Then there is the question of dating the Hebrew rulers listed in Genesis 4, 5, 10, 11, 25 and 36. These are all members of the Hebrew ruler-priest caste. That can be verified by the fact that all of these rulers share a common kinship pattern which is characterized by caste endogamy. That means that Hebrew people married only Hebrew people. Further, great thought was given to the selection of marriage partners. (See Marriage Partner Selection Among the Hebrew.)

The Hebrew caste was organized into two ritual groups (moieties), the Horite Hebrew and the Sethite Hebrew. Funerary texts collected in the Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts (2400-2000 BC) make it clear that the Horites and the Sethites maintained separate settlements. Utterance 308 addresses them as separate entities: "Hail to you, Horus in the Horite Mounds! Hail to you, Horus in the Sethite Mounds!" PT Utterance 470 contrasts the Horite mounds with the Sethite mounds, designating the Horite Mounds "the High Mounds." (See Competition Between the Horites and Sethites.)

The Horite and Sethite Hebrew were devotees of HR (Horus in Greek), the archetype of the Son of God. He was also the patron of high kings. The oldest known site of Horite Hebrew worship was at Nekhen on the Nile (4000 BC). It was a city dedicated to Horus whose totem was the falcon.

Long before Judaism emerged, the Hebrew had dispersed across the ancient Near East and parts of Africa. 

Analysis of the social structure of the early Hebrew indicates a hierarchy of sons. The Hebrew marriage and ascendancy pattern that led to this hierarchy is already evident in Genesis 4 and 5. (See the Lamech Segment Analysis.)

The early Hebrew organization for mutual defense was the 3-clan confederation. The idea of 12 tribes developed much later under Judaism. Some of the 3-clan confederations are:

Cain, Abel, Seth

Shem, Ham, Japheth

Nahor, Abraham, Haran

Uz, Huz, Buz

Og, Gog, Magog (Gen. 10 and Nu. 21:33)

Korah, Aaron, Moses

The Hebrew confederation of 3 sons only makes sense when we recognize that these sons share the same father but have different mothers. (See Hebrew Rulers with Two Wives.)

The primary loyalty of the firstborn son of the first wife (usually a half-sister as was Sarah to Abraham) was to his father and his mother. That son was the Hebrew ruler's proper heir (as was Issac to Abraham.)

The loyalty of the firstborn son of the second wife (usually a patrilineal cousin as was Keturah to Abraham) was to his father and the clan of his mother. His son belonged to the household of his maternal grandfather and sometimes served as a high official in the territory of his maternal grandfather, as did Joseph in Egypt. (See Royal Sons and Their Maternal Uncles.)

The first loyalty of the firstborn son of a concubine depended on the status of his mother. This explains why concubines sometimes tried to usurp the rights of the firstborn sons of the ruler's two wives. Likely, this is the reality behind the story of Sarah's conflict with Hagar.

A Bedouin proverb summarizes the order of loyalty. 

I against my brother.
I and my brother against my cousin.
I, my brother, and my cousin against the world.

The final hand on the Book of Genesis recognized the 3-clan confederation pattern but attempted to shape the material to fit a Jewish narrative involving the land holdings of 12 tribes in Canaan and Transjordan. 

In other words, the final editorial hand on Genesis was an adherent of Judaism, a religion that emerged long after the time of the Hebrew rulers listed above. His religion and cultural context were quite different. Rabbi Stephen F. Wise, former Chief Rabbi of the United States, explains: "The return from Babylon and the introduction of the Babylonian Talmud mark the end of Hebrewism and the beginning of Judaism.”

Related reading: Hebrew, Israelite or Jew?; The Substance of Abraham's Faith; The Religious Symbolism of Green Malachite; Why the Name Jesus?; Reading Genesis as Verifiable History; BIBLICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: Midrash in Genesis

When I was in seminary, my Old Testament professor told the class that he doubted Isaac’s existence because there is so little information about Isaac. He noted that the story of Isaac pretending that Rebecca was his sister parallels the story of Abraham asking Sarah to say that she is his sister. He concluded that Isaac is a literary construction reflecting the author’s love of doublets, two different narrative accounts of the same event.

The twin boys assigned to Rebekah were probably the firstborn sons of Isaac’s two wives. Since Esau was Isaac’s proper heir, he would have been the firstborn son of Isaac and his first wife, his half-sister. Rebekah would be the mother of Jacob, a son sent to serve in his maternal grandfather’s territory. This aligns with the social structure of the early Hebrew, as the son of the cousin bride belonged to the household of his maternal grandfather and would reside there after coming of age. This occurred with Jacob who went to live with his maternal uncle (avuncular residence).

