From Egypt To Judea

Genesis, and Judaism in general, is often misunderstood. Judaism is a departure from and should be contextualised within the context of it's Egyptian origins, just as Christianity is contextualised within it's Jewish origins. Judaism is to Egyptian religion as Christianity is to Judaism.

Before we get into Genesis, here is some etymological context required to understand the terms used in Genesis.

Egyptians* and early Hebrews used consonantal alphabets, which did not have vowels. As such, we only know their words by their consonants. We know where the vowels go, but we do not know what the vowels are.

When translating ancient scripts to English, a name translated to Rameses or Romosos or Ramasas are all equally valid. Society has settled on certain vowel inserts, a result of historians in different regions inserting vowels as would make sense according to the pronunciation inherent to their region and time.

This is undisputed fact and important to understand prior to this chapter, as many of the Egyptian references in Genesis are confused by modern English transliterations unrelated to original text. For the purposes of this chapter I will standardise all vowels to avoid confusion.

Our story is that of Moses. Part of my last name is Moussa, Arabic for Moses, and I attended Jewish schools as a child so I have always liked Moses. Moses’ story begins in Egypt, when he is cast down a river and discovered by a member of Egyptian royalty, and raised as her son, thus becoming Egyptian royalty himself.

Thotmoses means beloved of Thot, Romoses means beloved of Ra, and Moses means “Beloved of - ”, indicating his departure from previous Pharaohs, who adopted the name of a particular God. Inherent in Moses' name is the transition from polytheism to Monotheism. 

It is also an indicator that the nature of God is hidden, in Genesis he is given no name. YHWH is just Phoenician** script for “He who is,”*** that is to say, he is the God that exists. When God confronts Moses on the mountain he is almost humorous, responding to Moses' identification request by reminding him he's the only God there.

YHWH being made an unspeakable name, in what is to us early Israeli religion, is part actual tradition and part historical fudgery. When early Hebrew scripts started to be written in the Babylonian script rather than it’s original Phoenician script, YHWH was retained in the Babylonian texts in Phoenician script, we know this from the dead sea scroll discoveries.

This might be a clue as to why YHWH was later turned into a name, and indeed, having been turned as such, I suppose it is a name now. Regardless, it was originally a designation. The phoenician alphabet is important to understanding the Bible, as many references are made to the alphabet throughout the Old Testament and New Testament. Each letter was named after the hieroglyph which contained the sound in the first syllable. "Camel" and "Eye of the needle" are both the names of phoenician letters, for example. I digress and will dedicate a separate article to the alphabet.

The twelve tribes of Israel are modelled after the Dodearchy of Egypt, themselves modelled after the twelve zodiacs, Egypt being a religious state and the stars being important to religion. Genesis 49 retains this zodiac references, it comparing each of the tribes to a zodiac constellation.

They are listed exactly in order. For example “49:17: Dan will be a snake by the roadside, a viper along the path, that bites the horse’s heels so that its rider tumbles backward.” The text goes on to describe each of the twelve tribes as twelve zodiac signs, in order from first to last, in the manner of the Egyptian dodearchy. 

Although in past times they had various names for individual zodiac constellations that make up the 12 part zodiac, even today most of the names match up.

If you look at a Zodiac wheel, the snake is right next to the horse, and if you look at the constellation, it is biting at the horses heels. All 12 are correct and in order. This makes perfect sense within the context of Egyptian religion.

Racially, Moses was Egyptian. Hebrew was not a racial designation, but a class designation. We know this as fact because strangers identify him as an Egyptian. For example, when Moses is on the run trying to beat his murder charge, he is distracted by seven women at a well and lends a hand, eventually impregnating the most attractive one. They describe him as thus:

Exodus 2:19: "They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.”

This is the only reference wherein Moses is not known as described as a stranger, making it obvious he is of Egyptian appearance. 

*Insofar as they did minimally use script

** All apologies to those who prefer the term proto-hebrew, it’s different words for the same thing & I don’t like it. Ancient Israelis, like all in the region, utilised the Phoenician alphabet, though they switched to the Babylonian Script. Calling ancient phoenician proto-hebrew when it was never even changed into a Hebrew script, is like calling Cyrillic proto-Turkish because Turkey switched to the Latin script but used Cyrillic before. It’s nonsensical and silly. The order of alphabets is Hieroglyphs --> Byblos Syllabary --> Phoenician Alphabet. 

*** This is a pretty common translation among popular New Testament translations so I will no rehash evidence for this term, I am verbose already, all apologies. 

