the water with their tongues like a dog from those who kneel down to drink." Three hundred men lapped with their hands to their mouths. All the rest got down on their knees to drink.  The Lord said to Gideon, "With the 300 men that lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands. Let all the other men go, each to his own place.

Based on this information, it is possible to trace Gideon’s ancestry back to Caleb whose Horite wife was Ephrathah. 1 Chronicles 2:50 tells us that the firstborn son of Caleb and Ephrathah was Hur. Hur’s firstborn son was Shobal, the founder of Kiriath-jearim where the Ark resided until it was moved to Jerusalem in David’s time. As discussed above, Shobal was a Horite chief and his totem was the lion. This makes it possible to trace Gideon’s ancestry back to the Horites of Genesis 36.


Likely Progression in Consideration of Marriage Partners

In the ancient world, animal totems served as symbols of planets, stars or constellations. The relationship of these celestial bodies is likely the pattern for the ties between the clans. This is very old and can be traced back to ancient Nubia. Consider the case of the dog-faced baboon (Papio hamadryas) which was brought to Egypt from Nubia and was trained as a pet in noble households. It was associated with the Sun due to its habit of screeching at the first break of dawn. In ancient Egyptian paintings baboons were shown holding the eye of Horus, a solar symbol and were sometimes shown riding in Re’s solar boat.

The baboon is not a totem of the tribes of Israel as this creature was not a native of Arabia. However, the baboon totem was familiar to the Horites who originated in the Nile Valley. Among the Arabian Horites the equivalent totem was probably the lion’s mane shown as the circle of the sun. This suggests that Judah was the central tribe around which the other totems cycled in a progression that paralleled the celestial bodies.

There is a further suggestion of this in Numbers 2 where each "house" is to camp under its "dgl" which certainly doesn't mean banner, but probably means celestial totem. The verb d-g-l is related to the ancient Akkadian dagalu meaning "to rest eyes upon" or "to look at fixedly." 


Finding Antecedents in Africa

In 1904, A.B. Fisher procured six goat-shaped war horns from the Luo, a Nilo-Saharan people. He wrote, "I then found that each had its own peculiar mark: one resembled most clearly the planet Saturn, another, the Pleiades, others various hieroglyphic designs. Questioning the folk as to the significant meaning of each, they expressed total ignorance beyond that they were intended for ornamentation by their early fathers ….” (A.B. Fisher, 1904, p. 250). Each clan had its own mark, preserved from time immemorial, but the significance of these symbols was not readily apparent.

Antecedents to the celestial totems of the tribes of Israel are evident among the Gusii clans of Nigeria and Kenya. The Abagirango's totem is the leopard (engo); the Ababasi totem is the zebra (enchage); the Abasweta, Abagetutu, Abanyaribari and Abamachoge have the baboon (engoge); and the Abanchari's totem is the hippo (engubo) which corresponds to the constellation Draco.


Ceiling of the tomb of Seti I

Animal totems appear on the astronomical ceilings of the tombs of ruling Egyptians such as Senmut, a favourite courtier of Hatshepsut (1473-1458 BC), and Pharaoh Seti I. Seth (Set) is associated with ancient Kush, what is today southern Egypt, eastern Sudan and northern Ethiopia. In Egyptian writings this land was called Ta-Seti, meaning "Land of the Bow," perhaps referring to the weapon used by warriors and hunters. Khaem-wa-set (1302-1290 BC), the brother of King Seti I, was the Chief of the bowmen of Kush. He lived about 600 years after Abraham.

 

Pharaoh Seti I was likely named for an earlier Seti to whom he was related. While it may not be possible to trace him back to Seth, Kain’s brother, it is possible to trace Seti's Kushite origins. In Genesis 5 we read the list of rulers who descended from Seth. The tenth from Seth is Kush, a son of Ham. 

Related reading:  Totemism in the Old Testament; Who Were the Horites?; The Lines of Ham and Shem Intermarried

Joseph's Relationship to Mary

Alice C. Linsley

The tools of kinship analysis have rendered value information about the marriage pattern of Joseph and Mary’s ruler-priest ancestors.  Here are the pertinent facts:

• The Horite ruler-priests were a caste.  One trait of castes is strict endogamy.  The Horites exclusively intermarried.  These are the men who are listed in the Genesis genealogies.

• The marriages were arranged between the sons and daughters of 2 main priestly lines.

