The high antiquity of the Jewish people itself was contested as early of the first century CE by Greek scholars, notably the Hellenized Egyptian Apion, whose work is lost but known through the rebuttal of Flavius Josephus. Flavius says he has written his Against Apion against those who “will not believe what I have written concerning the antiquity of our nation, while they take it for a plain sign that our nation is of a late date, because they are not so much as vouchsafed a bare mention by the most famous historiographers among the Grecians” (I,1).
Kenites, Midianites, and Arabs
An interesting hypothesis on the identity building of the early Hebrews has been drawn from the Genesis story of the primordial brothers Cain and Abel. Cain, the elder and a cultivator, saw his sacrificial offering ignored by Yahweh, who preferred the offering of the younger Abel, a shepherd. This provoked the murderous jealousy of Cain, who felt cheated of his birthright. Yahweh cursed Cain for his fratricide (aggravated by his denial): “Listen! Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground. Now be cursed and banned from the ground that has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood at your hands. When you till the ground it will no longer yield up its strength to you. A restless wanderer you will be on earth” (4:9–12). But Yahweh’s curse is mitigated by a special protection: “‘Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance.’ So Yahweh put a mark on Cain, so that no one coming across him would kill him” (4:15).
In this form, the story resembles an etiological legend, intended to explain the origin of a nomadic lifestyle through the original sin of an ancestor. What nomadic people, unfit for agriculture, was described by the original legend? And what does the famous “mark of Cain” mean? The scholar Hyam Maccoby has an answer: The name of Cain (Qayin in Hebrew) is identical to the name of the tribe of Kenites, and also means “smith” or “iron-worker.” Such tribes of blacksmiths are well attested in ancient times; they were nomads because their skills were required over a very wide area. They were also often known for their mastery of the art of music. Finally, they were often the object of superstitious fears, because the art of metalworking is associated with magic.
The descendants of Cain are described in Genesis 4:19–24 as nomads living in tents, inventors of ironwork, makers of metallic musical instruments, and marked by a magical protection making it perilous to attack them (according to a possible interpretation of the “mark of Cain”). Moreover, the biblical narrative retains the trace of a special covenant between the Israelites and the Kenites, who are the only foreign people presented in benevolent terms. Saul spares them when he exterminates the Amalekites among whom they dwell: “Go away, leave your homes among the Amalekites, in case I destroy you with them—you acted with faithful love towards all the Israelites when they were coming up from Egypt” (1 Samuel 15:6). Moses’s father-in-law is described as a Kenite (or “Cain”) in Judges 1:16, where we learn that “The sons of Hobab the Kenite, father-in-law of Moses, marched up with the sons of Judah from the City of Palm Trees into the desert of Judah lying in the Negeb of Arad, where they went and settled among the people.” This may echo a common origin of Israelites and Kenites, or at least a closeness based on a shared status of migrants and wanderers. According to Maccoby, many biblical stories are borrowed from Kenite traditions.26
The curse of Cain has parallels in the traditions of other nomadic peoples. Yuri Slezkine remarks that before the modern era, some ethnic groups of wanderers conceived their mode of existence “as divine punishment for an original transgression.” For example: “Of the many legends accounting for the Gypsy predicament, one claims that Adam and Eve were so fruitful that they decided to hide some of their children from God, who became angry and condemned the ones he could not see to eternal homelessness. Other explanations include punishment for incest or refusal of hospitality, but the most common one blames the Gypsies for forging the nails used to crucify Jesus.”27 Since nomadism is deeply embedded in the Hebrews’ collective memory, should we then seek the secret source of the wandering of the Jewish people in a “Cain complex” dating back to a primordial fratricide, like Freud seeking the key to the human psyche in a universal Oedipus complex dating back to a primordial parricide (Totem and Taboo, 1913)? Such an enterprise would be equally speculative.
The Bible does not clearly distinguish between the Kenites and the Midianites, but suggests that the former are a tribe among the latter. Hohab, Moses’s father-in-law, is called a Kenite in the book of Judges, but named “Hobab son of Reuel the Midianite” in Numbers (10:29). The same father-in-law is identified as a Midianite “priest” (kohen) in Exodus, and named Reuel (Exodus 2:18), then Jethro (3:1). In that Exodus story, when Moses flees Egypt “into Midianite territory” (2:15), he is hosted by Jethro who eventually gives him his daughter Zipporah, with whom Moses will have two sons. It is while grazing his father-in-law’s flocks that Moses finds himself near Mount Horeb, “to the far side of the desert” (3:1). There he meets Yahweh, the god of Abraham, for the first time, and is told (by Yahweh) that Mount Horeb is “holy ground.” Later, his Midianite wife appeases Yahweh, who wants to kill Moses, by circumcising their son with a flint, so that Yahweh “let him go” (4:24-26). In chapter 18 of the same Book of Exodus, after having led his people from Egypt across the Red Sea, and established his camp in the desert, Moses is met by Jethro, who rejoices over the miracles accomplished by his son-in-law. Then Jethro “offered a burnt offering and other sacrifices to God; and Aaron and all the elders of Israel came and ate with Moses’ father-in-law in the presence of God” (18:12).
Assuming this story to be archaic, some scholars, beginning with Eduard Meyer in 1906, have argued that the cult of Yahweh originated with the Midianites, and was passed on to Moses, the son-in-law of a Midianite priest who, it is implied, had seven daughters but no son.28 The Bible even hints at Jethro’s role in crafting the first Constitution of the Hebrews. Jethro says to Moses:
“Now listen to the advice I am going to give you, and God be with you! Your task is to represent the people to God, to lay their cases before God, and to teach them the statutes and laws, and show them the way they ought to follow and how they ought to behave. At the same time, from the people at large choose capable and God-fearing men, men who are trustworthy and incorruptible, and put them in charge as heads of thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens, and make them the people’s permanent judges. They will refer all important matters to you, but all minor matters they will decide themselves, so making things easier for you by sharing the burden with you. If you do this—and may God so command you—you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.” Moses took his father-in-law’s advice and did just as he said. Moses chose capable men from all Israel and put them in charge of the people as heads of thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. (Exodus 18:19-25).
“Yahweh came from Sinai,” the Bible says (Deuteronomy 33:2 and Psalms 68:18). It is there that Moses first encounters Yahweh, who orders him to go back to Egypt and free his people; it is there that Moses brings them back; and it is from there that, two years later, on Yahweh’s order again, he sets off with them towards Canaan. And Sinai, with its Mount Sinai or Mount Horeb, is located in the land of the Midianites, which Greek authors place unanimously in northwest Arabia, on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Aqaba, and not in the Egyptian peninsula which bears this name since the Church placed it there, apparently under Constantine. Even Paul the Apostle knew that “Sinai is a mountain in Arabia” (Galatians 4,25).
Explorer Charles Beke was among the first to place Mount Horeb in Arabia (Sinai in Arabia and of Midian, 1878). This thesis has gained the support of a growing number of scholars, including Hershel Shanks, editor of the Biblical Archaeology Review, and Frank Moore Cross, Hebrew professor at Harvard. The precise location of Mount Horeb/Sinai can be deduced from phenomena witnessed by the Hebrews there: “Now at daybreak two days later, there were peals of thunder and flashes of lightning, dense clo
ud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast; and, in the camp, all the people trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet God; and they took their stand at the bottom of the mountain. Mount Sinai was entirely wrapped in smoke, because Yahweh had descended on it in the form of fire. The smoke rose like smoke from a furnace and the whole mountain shook violently. Louder and louder grew the trumpeting. Moses spoke, and God answered him in the thunder” (Exodus 19:16-19). If Mount Horeb shakes, rumbles, smokes and spits fire like a volcano, then it should be a volcano, as Beke was the first to remark (Mount Sinai a Volcano, 1873). Northwest Arabia, where Midian is located, happens to be a volcanic area, unlike the Egyptian Sinai; volcanic activity was still documented there in the Middle Ages.29 Among the most likely candidates is Jabal al-Lawz, whose summit is consists of metamorphic rocks.30
These geographic considerations point to an Arab origin of Mosaic Yahwism. This in turn may explain why tribalism and nomadism are so entrenched in the Judaic tradition. Genesis 25 says that Midianites are descendants of Abraham, just like the Ishmaelites. Midianites and Ishmaelites are actually confused in Genesis 37, where we read that “Midianite merchants sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites” who “took Joseph to Egypt” (37:28), then that “the Midianites had sold him in Egypt” (37:36). The Bible actually gives Abraham as common ancestor to the Midianites, the Kenites, the Moabites, the Edomites, and the Amalekites, all predominantly nomadic peoples whose arid lands are situated between Arabia and Judea. Islamic tradition teaches that Abraham came from Arabia and died there, and some scholars consider this tradition as possibly older than the biblical tale of Abraham coming from Mesopotamia. At the time of Muhammad (early 7th century) powerful “Jewish tribes” were living in the Hejaz, although we know nothing of their particular brand of Judaism. According to Islamic tradition, they had been living there since the time of Moses.31 Orientalist David Samuel Margoliouth remarks that these tribes and some of their members bore recognizably Arab names rather than Jewish ones. Many Hebrew names, including Yahweh itself, come from Arabic, according to Margoliouth, who also claims that the book of Job, among other stories in the biblical canon, “ostensibly comes from Arabia.”32
The origin of the Hebrews among the nomadic population of northern Arabia is consistent with the most likely etymology of their name, as deriving from the Accadian term Habiru. This word is attested as far back as the fourteenth century BCE on the Egyptian Amarna tablets, to designate nomadic wanderers or refugees from the East, often with the negative connotation of disruption of public order.33 In the Bible, the Israelites are called “Hebrews” only by Egyptians (14 times in Exodus) and Philistines (8 times in 1 Samuel). In Exodus 1-15, the term is applied to Jacob’s tribe settling in Egypt. Yahweh is designated there as “the god of Israel” but is presented as “the god of the Hebrews” to Pharaoh (7:17). But habiru is also employed with the vulgar meaning of “bandits,” “thieves,” or “robbers” in Isaiah 1:23 and Hosea 6:9. 34
If we follow Midianite-Kenite theory,35 Yahwism turns out to be the religion of an unstable confederation of proto-Arab tribes who, perhaps after returning to Midian from a period of exploitation under Egyptian rule, set out to conquer lower Syria, a land “flowing with milk and honey” (Numbers 13:27). Canaan was then a prosperous and urbanized region, unlike the poorer lands of its southern fringe. Its inhabitants, whom the Bible portrays as detestable idolaters, were members of a technologically and culturally advanced civilization, organized in city-states, struggling to maintain independence from the more powerful states in Egypt and Mesopotamia.
We need not conclude that the religion of the ancient Hebrews was identical to that of the Midianites. It was, rather, a new form of it, and Moses deserves credit for its novelty. What Moses brought to Yahweh is mobility. The Midianite Yahweh was a topical god, inseparable and almost indistinguishable from his sacred mountain, from whence he thundered publicly and spoke privately. Yahweh cannot leave Mount Horeb, and therefore proposes to Moses to “send an angel to precede you, to guard you as you go and bring you to the place that I have prepared” (Exodus 23:20). However, two chapters later, he has changed his mind and asks Moses to make for him, out of the precious materials stolen from the Egyptians, a luxurious gold plated tent, the detailed specifications of which are given in Exodus, chapters 25 to 31. Henceforth, it is in this “Tabernacle” that Yahweh will reside, and that Moses will talk to him “face to face, as a man talks to his friend” (33:11). Moses has delocalized Yahweh, and his successors finally settled him on a throne in Jerusalem.
From the Exodus narrative, two different stages can be identified in the story of Yahweh and his people. First, Yahweh asks Moses to bring them from Egypt to Sinai: “After you have led the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain” (3:12). At this stage, Yahweh says nothing of conquering Canaan. Moses must simply declare to the Israelites that he is sent by “the god of your ancestors” (3:16) to guide them to Midian. The implication here is that their ancestors are from Midian, just like Yahweh.