If Isaac adhered to the marriage and ascendancy pattern of his forebearers, Rebecca would have been his second wife. His first wife would have been a half-sister, a daughter born to Abraham and Keturah. That first wife would have been living in the Negev which is where Isaac was living before he married Rebecca. 

The left side of the diagram lists Cain’s descendants (Gen. 4), and the right side lists Seth’s descendants (Gen. 5). 

The king lists of Genesis 4 and 5 must be studied together to understand the marriage and ascendancy pattern of these early rulers. 

Each ruler had two wives. One wife was a half-sister (as was Sarah to Abraham), and the second wife was a patrilineal cousin (as was Keturah to Abraham). The cousin bride named her first-born son after her father. This is illustrated by Naamah, the daughter of Lamech the Elder. She married her cousin Methuselah and named their first-born son Lamech, after her father.

The line of the cousin wife can be traced through the cousin bride’s naming prerogative. Another example: Irad’s daughter married her patrilineal cousin and named their first-born son Jared after her father. Irad (YRD) and Jared (YRD) are linguistically equivalent names. Likewise, Kain's unnamed daughter married her cousin Enosh and named their first-born son Kenan.

As is evident from reading the comments (reproduced below), the conversation strayed into matters of greater antiquity. Bruce and Rodd have graciously given me permission to reproduce their comments at Just Genesis.


Alice C. Linsley 

That information about the Aleppo Codex is very interesting, but this is not very old. Today we have so much information about the people who gave us the oldest material in the Bible. They spoke neither Hebrew nor Greek. Their scripts suggest signs of great antiquity that have been found rather widely: Africa, Palestine, Central Europe, ancient Bactria. etc.


Bruce Atkinson

That was my own take: 10th century is old for an almost complete codex, but we are talking about almost a thousand years into the Christian era. Not too helpful regarding scholarly understanding of the true originals. There are many much older partial manuscripts. Even the Greek Septuagint version of the OT used by the early Christians is far, far older. One must wonder how much editing occurred during the previous 900 years as a result of the rise of Christianity (which led to minimizing the Messianic prophecies that pointed to Jesus)? As a Jewish relic, it has much value, but not for gaining knowledge of the earliest Hebrew/Aramaic manuscripts.


Alice C. Linsley

Indeed, the question of redaction is intriguing. The Septuagint says that Eliezer, son (dam) of Masek (not "Damascus") was one of Abraham's sons. This does not appear in the later Hebrew (Masoretic) texts. There is also a discrepancy in the numbers assigned to the archaic rulers in Genesis 4 and 5. Lamech the Younger is assigned 753 years in the Septuagint and 777 years in the Masoretic.


Bruce Atkinson

Fortunately, there are not too many of these differences and the ones that exist do not compromise essential doctrines. My own view is that God especially helped the Septuagint translators because (of course) He knew that this Greek translation would be the one that the first Christians (including Jesus) would use. Hebrew was already a dead language (like NT Greek and Latin is today) and Greek schools had existed in Palestine for over a hundred years. Although they spoke a pidgin Aramaic in their daily life, educated Jews in the first century knew Greek as well, so the Septuagint was their everyday Bible.

It is also interesting how many of the Christian translators and theologians later switched to the Masoretic (Hebrew) texts, even though the OT quotes in the NT are almost all taken from the Septuagint. I think this switch was a mistake.

Artistree (Rodd)

Bruce I agree; it was definitely a mistake to switch from the Septuagint to the Masoretic text. In the book, "When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible" (Oxford University Press), author Timothy Michael Law goes into great detail about how Jerome went about making the switch when he translated his Latin Vulgate from the proto-masoretic text instead of from the Church's Bible at the time, the Septuagint. When it can be shown how he, by his own decision alone, went about making this switch (by dishonesty and underhanded tactics), one is amazed at how the Roman Catholic Church could consider this very arrogant and dishonest man a "Saint". True, Jerome was brilliant, but he was no "saint", in my book.

Alice C. Linsley

Jerome's grasp of ancient Semitic roots is astonishing. He was one of the most learned men of Christian antiquity. A classically trained scholar, he became a monk and resided in Bethlehem. His insights into Genesis are remarkable. For example, Jerome, notes: "I am reviewing carefully the places in Scripture where I might find old age mentioned for the first time. Adam lived for 930 years, yet he is not called an old man. Methuselah's life was 969 years, and he is not called an old man. I am coming down all the way to the flood, and after the flood for almost three thousand years, and I find no one who has been called old. Abraham is the first, and certainly he was much younger than Methuselah." (Homilies on the Psalms 21)

Jerome's observation is significant. Abraham was old. Those who lived before the flood are not called "old" because the numbers assigned to them are symbolic.

In the Vulgate, St. Jerome rendered Genesis 3:15: Inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem, et semen tuum et semen illius: ipsa conteret caput tuum, et tu insidiaberis calcaneo eius.

I will put enmities between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. She will crush your head, and you will lie in wait for her heel.”

Jerome noted that the Hebrew is ipsa which is a feminine pronoun. The appearance of the feminine pronoun in Genesis 3:15 led some to find an elevated role for Mary, as seen in images of Mary standing on the globe with the serpent under her feet. Of course, this image is found in the Latin tradition, but not among the Eastern churches. Still, Jerome is respected in the East as well as the West.

Here is an article on St. Jerome's excellent reflections on key ideas in Genesis.


Artistree

Hi, Alice. I have a question. I use English translations of the Septuagint as my primary study bibles but also use standard common English translations for comparison.

Question: What inspired you to concentrate on Bible anthropology and more specifically on matters concerning the ancestors of Jesus, our Lord?

This question came from my Luo scholar friend, Wandera, with whom I have had some fascinating conversations about the parallels between words in Genesis and the Luo language.

The short answer to Wandera's question is doubt and curiosity.

About 35 years ago I was asked to teach a women's Bible study and the women wanted to study the book of Genesis. Throughout the 15-week study, the women asked excellent questions but I did not find satisfying answers for them in the many commentaries that I had been reading to prepare for the class. When the class was over I experienced a crisis of faith. I began to doubt that the material in Genesis was based on historical and anthropological realities. Perhaps that was why there were so few satisfying answers to the women's questions.

One day, I realized that I could apply my background in kinship analysis to the so-called "genealogies" of Genesis. I started by diagramming the lists of people in Genesis 4 and 5, the lines of Cain and Seth. With the diagram in hand, I began to look for a pattern that might indicate that these people actually lived. 

It took a few years and numerous other diagrams of king lists in Genesis to discover the key features of the Horite marriage and ascendancy pattern. Once the features were identified, I was able to trace the pattern through the Bible to Mary, the mother of our Lord. The pattern is consistent for the families of Abraham, Moses, Samuel, and David, from whom Jesus is descended.

Here is a segment from that first diagram. It shows that the lines of Cain and Seth intermarried (as did the lines of Ham and Shem after them.)

Lamech the Younger (Gen. 5:26), son of Methuselah by his cousin wife Naamah, ascended to the throne of Lamech the Elder (Gen. 4:20-22). He did not belong to his father's house. Methuselah's heir would have been the first born son of his first wife, who was his half-sister.

Once we understand this feature - called "the cousin bride's naming prerogative" - we are able to identify the pattern for the other Horite rulers.  For example, Abraham had two wives. Sarah was his first wife and his half-sister. Keturah was his second wife and a patrilineal cousin. Keturah named her first born son Joktan (Yaqtan) after her father. The firstborn son of the sister wife ascended to the throne of his biological father. So Isaac ruled over Abraham's territory. The firstborn son of the cousin/niece wife ascended to the throne of his maternal grandfather, after whom he was named. So Joktan ascended to the throne of his maternal grandfather. The Joktanite clans still reside in Southern Arabia.

Likewise, Moses had two wives. His Kushite wife was his half-sister and Zipporah was his patrilineal cousin. Samuel's father was the priest Elkanah and he also had two wives: Penninah and Hannah.

Kinship analysis is a science. When applied to the Genesis king lists, it reveals an authentic marriage and ascendancy pattern, proving beyond doubt that these people are historical. Is it any wonder that I reject the notion that science and Genesis are at odds?  I apply anthropological science to the text every day and the outcomes lead to further discoveries.

Related reading: Common Questions About Genesis; The Genesis King Lists; Edo, Edom, and Idumea; Kushite Brides; Isaac's Wealth; Abraham's Complaint; Two Named Esau; Questions High Schoolers Ask About Genesis; Speiser and Deuteronomy 21:16

The cousin bride's naming prerogative is first found among the early Hebrew rulers listed in Genesis 4 and 5. This is a necessary piece of information for those who want to understand the marriage and ascendancy pattern of the biblical Hebrew.