• Each ruler had 2 wives at the time of his ascent: one was a half-sister and the other was a patrilineal cousin wife. There are numerous examples of exactly this pattern in Genesis and Exodus.

• The priestly lines are traced from brother patriarchs: Cain and Seth; Ham and Shem; Peleg and Joktan, and Nahor and Abraham.

• It is by the cousin bride that the ruler-priest lines are identified. The cousin wife names her firstborn son after her father. So Namaah’s firstborn son Lamech is named after her father Lamech the Elder.

Now, we may ask if this pattern explains the relationship of Joseph and Mary, who are said to be cousins.  Here is the pertinent information:

• Joseph and Mary are descendants of Abraham. As such they have Horite blood.

• Both are of priestly lines. Matthew 1:15 tells us that Joseph is of the priestly line of Mattai (Matthan/Matthew). Further, Luke 2 tells us that Joseph has to register in Bethlehem which was originally a Horite settlement.

• Luke’s genealogy of Jesus (Luke 3:23-38) lists the names of Horite ruler-priests like Mattai, Joseph, Er, Levi, David’s son Nathan, Jesse, Aram, Terah, Nahor, Eber, Arphachsad, and Lamech and Enoch. Tradition tells us that Mary’s father, Joachim, was a shepherd priest, like Jesse. The Chronicler calls David's sons "priests" and the Er listed here is the maternal grandfather of Tamar's husband Er, whose offense of onanism cost him his life.

• Joseph is said to have had another wife. If Mary is his cousin wife, then his first wife, by whom he had sons and daughters, was his half-sister.

• Mary would have been Joseph’s cousin wife, as Tradition claims.

• It is by the cousin wife that the ruler-priest line is identified.

The alignment of the data indicates that Jesus was born to the very people to whom God made the original promise in Eden (Gen. 3:15).  Mary’s only Son, conceived by the Holy Spirit, is the fulfillment of the Edenic Promise, according to both Matthew and Luke.

Related reading:  Who Were the Horites?; The Genesis King Lists; Mary's Priestly Line; The Lines of Ham and Shem Intermarried

Sister Wives and Cousin Wives

Alice C. Linsley

The Patriarchs of Genesis married according to the pattern of their Horite ruler-priest caste. The rulers had two wives. One was a half-sister (as was Sarah to Abraham) and the other was a patrilineal cousin or niece (as was Keturah to Abraham). Genesis has numerous narratives involving the sister-wife. The cousin/niece wife is prominent in the genealogial information as well as in the narratives. Naamah, Oholibamah and Rebekah are examples of "cousin" brides. The wife narratives reveal a great deal about Abraham’s people and their kinship pattern.

The sister-wife narratives of Genesis 12, 20 and 26 involve a powerful ruler who takes the patriarch’s wife as his own. This appears to be motivated by the desire for greater status and/or territorial ambitions, which indicates that these were women of high rank.

In the sister-wife narratives, the ruler’s error is recognized, though the patriarch in both cases is not considered blameless. To rectify his misdeed, the ruler returns the woman to her husband along with livestock and servants so that her brother is richer than before. Even today such ploys are sometimes used in Africa and among tribal peoples to acquire wealth.

In both accounts the rulers are portrayed as righteous leaders who do not wish to bring evil upon their people by committing adultery. This suggests a common moral code for rulers of Egypt and Philistia. In fact, the rulers of Egypt and Philistia were related. They recognized in Sarah not only a beautiful woman of high standing, but also a devotee of God’s son, Horus.


Discrepancies Speak Volumes

There are interesting discrepancies in the parallel stories of Genesis 12 and Genesis 20. In the earlier narrative it is the king of Egypt who takes Sarah. This resulted in plagues upon Pharaoh’s house. The Exodus plagues, by this account, are not a new experience for the rulers of Egypt. The theme of plagues suggests that this version of the story comes from a time well after Abraham and Sarah.

In the Genesis 20 narrative, which is connected to the Philistines of Gerar, God came to the ruler in a dream and warned him not to touch Sarah. In this account Abraham is recognized as a prophet whose prayers for the royal house of Philistia will reverse the curse.

Why should two rulers want Sarah? Who was Sarah that she should bring status to the royal house of Egypt and the royal house of Philistia? Besides being beautiful, Sarah was the daughter of Terah, a great ruler whose vast Mesopotamian territory stretched between Ur and Harran.

There is another important discrepancy to note between Genesis 20 and Genesis 26. When Abraham says that Sarah is his sister, he is telling the truth. According to Genesis 20:12, she was his half-sister. Keturah was his patrilineal cousin wife. However, in Genesis 26, Isaac lies when he reports that Rebekah is his sister (verse 7). Rebekah was his niece wife, not his sister wife. Isaac’s half-sister bride lived in the area of Beersheba. Why would Isaac lie? Perhaps this is a ploy to accumulate riches, as had happened with his fatehr Abraham. Here Isaac shows himself to be grasping and deceptive. Perhaps Jacob's deception of his father and grasping from his brother were behaviors he had learned from his family?


Cousin Wives of High Rank

The cousin wives of the Patriarchs were women of rank also. They were the daughters of ruler-priests. Their first-born sons ascended to the throne of their maternal grandfathers. This is evident in the throne names which they receive from their mother. So we have Joktan the Elder and Joktan the Younger, Sheba the Elder and Sheba the Younger, Esau the Elder and Esau the Younger, etc. We see this with Lamech's daughter Naamah (Gen. 4:22). She married her patrilineal cousin Methuselah and their first-born son was nasmed Lamech after her father. E.A. Speiser observed this pattern and called the maternal grandfather "Lamech the Elder" and the grandson "Lamech the Younger." These throne names are easily traced and make it possible to trace Jesus' ancestry back to Genesis 4 and 5.

Related reading:  The Genesis King Lists; Abraham's Cousin Wife; Two Named Esau

The Genesis King Lists

Alice C. Linsley


James Ussher, the 17th century Anglican Archbishop of Armagh, developed a chronology using the Genesis genealogies to calculate the age of the Earth. His scheme is generally accepted by Young Earth Creationists who hold that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old. One wonders how this can be when there is substantial evidence of kingdom building by rulers in the R1b Haplogroup as early as 10,000 years ago. Further, modern humans had already widely dispersed across the Earth by 80,000 years ago, long before the time of Noah (BC 2490-2415).

Ussher meant well, but he failed to understand that the so-called genealogies are not generational lists of the first humans on Earth, but rather they are king lists. Some of these "mighty men of old" ruled simultaneously, some ruled for short periods, and others ruled for longer than a generation (40 years).

Most of the rulers had two wives from whom were born two first born sons. Ussher failed to take this complication into consideration, which is another reason his chronology should not be used to determine the age of the Earth.

There are, in fact, various versions of the king lists, depending on the group of people being ruled. Some are traced through the cousin/niece bride who named her first-born son after her father. This name is often referred to as "the throne name." These pertain only to the proper heir of the ruler, that is ,the son born to his first wife. Usually this wife is a half sister, as was Sarah to Abraham.

Other lists provide the names of the first born sons of the half-sister wives. Examples include Lamech, Enoch, Esau and Joktan.

Some lists are telescopic to provide a wider picture whereby a famous ruler is shown to be the direct descendant of a great common ancestor. Noah and Eber are examples. Telescopic lists leave out some names.

The Genesis king lists are usually organized in depths of ten rulers.  For example, Genesis chapter 11 lists ten kings from Noah to Abraham. Genesis 4 and 5 attempts to place Noah as the tenth ruler from Adam, but analysis of the kinship pattern of Genesis 4-5 reveals that Adam is not the name that heads this list. The name is Enoch or Nok.

Now that the marriage pattern of these rulers has been identified, we see why the Genesis genealogies cannot be used to determine the age of the Earth. However, the marriage and ascendancy pattern of these archaic rulers foreshadows the marriage and ascendancy of Jesus, the Christ. The righteous rulers among them hoped for the resurrection of the body from the grave. In the archaic world, the ruler was regarded as the mediator between the Creator and the people. If God turned His face away from the ruler, the people suffered from want and war. If the ruler found favor with God, the people experienced abundance and peace. The divinely appointed ruler was expected to intercede for his people before God in life and in death. The ruler's resurrection meant that he could lead his people beyond the grave to immortality.

In Genesis 4-5 we read about rulers whose existence can be verified through archaeology, linguistics, anthropology, and molecular genetics (DNA studies). Clearly, these are not the first people on the Earth. THey are for the most part, rulers of the Late Holocene Wet Period and the Neolithic Period. 

