Trees as Boundary Markers

 

Alice C. Linsley

Trees served as boundary markers for the ancient Hebrew. According to Scripture, terebinth trees marked the northern and southern boundaries of Abraham's territory between Hebron and Beersheba. Sarah, Abraham's half-sister wife, resided in Hebron, and Abraham's cousin-wife resided in Beersheba. The wives' settlements marked the northern and southern boundaries of Abraham's territory in ancient Edom.

Hebron and Beersheba are in Idumea (Edom), the land of red people. 

The Horite Hebrew rulers of Edom are listed in Genesis 36. Abraham's territory was entirely in the region of Edom. It extended on a north-south axis between Hebron and Beersheba and on an east-west axis between Ein Gedi and Gerar. This region was called Idumea by the Greeks which means "land of red people."

One of the rulers of Edom was Seir the Horite. He was a contemporary of Esau the Elder. He married Adah. Esau the Younger is described as red and hairy. He married Oholibamah. Job was of the Horite Hebrew clan of Uz. Uz was a son of Dishan.

After offering Isaac at Mount Moriah, Abraham apparently did not return to Hebron. He spent his last years in Beersheba with Keturah (Genesis 22:19). There he had built an altar and planted a terebinth. A terebinth marked the northern end of Abraham's territory (Gen. 12:6) and after Abraham formed a treaty with Abimelech, he planted a terebinth at the southern end of his territory (Gen. 21:22-34).

People often were buried under oaks and terebinths (Gen. 35:8; 1 Chron. 10:12). This helped to ensure that the boundaries were observed since people stayed away from burial grounds, fearing the spirits of the dead.

Related reading: Edom and the Horite Hebrew; Trees of the Bible; The Trees of Prophets

The Rule of the Hebrew Lords

 

Dr. Tim Daughtry, a Christian Apologist, reviews The First Lords of the Earth: An Anthropological Study

The book of Genesis is typically read and interpreted by Christians and Jews in one of two ways. In one approach, Genesis is treated as a literal and accurate description of human origins and early human history. In this literalist view, Adam and Eve were not only real people, but they were also the first people on Earth. In the other approach, Genesis is read as a series of folk stories and myths that reveal important truths about humanity when interpreted allegorically. In this view, Adam and Even are characters in the creation story rather than real people who existed in history. The important point in this mode of interpretation is not that Adam and Eve were real historical characters but that that the story reveals important truths about human pride, disobedience, estrangement from God, and the hope of reconciliation.

In The First Lords of the Earth, Alice Linsley offers a fresh perspective through the lens of Biblical anthropology. Drawing from over forty years of research into Genesis along with scientific studies of ancient cultures, symbols, beliefs, and linguistic analysis, Linsley makes the case that the important figures of Genesis were not only real people but were members of the early Hebrew caste of ruler-priests who moved from Africa into the Fertile Crescent and Ancient Near East. As just one example, she makes the case that the Adam and Eve of Genesis were not the first humans, but neither were they mythical archetypes. Instead, Adam was a real ruler who lived in a vast area around the Nile River and whose sons Cain and Seth married the daughters of Enoch, who lived at the same time. The book’s exploration of early Hebrew kinship, marriage, and ascendancy patterns places these and later Biblical characters in an evidence-based historical context and provides rich anthropological context for the Scriptural accounts of the lives of later figures such as Abraham, Noah, and Joseph. The title of the book derives from the anthropological evidence that these and other early figures in Scripture were powerful ruler-priests with extensive domains in the lands described in the Bible.

The book offers a detailed look at a number of factors of early Hebrew culture, but one of the most interesting was the evidence that belief in God Father and God Son, along with a Messianic hope, was an important theme in Hebrew thought going back 6000 years that foreshadowed the beliefs of Christianity. Linsley makes a powerful case that the foundations of Christianity were present in early Horite and Sethite Hebrew beliefs that were present long before Abraham’s time.

The First Lords of the Earth is an excellent resource for a wide range of readers, including those interested in early Hebrew history for its own sake and for those who want to deepen their understanding of Scripture.


END


Related Reading: The First Lords and Their Authority; The First Lords and Messianic Expectation; The Adam and Eve of History; Biblical Anthropology: Another Reason to Believe; A Book about the Nephilim

What Paleoanthropologists Want to Discover

 

This image depicts the "linear evolution theory" and is called the "March of Progress" image. However, the evidence of many groups of archaic humans living at the same time requires a new hypothesis. The linear evolution theory was dismissed 50 years ago. If similar images appear in science texts, it reveals how most textbooks are 40-50 years behind the front edge of the sciences.

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

Paleoanthropologists recognize that there were many groups of archaic humans. Among them were the Neanderthals and the Denisovans. A recent genome study revealed that the Denisovans "diverged from Neanderthals 400,000 years ago and that at least two distinct Denisovan populations mixed with ancestors of present-day Asians."

There are limited physical remains of Denisovans. These include a finger bone, three teeth, and a skull fragment from the Denisova Cave; and a jawbone and the Xiahe mandible from Baishiya Karst Cave at the northeastern Tibetan Plateau.

In a November 8, 2024 interview, Dr. L. Ongaro said, “It’s a common misconception that humans evolved suddenly and neatly from one common ancestor, but the more we learn the more we realize interbreeding with different hominins occurred and helped to shape the people we are today."

Richard Leakey long ago abandoned the linear evolution misconception, saying:

Current findings on human evolution have brought us to the position where much of what we believed to have theoretically happened proves to be incorrect. Much that is in the textbooks, much that is still being taught in universities about human evolution is no longer true, but it continues to be taught because the implications of recent discoveries are insufficiently understood.

It was principally Weidenreich, Le Gros Clark, and a few of the people of that generation, just previous to mine, who put forward and strongly defended the idea that man had gone through a very simple series of stages of evolution: the pongid stage, an Australopithecine stage, a Pithecanthropus stage, and then man as we know him today. Theoretically, this had always seemed highly unlikely to some of us, since it meant that man had done something which no other mammal had done: evolved in a single straight line instead of having one main branch, with many experimental side branches which failed to make the grade. Yet the old theory persists. Linked with it is the concept, still very, very widely taught and very widely believed, that man in the relatively near past was at a pongid or ape stage of evolution. In such a very short time, three or four million years, as the books and many of my colleagues put it, we are supposed to have lost our huge canine teeth, lost our simian shelves, lost our long, brachiating arms, ceased to dwell in the trees, and many other similar but, I fear, erroneous concepts. These were theories which in the light of current facts no longer stand up."

Anthropologists such as John Hawks note that there is a wider range of anatomical features among Neanderthals than is generally recognized. Hawks also believes that there are limits to what can be determined by genetic tests of archaic fossils. He relies on morphological studies. 

The story of human origins cannot be understood from DNA alone. That can take us back only to about 500,000 years ago. What about the humans who lived before that? We have artifactual evidence of humans that date to over 500,000 years ago. Some human fossils found in Eastern Africa date to well before 500,000 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) 

The Ward, Kimbel and Johanson study reveals how scientists can change their minds. Donald Johanson was the person who announced to the world that Lucy was "ape of the South" or Australopithecus. Has he since reconsidered that assessment?

Excavations at the Boker Tachtit archaeological site in the Negev Desert revealed that modern humans and Neanderthals lived together.

Today various groups of Australopithecus are recognized. Some are gracile and others are robust. There are Australopithecus afarensis (including Lucy), Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus anamensis, Australopithecus sediba, Kenyanthropus platyops, and "robust" specimens like Paranthropus robustus and Paranthropus aethiopicus.

In 2011 researchers discovered jaw bones and teeth of four individuals in the Afar region of Ethiopia that date to between 3.3m and 3.5m years. These archaic humans were alive at the same time as other groups of early humans, suggesting that it is time to abandon the linear evolution hypothesis. Clearly, there were more archaic humans living 3 million years ago than is generally recognized. How they may be related is the great question facing paleoanthropologists.

Related reading: A look at the Neanderthal from Altamura, John Hawks; Can Molecular Models be aligned with Human Morphology?; Many Groups of Archaic Humans (video); Ancient human ancestor Lucy lived alongside at least 4 other proto-human species | Live Science; “Lucy”, superstar of evolution, at fifty; When hominins walked in each others' tracks

A Living Faith Justifies

Dr. Alice C. Linsley


What is the difference between a living faith and a dead faith? A faith that works by which we are justified, according to Scripture, hangs on the God-Man Jesus Christ. This is why it is essential to get Christology (the study of Christ) right.

James and Paul approach this central truth, but from different angles. Both refer to the Mount Moriah narrative to present the relationship of faith and works. We are challenged to consider the relationship of faith and works not as either-or, but instead as both-and. For Christ followers, faith and works point to consideration of more complex matters including grace, justification, and eternal life.

The story of Abraham on Mount Moriah illustrates how both-and reasoning expands our consideration of the faith-works relationship. The narrative speaks of Abraham’s obedience to God, divine revelation, human understanding, righteousness, absolute grace, and justification.

James explains in 2:21-24

Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works, and the scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness”; and he was called the friend of God. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.

Paul explains in Romans 4:2-3

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness”.

In Judaism, the Mount Moriah story is called “Akedah” (ah-kay-DAH), or “The Binding of Isaac”. This powerful narrative has been interpreted differently by Jews and Christians. For Jews, who regard Abraham as the first Jew, the story speaks of Abraham’s absolute obedience. For Christians, the narrative has Messianic meaning, and indeed, the Christian interpretation is closer to what the early Hebrew believed concerning the High God who has a son. 

Among the early Hebrew the High God was known by various names depending on where they lived. Some Hebrew clans called the High God El, or Yahweh, or Adonai. Some called the High God Re, which means “father” in ancient Egyptian. The Hebrew who lived along the Nile called the son of the High God HR, which in ancient Egyptian means “Most High One”. The Greeks referred to HR as Horus. The Hebrew were devotees of the Father and the Son. Their prayers and writings have been collected from the walls of royal monuments and tombs and translated to English. They can be read in the Pyramid Texts (2400-2000 BC).

Abraham lived around 2000 BC so the beliefs of the Horite and Sethite Hebrew were familiar to him. According to Genesis 10, some of Abraham’s ancestors, such as Nimrod, came from the Nile Valley. The earliest known site of Horite Hebrew worship is at Nekhen (Hierakonpolis) on the Nile (c. 4000 BC). Genesis 36 lists some of the Horite Hebrew rulers, including Seir the Horite, Zibeon, Esau, Dishan, and Uz. Job was of the Hebrew clan of Uz.

In the symbolism of the early Hebrew the Divine Father-Son were represented by the Sun and the solar arc. HR often was shown riding on the solar boat. Some images show HR as a falcon perched on the mast of the boat.

HR as a falcon perched on the mast of Re’s solar boat.

Among the early Hebrew, the boat of the morning hours was called Mandjet and the boat of the evening hours was called Mesektet. While HR was on the Mesektet, he was in his ram-headed form. HR rose as a lamb and set as a ram, mature in strength. The east represented the past and the west represented the future, as with many indigenous peoples even today.

As Abraham and Isaac ascended Mount Moriah, Isaac asked his father, "Where is the lamb for the sacrifice?” Abraham replied that God would provide the sacrifice. The climax of the story is the divine provision of a ram rather than a lamb. It appears that Abraham discovered that God the Father would provide his own Son in the future. Abraham believed that promise and he was declared justified. All are justified on the same basis: belief that God provides the Son for our salvation. (See Matt. 16:15-16; Rom. 10:9-10; Jn, 20:31, 1 Jn 5:13.)

The Mount Moriah event is best understood according to the early Hebrew beliefs concerning the expected Righteous Ruler who would die and overcome death. They expected him to rise on the third day and to lead his people to eternal life. Paul uses this royal procession language in Ephesians 4:8. “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” (See also Ps. 68:18; Ps. 7:7.)

Horus is the single figure shown in ancient iconography with the body of a man and the head of a ram. There is an interesting linguistic connection between the words for ram and soul in the ancient Egyptian language. Both are the same word - ba. No wonder the Egyptians did not sacrifice rams! (Consider Gen. 46:32.) Yet on Mount Moriah God provided a ram. The faith of the early Hebrew is rooted in a Messianic Tradition that existed at least 1200 years before Egypt became a political entity.

Related reading: Abraham's Faith Lives in Christianity; The Hebrew were a Caste; BIBLICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: Horite and Sethite Mounds; Righteous Rulers and the Resurrection; What Abraham Discovered on Mount Moriah; Why Nekhen is Anthropologically Significant