It is only two years after settling in Midian that Moses receives a new order to bring them to Canaan. It is hard to resist the hypothesis that the real motivation for this massive migration (603,550 males over twenty years old, not counting the Levites, according to Numbers 1:44) was overpopulation and scarcity of natural resources. It is then that Canaan becomes the Promised Land. Moses tried to recruit his father-in-law: “You know where we can camp in the desert, and so you will be our eyes. If you come with us, we shall share with you whatever blessings Yahweh gives us” (Numbers 10:31-32). Jethro seems to have refused, and the Midianites who did not join the expedition later became the Hebrews’ most hated enemies, as recounted in Numbers 31.
Cain and Abel as mirror images of Seth and Osiris
The biblical story of Cain and Abel seems adapted from the Kenites’ legend of their primal ancestor, the fratricide Cain, but with the addition of a crucial element: a third son of Adam and Eve, named Seth, granted by God to replace Abel after his death. The fact that this third son was added as an afterthought is evidenced by a comparison between Seth’s and Cain’s progenies. The names of Cain and four of his five descendants are reproduced with little change in five of the seven descendants of Seth (compare Genesis 4:17–18 and 5:6–32). Clearly a scribe has copied the progeny of Cain and pasted it to Seth.
Seth happens to be also the name of an Egyptian god, the younger brother of Osiris. Strangely enough, the story of Cain and Abel bears a striking resemblance to the story of Osiris and Seth, whose most detailed rendering has been provided by Plutarch in the first century CE. Like Cain and Abel, Osiris and Seth are born of a primordial couple, together with their two sisters Isis and Nephthys, whom they respectively marry.36 Osiris, the elder, receives from his divine father the fertile soil of the Nile Valley, and teaches agriculture to its inhabitants, while his sister-wife Isis teaches them to make bread. Seth, the youngest, has to settle for the barren deserts surrounding the river valley. Jealous of God’s favor and men’s worship that his brother receives, Seth decides to eliminate him. Employing a ruse, he locks Osiris in a coffin, seals it, and throws him into the Nile. Isis finds the body of her husband and hides it. Seth discovers the hiding place and cuts up the body into fourteen pieces that he scatters across the land of Egypt. Isis searches patiently and finds all the pieces except the penis, which she replaces with a simulacrum. The body is then reconstituted by Nout, the mother of Osiris, who “tied the bones of her son back together, put his heart back in his body, and set his head where it belonged.” Then the body is embalmed by Anubis, the jackal-headed god, and brought back to life by Thoth, the prince of magic, thanks to the lamentations of Isis. She then conceives, with the revived Osiris, a son, Horus, whom she hides in the great Delta reed beds to escape the homicidal schemes of his uncle. Warned by his mother, Horus escapes an attempted rape by Seth. He returns as an adult to complete the deliverance of Osiris by taking vengeance on Seth, which has
the effect, in the words of a litany of Horus to his father, of “driving out the evil attached to [Osiris]” and “killing his suffering.” Horus, however, cannot destroy Seth, who continues to covet the throne of Egypt. Their dispute is finally brought before the court of the gods, who then split Egypt between Seth and Horus (Upper and Lower Egypts), before changing their minds and banishing Seth to give the entirety of both lands to Horus. The struggle turns out to be endless: repeatedly beaten and chained, Seth is released periodically from his chains to once again seize the advantage.
The myth of Osiris lends itself to multiple interpretations. Fundamentally, says Plutarch, the enemy brothers represent “two contrary principles, two rival powers” in perpetual struggle throughout creation. In the Cosmic Soul, explains Plutarch, “All that is good, is Osiris; and in earth and wind and water and the heavens and stars, that which is ordered, established, and healthy, as evidenced by season, temperature, and cycles of revolution, is the efflux of Osiris and his reflected image.” That is why, at the time of Plutarch, Osiris merged with the sun god Ra, whose regular course maintained the stability of the world. By contrast, “that part of the soul which is impressionable, impulsive, irrational and truculent, and in the bodily part what is destructible, diseased and disorderly, as evidenced by abnormal seasons and temperatures, and by obscurations of the sun and disappearances of the moon,” bears the mark of Seth (Plutarch, Isis and Osiris 49).
From Yahweh to Zion Page 5