The Genesis king lists cannot be used to verify the historicity of Adam and Eve. That is not the purpose of the king lists, nor the intention of the Genesis origin narratives. Further, Adam is represented in two distinct ways in the Bible: as the first Father created by God at the beginning of human existence, and as the founding father of the red people whose point of origin was the region of Lake Chad and the Upper Nile. 

The intermarriage of ruling houses

Using what we know about the kinship pattern of these rulers, we are able to reconstruct a picture of Cain and Seth's relationship to two ruling houses of ancient Africa: the House of Seti (Seth) and the House of Enoch.

Cain married Seth's sister, a daughter of Enoch. Seth married Cain's sister, a daughter of Enoch. In other words, Cain and Seth married half-sisters.  Cain and Seth and their half-sister brides were the offspring of Enoch by his two wives.  So the name that belongs at the head of the Genesis 4-5 king lists is not Adam, but Enoch. The African form of Enoch is Nok.

Using what we know about the marriage pattern of these rulers, it is also possible to trace the Genesis 4-5 lists back to Enoch's father-in-law, Seth or Seti. Cain's brother Seth was named by his mother, Enoch's cousin bride, after her father Seti the Nubian.

The Nubian Lineage of Kain and Seth          © 2010 Alice C. Linsley

Segment I:  The Cousin Bride’s Naming Prerogative and the Throne Name of Seth/Seti

The cousin bride’s first-born son rules in place of his maternal grandfather.  So Seth ruled over the territory of Seth the Elder who was Nubian/Kushite.

                  Seth/Seti (Nubian)

 ∆

|
                                    O   =   ∆  Enoch the Elder

                            |                                      

                             Seth the Younger  ∆   Gen. 5                                    

                                    

Segment II:  The Half-Sister Bride and the Throne Name of Enoch/Nok

The half-sister’s first-born son rules in place of his father. So Enosh ruled over the territory of his father Seth.

        Enoch/Nok  ∆  =  O  Half-sister bride

___|___

                        Kain   ∆         O  =   ∆   Seth   Gen. 5

                     |

                                                              ∆  Enosh/Enoch the Younger

Abraham's Kushite Ancestors

The connection of these rulers to ancient Kush is confirmed by Genesis 10:6-8 which tells us that Ham's son Kush had two first-born sons: Raamah and Nimrod, both Kushites.  Raamah's territory was in Arabia his two first-born sons were Dedan and Sheba.  Nimrod's territory was in the Tigris-Euphrates region. His first-born son by his cousin bride was Asshur the Younger, named after Shem's son, Asshur the Elder. 

The Kushites spread across the ancient Afro-Asiatic world. These rulers were great kingdom builders. Their royal lines continued to intermarry according to the pattern we have identified even after their languages morphed into Afro-Arabian (Dedanite) and Afro-Asiatic (Aramean).  Genesis 10:25 tells us that this division was evident in the time of Peleg, one of Eber's first-born sons. Eber's other first-born son was Joktan the Elder, after whom one of Abraham's sons by Keturah received his throne name (Gen. 25:1).

Genesis 25 calls Joktan the "father of Sheba and Dedan." Here the word "father" does not intended in the biological sense. In connecting Joktan, Sheba and Dedan, this writer recognizes that Joktan, Sheba, Dedan and Asshur were all Kushites.

Related reading: Was Noah Mesopotamian or Proto-Saharan?; The Marriage and Ascendancy Pattern of Abraham's Ancestors; The Age of the Earth and the Evidence of Human Occupation; The Spread of the Afro-Asiatic Dominion; Who Were the Kushites?; Nimrod, Afro-Asiatic Kingdom Builder; Peleg: Time of Division; The Migration of Abraham's Kushite Ancestors; Bishop Ussher Goofed; Decoding the Genesis King Lists

The Biblical Meaning of Eve

Eve is above Adam and yet subject to Adam. This is the mystery of Christ's relationship to the Church to which St. Paul points. Christ elevates the Church and yet she is subject to Him.

Rembrant's Adam and Eve

Alice C. Linsley

To understand the meaning of Eve we must consider her story in the context of the hierarchy that the ancient Afro-Asiatics saw in creation. In this hierarchical order Eve is the crown, being the last created.  If we think of a pyramid, God would be above the peak and below him would be Eve. She is the perfect companion of Adam and the two share the same essence as creatures made in the Creator's image.