As a perceptive man, I know exactly what the average reader is thinking right now. "What about the 10th tribe of Israel, Asherites, and the specifics of their geologies and localities? Are they sea people?" Rest assured, I will skip straight to this crucial topic. 

I hope to convince you of my belief that the Asherites were originally of distinct racial and cultural origin, that they were the mysterious group commonly referred to as the "Sea People."

Many people have a simplistic view of ancient Israel, and seem to think that the 12 tribes of Israel were actually all of the same race, simply split into 12 tribes for whatever arbitrary reasons. In fact, it seems much more likely that the racial composition of the 12 tribes of Israel varied moderately to enormously, and the racial makeup of Judea that we now refer to as the "Jewish" race would of been only a portion of the ancient Israeli races.

Indeed, the prophet Anna who was involved in the coming of Jesus in the New Testament is referred to as "from the tribe of Asher" in Luke 2:36-38, despite Assyria conquering and apparently "de-populating" the Asherites well over 700 years earlier, implying that she was visually recognisable as a member of the Asherites. Anna is identified as the daughter of Penuel, and it's interesting to note Pnuel is a common name given to males in Assyria, and a name used multiple times in the Bible for various people, and often erroneously used as the name of a town to the East of the River Jordan, although that is actually named Peniel by Jacob, and all other mentions of Penuel in the Bible, including in the verse after the one in which Jacob names a town Peniel, are spelled Penuel, and indeed it's possible after naming a town Peniel Jacob passed a person name Penuel.

So what do we know about Asherites?

Before talking about the original inhabitants, let's talk about the Biblical context. The Old Testament says that Jacob (later named Israel, as you probably know), the Patriarch of the Israelites, split Israel between his 12 sons, establishing the tribes of Israel.

These 12 sons came from his two wives, and two "handmaidens" Bilhah and Zilpah. Whether they were actual handmaidens/slaves, or whether their designation as such is an indication that the Judaean writers of the Old Testament didn't recognise the marriage as valid, is up for debate.

Of particular interest to this analysis is Zilpah, who gave birth to Asher and Gad, who of course became the leaders of their respective tribes. It's important to note at this point that the origin of both those names (one explicit, one implied) are said to be, in Genesis 30:12-13, of Israelite origin, and seems to imply Asher derives from the Hebrew root 'asher: to be straight, be level, right, or happy.

"And Leah's maid Zilpah bore Jacob a second son. Then Leah said, 'Happy am I! For women will call me happy.' So she named him Asher."

Now of course, Asher could be named after the Hebrew root representing happiness, but it does seem somewhat suspect that Asher was the name of a nearby God worshipped by the Assyrians and others including the Babylonians, since most people wouldn't choose a name that is that of a God they don't believe in. This could be easily hand waved away, except for the glaring fact that their other son, Gad, is ALSO the name of a Babylonian God, very prominent in their neighbouring religions and a name they would certainly be aware of.

As a matter of fact, Israelites were specifically rebuked in the Old Testament for worshipping Gad (Isaiah 65:11, some translations simply refer to Gad as a God of Fortune for readability instead of a literal translation), so it's essentially a fact that both Jacob and Zilpah would be very familiar with both these Gods, and know of them at least, and the idea that they would name their children from a derivation of happiness and/or other Hebrew root origins, and just happen to re-create the chief gods of a neighbouring region they are familiar with and at least one of whom their people previously worshipped, is inconceivable.

Gad is also mentioned in the Torah many times, as an example, in the tradition of ARSA D'GADA. Clearly, Gad was once a prominent part of Israeli life and would of been known to them.

Examples of Gad in the Torah:

Kodashim, tractate Hullin 40a; Genesis Rabbah, lxiv; Genesis Rabbah, lxxi; Mishnaic tractate Nedarim 56a

It would be like someone living their life on the border of a Hindu majority Indian city, and naming their children Shiva and Krishna and claiming that they came up with both names independently from a root word of their mother tongue, and the primary reason for naming both of their kids these names was a coincidence based on nothing more than an exclamation when they were born.

The intermingling of religion is a testament to it's accuracy, not proof against religion. If different people in different regions describe the same beings with different names, that is proof of objective reality, not different Gods. An angel, a God, an entity, call it what you feel but either way it's a winged being appearing to someone, if you know what I mean.

I have a tattoo of Nisrosh/Nisrauch on my back, and people often ask how this merges with my Christian belief. Nis, ancient Hebrew for born of, and Rauch*, ancient Hebrew for "Breath of life," and generally considered synonymous with the Holy Spirit, objectively exists in every religion, with each religion having varying degrees of accuracy at what is objectively true. 

* Like in rosh hashanah.

Plus, Nisrauch looks amazing. Look at this absolute weapon: