Thursday, March 19, 2009

Blood and Binary Distinctions

Alice C. Linsley

The Afro-Asiatic worldview of the Nilotic, Arabian and Mesopotamian peoples, as it is presented in Genesis, is framed by the binary distinctions or supplementary sets. These are universally observed in Nature and experienced on a most fundamental level of existence. These distinctions are evident in daily life, as in the observation that the Sun appears to rise in the East and to set in the West. They are observed in the distinction between male-female, hot-cold, night-day, and between Heaven-Earth. In fact, the ancient Afro-Asiatics associated maleness or the masculine principle with the Sun and femaleness or the feminine principle with the Moon.


Primitive societies are much better at recognizing and respecting binary distinctions than moderns. They were more attuned to the patterns observed in nature and aligned their thinking with those patterns. Blood was a matter of anxiety for ancient Man. This is evident in the mythological material that comes to us from the ancient Afro-Arabians and Afro-Asiatics.  For example, the Hebrew words adam and adom relate to red clay from which the first man is said to have been made.  These words are related to the Hamitic/Hausa word odum, meaning red-brown, like to clay along the Nile when the rains wash red silt down from the Ethiopian highlands. This is the region of the world where Abraham's Kushite ancestors lived and the story of the creation of Adam comes to us from the Nilotic peoples.




Early man had an intuitive anxiety about blood. We see this in the belief that the blood of Abel cries to God from the ground (Gen. 4:10). Anxiety about the shedding of blood is universal and very old. The Priesthood, verifiably one of the oldest known religious institutions, likely came into existence the first day that blood was shed and the individual and the community sought relief of blood anxiety and guilt.

As a point of fact, the first blood shed in the Bible was not the blood shed by Cain when he killed his brother Abel. It was not the blood shed by God in taking the rib from Adam. It was the blood shed by the woman when she gave birth. This is significant because it places life-giving blood ahead of the blood shed in killing. The birth blood to which I refer here is not the birth of Cain, but the birth of Messiah promised to the woman immediately after the Fall. This is the first blood of Scripture, though not explicitly stated, and this Blood is always prevenient.

The second shedding of blood was when God made clothes of animal skins for Adam and Eve. Here we see the first sacrifice of animals for the benefit of humans. This places God at the center between the life-giving (promised) blood and the blood shed in Cain's killing of his brother.

The third shedding of blood was when Cain killed Abel. We note that between the two bloods (birthing and murder) God sacrifices an animal to provide for the needs of humanity. In this sense, God is the first Priest and that first animal is a symbol of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, that takes away the sin of the world.

Related reading:  Binary Distinctions of the Horites; God as Male PriestWhy Women Were Never Priests; Circumcision and Binary Distinctions; The Importance of Binary Distinctions; The Christ in Nilotic Mythology


Anonymous said...

I would have thought that the blood from the animal coverings occurred second as Adam and Eve only had children once having left the Garden of Eden making the shedding of blood through child birth third. But I guess you can consider shedding of blood on by intercourse and the breaking of the hymen that would certainly be the first instance.

Alice C. Linsley said...

You are right, of course, especially if we think of Adam and Eve as historical. I tend to think of Adam and Eve in Platonic terms. The birth blood of which I was thinking is the promised birth of Messiah to the woman immediately after the Fall. This is the first blood of Scripture, though not explicitly stated. This Blood is always prevenient. Also the divine provision coming in the middle signals the sacred center and this is also consistent with the Afro-Asiatic worldview.

Anonymous said...

What about when God performed surgery on Adam? Although not explicitly stated, removing a rib is a potentially bloody task. In fact if we see Adam as a type of Christ, then there is a parallel between Christ's side being pierced and His blood flowing out which gave birth to the church (the bride of Christ). I would suggest that this was the first blood that was shed as an image of Jesus' blood shed on the cross.

Alice Linsley said...

An excellent observation!