As heaven and earth are binary opposites in the biblical framework, so Adam and Eve represent the binary opposites of male and female. Further, male virtues are associated with east and north and female virtues with the west and south.  The dominance of each depends on a counter-clockwise cycle, as the Sun rises from the east and crosses through high noon to the west, making its daily circuit.


Gender Reversal

Likewise, Adam and Eve reverse dominance.  Eve, being made from Adam's rib, has Adam as her head.  Eve, being the last created, has Adam at her feet. So Eve is both above Adam, as the crown of creation, and below Adam, as one subject to him.  Eve is Adam's crown and Adam is Eve's crown.  (I'm reminded how crowns are worn by the bride and the groom in the Orthodox wedding ceremony.)

His his 17th century Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, Cornelius a Lapide noted that there is “frequent exchange of gender in Hebrew: the masculine being used in place of the feminine and vice-versa, especially when there is present some cause or mystery.” Eve's creation speaks of a gender reversal which in the Bible signals a sacred mystery.


Order Reversal

There is another layer of reversal in Eve's story.  It involves a reversal of order between Eve, made in the image of God, and the serpent who God put in subjection to humans. Think in terms of a standing ladder with rungs. God in Heaven is at the highest rung of the ladder. Adam and Eve share the second and third rungs, often reversing positions. Lucifer, having been cast down, is at the bottom, symbolized by a creature that slithers with its belly in the dust. In Lucifer's attempt to rise to the top, he seeks to invert the ladder by making Eve subject to him.  John Chrysostom understood Eve's sin in this light: as the exchange of her heavenly crown for the serpent's dust.  Eve exchanged her glory for a baser image.  In submitting to the serpent's will, she allowed the inversion of the divine order in creation.

The inversion of divine order is the demonic inversion of reality. What is real and true is turned on its head and presented to the unsuspecting as the real and true. We live in an age when most people are fooled by the Father of Lies.


Why Eve and not Adam?

Various theories are offered as to why the serpent approaches the woman rather than the man.  Some opine that women are more vulnerable to suggestion or more easily prompted by the sensual. Yet the story doesn't permit this interpretation, as the woman enjoys perfection until after the Fall.  The reason the serpent approaches Eve rather than Adam has nothing to do with an inherent flaw in the woman. Instead the answer rests in the Tempter's character as one who desires to tarnish the crown of God's creation.  Lucifer hates "the Woman" (Gen. 3:15) who as the Mother of God brought forth the Son who crushes the serpent's head.  Eve's story speaks symbolically about the darkness that always seeks to overcome the light or about the evil that continuously seeks to thwart God's plan of salvation.


Eve as Adam's "kind"

In pagan myths there is a suggestion that Adam's first wife (called Lilith) had sexual relations with the serpent.  In many ancient cultures the serpent was a phallic symbol. This is foreign to the Genesis text which speaks of creatures reproducing according to their own "kind".  Bestiality is a serious violation of the order of creation in the biblical worldview. Lucifer attempts to blur the boundaries apparent in the order of creation, so he encourages bestiality and homosex.

Eve is the same kind as Adam as she.is bone of his bone and flesh or his flesh. She is God's unique provision for the man not to feel alone in the world.  Adam is surrounded by living things yet senses that he is alone.  God declares that it is not good for the man to be alone. This is a picture of how “kind” goes with its own kind. The idea of reproducing according to one’s own kind is inherent.  Further, God told the original couple to be fruitful and multiply.  Since Lucifer has no role to play in this, he works doubly hard to tarnish the gift of sex.


Eve's Name Supplies a Clue

The Hivites are descendants Ham (and probably Seth) which means that they are ethnically Kushites (Genesis 10:17). The name Hivite  resembles the name Eve.  Eve is spelled hwh and likely represents a pictograph of the ruler and his two wives. The w or Hebrew vav is a solar symbol designating the ruler.

The Y symbolized a cradle for the sun, the emblem of the Creator.It also designated the ruler's residence and his appointment by the Creator. The ruler's tent was the oholibamah or exalted tent and was represented by the ancient Hebrew and Arabic letter Vaw. This was a solar symbol in the Canaanite script. The urheimat of the Canaanite Y was the Upper Nile Valley.

Tent peg /sun cradle/marks the ruler's residence
This also represents the long horns of the cow worn by Hathor, the mother of Horus, son of Ra. She conceived by the "overshadowing" of the Sun.

It solar symbol for Horite rulers is found in these names: Yaqtan (Abraham's first born son); Yitzak, Yishmael, Yacob, Yosef, and Yeshua. The vav is sometimes referred to as the tent peg. It designated both the residence of the ruler and the ruler's status as one appointed by the Creator.

The marriage pattern of Abraham's ruler-priest ancestors involved two wives living in separate households on a north-south axis. The first wife was a half-sister, as was Sarah to Abraham. The second wife was usually a patrilineal cousin. The first born son of the half-sister wife ascended to the throne of his father and his mother was a queen within his territory. This pattern is evident among the ancient Kushite rulers who united the Nile Valley. It suggests that Eve is the archetypal queen.


Further reading: Adam and Eve: The Blood and the Birther; Hierarchy in creation: The Biblical view; The Meaning and Etymology of the Name Eve; The Pattern of Two Wives; Abraham's Complaint; The Queen Mother in the Kingdom of Kush by Dan'el Kahn

Sacred Writings and the Uniqueness of the Bible

David J. Hesselgrave (missionary anthropologist) believes that the sacred books of the major world religions can be categorized into 4 groups. He writes:

1. Mythological writings. These are sacred books that provide narratives and information (generally fiction and often fantasy) that bind peoples together in common loyalties and destinies as, for example, the Japanese Kojiki, Nihongi, and Engishiki.

2. Writings or reports and teachings of the “enlightened.” Common to this class of sacred books is the notion that actual knowledge of the divine and reality comes only through personal enlightenment experience(s). Knowledge of the Divine cannot be conveyed through verbal propositions per se, but personal experiences and understandings can be reported in ways that will facilitate enlightenment and knowledge. Examples would be the Hindu Vedas, the Buddhist Tripitaka, and the Chinese Tao-Teh-Ching.

3. Divine writing. This kind of writing purportedly comes directly from the Divine apart from any sort of human involvement other than, perhaps, the mechanical writing process. The primary example would be the Koran, though the Book of Mormon also fits this category.

4. Divinely inspired writings. The Old and New Testaments are held by orthodox Christians to be different from all other books. As noted above, they are “God-breathed” by the true and living God in such a way that, though the personality, background, ideas and research of human authors are involved, all are directed by God the Holy Spirit in such a way as to make the final product the very Word of God.

The importance of these distinctions cannot be over-emphasized. Practically as well as logically, the type or kind of revelation contained in sacred books is every bit as important as their teachings per se and is determinative of the way in which they are understood and applied; and how they are translated and contextualized. When the absolute uniqueness of God’s revelation in the Old and New Testaments is not recognized, the Bible takes on the characteristics of indigenous holy books, its God remains hidden, and its message becomes relative.

Read more here.

One aspect of the Bible's uniqueness that Hesselgrave fails to note is the consistency of the genealogical patterns that make it possible to demonstrate that the Edenic Promise of Genesis 3:15 is the premise of the entire biblical narrative.  Abraham's ancestors actually believed that promise and their ruler-priest lines exclusively intermarried because they believed that the "Seed" of the Woman would be born of  their lines. This is lacking in all the other sacred books of the world.  Even Mohammed, who apparently wanted to know the relationship between the Arabian tribes and Abraham's 8-9 sons, was unable to pass along any genealogical information such as the Bible provides.  Why this concern with tracking ancestry and descent along the ruler-prists lines?  Because these are the people who received the Promise of Genesis 3:15 and they are the ones from whom the Fulfillment was born.

The Bible and Anthropological Investigation

Alice C. Linsley

Of what value is the Bible for anthropological research? Does it contain information that can be used to further our knowledge of ancient peoples? It sure does!

An anthropologist reads biblical texts differently than a theologian, a Bible scholar, or a pastor. We read through the lens of cultural anthropology and we note details that are anthropologically significant. Such details include neolocal versus matrilocal or patrilocal residence; totemism, and relations between peoples in biblical lists such as those found in Genesis 10 and 36. We investigate data that enables us to gain a clearer picture of traditions and culture traits of very ancient people groups. We gather data that helps us understand the antecedents of later cultural developments and we check this data against the evidence of archaeology, linguistics, genetics and climate and migrations studies.

Often the biblical texts suggest a hypothesis that can be tested. This often leads to exciting new discoveries such as the Nile-Japan Ainu connection, Biblical Sheba and Nubia connection, and the Kushite-Kushan connection.