Analysis of the marriage and ascendancy pattern of Abraham's ancestors reveals a consistent pattern for the ruler who ascends to the throne. That pattern applies to Lamech the Elder, Nahor the Elder, Terah, Esau the Elder, Amram, and others. The pattern involves marriage to two wives.

Note that Lamech the Elder's daughter who is mentioned in Genesis 4 married her patrilineal cousin Methuselah (Gen. 5) and named their firstborn son Lamech, after her father.

We first meet Abraham in Mesopotamia because that is where his Hebrew ancestors settled. Nimrod's marriage to his cousin reveals the distinctive Hebrew naming custom as is found in the case of Lamech the Elder (Gen. 4) and Lamech the Younger (Gen. 5).

Toshia's second concern is that I cannot cite chapter and verse that says Nimrod married the daughter of Asshur. Perhaps he is a Bible "literalist" who accepts as true only what is explicitly stated. If this is true, kinship analysis means nothing to him, and the science of Biblical Anthropology offers him nothing of value. 

To delve deeper into the text, it helps to understand the relationships of the Hebrew rulers, priests and clans. This requires gaining a clearer understanding of their kinship pattern and their marriage and ascendancy pattern. The data is found in the Bible. I apply the tools of cultural anthropology to the biblical texts. Biblical Anthropology employs reliable methods and principles.

As a biblical anthropologist, I must consider the data that is available in the canonical texts. Taken as a whole, after over 36 years of research, there is sufficient evidence of a distinctive Hebrew marriage and ascendancy pattern throughout the Bible.

Science requires acute observation of details, record keeping, and critical thinking. There always is the possibility that the next experiment might not provide the same results or conform to the hypothesis as did earlier experiments.

This radical doubt poses a problem for scientists. It means that the scientific method cannot be said to ascertain beyond doubt. This is Hume's problem of induction. Inductive methods predict or infer and are essential in scientific reasoning. One cannot assume that something is immutable and necessary because it has always or usually been reliable in the past. Though 20 experiments produce the same results, we have no certainty that the results will be the same after experiments 21, or 32 or 45. Though the sun has risen daily on the eastern horizon for many millennia, we have no certainty that it will always do so.

In 1953, Richard Rudner published “The Scientist qua Scientist Makes Value Judgments,” in which he argued that since no hypothesis is ever completely verified, in accepting a hypothesis the scientist must make the decision that the evidence is sufficiently strong to warrant the acceptance of the hypothesis. The induction problem framed by Hume is a problem involving one's decision about which action to take, not proof of the fallibility of science in general.

I assure my readers and Toshio that I have not tried to impose on the text something that is not there. I begin with the biblical text, identify anthropologically significant data, apply an empirical method, and trust that what the texts give is reliable and truthful. Indeed, that is my working hypothesis.

Related reading: Understanding the Science of Biblical Anthropology; Cousin Brides; Hebrew Rulers With Two Wives; BIBLICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: Think like a biblical anthropologist!; Nimrod's Sumerian Wife; Reading the Bible in a Different Way; The Hebrew Hierarchy of Sons

Mentuhotep II

Sometime around the 39th year of his reign Mentuhotep II reunited Egypt after two centuries of political instability. Consequently, he is considered the first ruler of the Middle Kingdom. He was a builder of great monuments. The southern shrine city of Thebes was the center of his political power. His royal house had close connection to Nubia and at least one of his wives was Nubian.

 
Mentuhotep had at least seven wives, including his sister Neferu II. He appears to have been a collector of wives and consorts, and this story concerning Sarah reflects historical reality.

Abraham's audience with Pharaoh

Circumcision was a sign of purity among the ancient Egyptians and only circumcised males were permitted to appear before Pharaoh. Therefore, it is highly probable that Abraham was already circumcised at the time of his audience with Mentuhotep.

The king and his insignia, including the crook and the flail, were never to be touched by ordinary mortals. All who were granted audience approached with due reverence, prostrating themselves seven times. During the Late Bronze Age the rulers of Canaan compared the pharaoh to the sun and themselves to the dust under his feet. Gold was associated with the sun and Horus' totem was the golden falcon which appeared the cartouche.

After his enthronement Mentuhotep also bore the title "son of Re" and was known as the ruler of the Upper and Lower Nile regions which were symbolized by the sedge (Upper) and the bee (Lower) and by the double white and red crown.

Sarah was Abraham's half-sister

Related reading:  Alice C. Linsley's Research on Genesis; Abraham: Descendant of Both Shem and Ham; Genetic Risks in Cousin Marriage

The Vatican has declared the fragment a fake.