Biblical Anthropology is a relatively new field which I have been pioneering for over 30 years. It is distinct from Near Eastern studies because it focuses on the oldest layers of Biblical material which have an African context, not a Near Eastern context.

Perhaps the most significant application of anthropology to the Bible is the analysis of the kinship structure of Abraham's people whereby I have been able to reconstruct the unique marriage and ascendancy pattern of the Horites. This is where much of my initial research was focused. I have presented that in an essay titled "The Marriage and Ascendancy Pattern of Abraham's People."

The first historical persons in the Bible are Kain and his brother Seth. They lived no more than about 8,000 years. These are the first rulers mentioned in the Bible and their lines intermarried as evidenced by analysis of the genealogical data in Genesis 4 and 5, which must be taken as a unit.

Kain and Seth married the daughters of a ruler named Enoch. The African name would be Nok. Nok is a person, a prehistoric site in Nigeria, and a sphere of cultural influence. The name is anachronistic in that the antecedents of the Nok culture are older than the material evidence indicates at this time. It is also possible that the names Nok and Enoch are derived from the African word anochi which means "one who is to rule."

Clearly, Kain and Seth were not the offspring of the first humans who appeared on the surface of the Earth long before 10,000 years ago.

This misunderstanding is due to a wrong interpretation of Genesis 4:1 which reads: The human knew Havva his wife, she became pregnant and bore Kayin. She said: "Ka-niti (Qanithi)/ I have gotten a man, as has YHWH."

This is the first reference in the Bible to YHWH and the name is linked with ancient rulers. The Bible scholar E.A. Speiser noted that Qany(ty) or Qan-itti shows close affinity to the Akkadian itti, as in itti šarrim which means "with the king". Cain is associated with the concept of rule or dominion and throughout the Bible he is spoken of as a ruler.

Genesis 10 tells us that Nimrod was a Kushite, so it is not surprising to find that Akkadian shares many words with Nilo-Saharan languages. Among the Oromo of Ethiopia and Somalia, itti is attached to names. Examples include Kaartuumitti, Finfinneetti and Dimashqitti. That itti is associated with Nilotic rulers is evident in the name Nefertitti. So the proper understanding of Genesis 4:1 is not that Eve gave birth to Kain, but that she knew she was giving birth to a ruler. A variant of Kain is Kahn, which also means king.

What we have in Genesis 4 and 5 are king lists, and these are the oldest lists ever found. As was the custom of royalty until very recently, they married exclusively within their royal lines.

The lines of Ham and his brother Shem intermarried according to the same pattern as the lines of Kain and Seth, as shown below.

The lines of Abraham and his brother Nahor intermarried according to this same pattern. The pattern is found among these rulers.  Each ruler had 2 wives. The wives lived in separate households on a north-south axis. One was a half-sister and the other was either a patrilineal parallel cousin or a niece.  (Nieces were considered cousins.) The cousin bride named her first-born son after her father as this son will serve as a sort of prime minister in the territory of his maternal grandfather. The cousin bride's naming prerogative is first found here in Genesis 4 and 5 where we find that Kain and Seth's first-born sons are named Enoch after their wives' father. The pattern is revealed again in the data about Lamech (Gen. 4). His daughter Naamah married her patrilineal cousin and named their first born son Lamech after he father. Lamech belonged to the household of Lamech the Elder, not to the household of his biological father Methuselah.

Many of the names that appear in these king lists are royal titles. Enoch, Cain, Seth, Lamech are examples. According to Cassuto, "Lamech" is related to the Mesopotamian word ‘lumakku’, meaning “priest” (Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 1, p. 233). Terah, the name of Abraham's father, also means priest and is related to the Ancient Egyptian tera-neter.

The intermarriage of the Horite ruler-priest lines appears to be unbroken from the Genesis kings to the time of Jesus. This endogamous pattern suggests that the Horites were a caste, rather than an ethnic group. Their ethnicity was Kushite and they dispersed into Arabia, southern Pakistan, India and beyond. However, their two points of origin were in Nekhen in Sudan and Wawat in Nubia.



Related reading: The African Cultural Context of Genesis 1-11; Talking on Facebook About Biblical Anthropology; What Does a Biblical Anthropologist Do?; Is Biblical Anthropology an Oxymoron?; The Genesis King Lists; The Mighty Men of Old