When I began to read Hebrew, I thought to myself—as a native speaker of Bantu languages, that surely the Scriptures must in some way express the history of all humanity. If this is true, then there must be some element of many primordial languages and cultures from ancient times that can be traced back to the Pentateuch, undoubtedly one of the most ancient texts humanity has preserved. This might include not just sounds or even particles in the linguistic structure of Biblical Hebrew but also entire words and even literary genres. I discovered to my astonishment that not only did Bantu languages share a connection with the Semitic such as Arabic with which the Bantu came into contact, birthing the Swahili language. This language is attested by six centuries of written literature, including poetry and other literary forms. Since Swahili is a composite of Bantu words and Arabic, it is natural that certain words shared between Hebrew and Arabic might make it into the Swahili dialect. Thus words like baraka ultimately relate to the Hebrew form berekh (blessing). What we can affirm without hesitation concerning the development of the Swahili language is that it is an expression of a prolonged process leading to interculturality. A related process resulted during the Luo-Babiito dynasty from the interactions between the Luo (Nilotic) and the Banyoro (a Bantu cultural group). For a language and culture to develop along these lines is one thing, but for two languages isolated from each other over millennia to contain elements showing a relationship between them is quite unique. This is what I have found with a number of Bantu languages and Biblical Hebrew. How do these connections manifest?
Nouns and Verbs
We can point out from the outset that there are elements of language like nouns and verbs which are not imported into Bantu languages but belonged there naturally, with a close semblance to nouns and verbs in Biblical Hebrew—right from the first chapters of Genesis. The very first is a noun from the first explicit naming wordplay; a genre that manifests predominantly in the Pentateuch and the books of prophecy. This wordplay takes place when Adam calls his wife ‘woman.’ She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. This line in Genesis 2:23 contains two complementary words for man and woman that is to say, ish and ishah (Hebrew). The Bantu word for father in a number of languages is ishe or a related term. The Basoga call their king the isebantu (father of the people). The meaning of this is that not only did God make a man, Adam, but a parent, a father (as in ishe, Runyankore-Rukiga). St. Isidore informs us that this is the protoplastus, the first person to be ‘moulded,’ and adds: “Adam, as blessed Jerome informs us, means ‘human’ or ‘earthling’ or ‘red earth,’ for from earth was flesh made, and humus (humus) was the material from which the human (homo) was made.”[1] This testimony of both Jerome and Isidore is of course against evolutionism. But meanwhile, we have pointed out that there is a link between the Biblical Hebrew translated as ‘man’ (ish) and the word for ‘father’ in Bantu languages (ishe, ise; Runyanore-Rukiga, Lusoga).
Names of individuals and objects/things
Another explicit wordplay occurs in Scripture where Isaac receives his name. Isaac’s name in Hebrew (Yitschak) which means ‘he laughs’ or ‘he has laughed’ translates to something like Yasheka in the Runyankore-Rukiga, thus such a word name from Proto-Canaanite could be a ‘linguistic fossil’. Dr. Eli-Lizorkin Eyzenberg has discussed the origin of the name ‘Isaac’ in some of his works.[2] In the area of nouns, we have one example is the word tebah which is used twice by Moses in reference to Noah’s ark and the lifesaving basket in which young Moses was laid to conceal him in the waters (Gen 6:14; Ex 2:3). In the Rukiga dialect of the Bantu, this word which meant ‘basket’ or ‘cot’ in the latter instance is pronounced ‘eki’tebo’ (eki= ‘a’) literally meaning a basket.[3] The concept of remembrance ‘yizkor’ (Gen 19:29; 30:22; 40:23) is also connected to the Runyankole/Rukiga equivalent (yizuka-ijuka). These are definitely not imported words from Semitic dialect like tannur (etanuulu) which means a kiln or sukka (esuuka/eshuuka) meaning ‘sheets’ (coverings for a tent). There is the fact that the Swahili word damu means ‘blood,’ a red substance containing human life—which connects with the name for Adam, but certainly the word has different meaning in the Bantu language of Luganda where it finds a correspondent. In any case, we might point out other interesting connections between Biblical Hebrew and Bantu languages. The word tzelem which means ‘shadow’ or ‘image’ in the parallelism which recounts that God made them in his image, male and female, offers us one more insight. Thus, we have this word (Gen 1:26-27; 5:1) also, which leads to nouns like zara (progeny). Naturally, this word ushers in Bantu words related to giving birth (okuzaara/okuzaala; Rukiga/Luganda). The birth order is predicated using the term eizaara in Runyankore-Rukiga. A certain Ethiopian writer from not so long ago was named Zara Yaqob (offspring of Jacob), and one tractate in the Talmud is entitled Aboda Zara (the customs, works of ‘the nations’ or ‘other progeny’).
The sun, a solar year
One other term we might wish to explore is the name of a feast: Rosh ha-shanah, which marks the New Year for the Jews. This commencement of the solar year is an important occasion, and while certain writers have pointed out that the root word rosh tends to reflect and suggests ‘intelligent design’ or ‘rationality’ in the created order, ha-shanah has something it echoes in the Bantu languages: the sun (omushana/omusana, Runyankore-Rukiga/Luganda). Now, the solar year is termed omwaka (Rukiga/Luganda, etc) which etymologically derives from okwaka (to shine); thus the words from Hebrew and Bantu languages show a connection that is not direct, but nonetheless real. From the examples above and now this one, we can say with certitude that it is possible that Bantu languages and Semitic languages developed side by side with each other even before the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Trans-Saharan Trade that brought contact between Bantu cultures and language. In any case, the contact between Arabic and the aforementioned languages is attested by the existence of Swahili culture but this couldn’t have happened in a vacuum. Such a reality for me demonstrates what has been put forward before at Kolbe center by one of the experts that ethnicity emerges from isolation of peoples from each other. Could the terms employed in routine speech by Bantu people demonstrate common origins both with the Ancient Near East cultures or languages and earlier interaction between cultures separated by a wide distance and a very long lapse of time? In my opinion, this is not unlikely.
Ultimately, the Presence of Egyptian Vocabulary in the Pentateuch
Many writers both Jewish and non-Jewish attest to the fact that the law begins with a Coptic terminology, anokhi—as in: “I am the Lord.” However to use the word anokhi or anochi as attested in many places is unsavoury of pure Hebrew or even Aramaic, and the proper word used in many instances is ani: “I am…” This word itself ani occurs in Luganda and translates to the question ‘Who?’ Thus we see a sort of inversion of meaning that hints at the confusion of tongues. In a related case, Gerrard Gertoux points out in ancient Mesopotamia where, it seems, the kings were called by the title ensi. I would rather the word meant the area over which the person was sovereign or the ‘sovereignty’ of a place. The Bantu word (Luganda & Runyankore-Rukiga) for the place is ensi.[4] The same word is used for ‘the earth’ which in Hebrew is ha-aretz. Now however if we go back to the Egyptian words in the Pentateuch, we conclude that indeed, it was most certainly written by a man who once lived Egyptian and knew the Egyptian dialect, who points out that the twelve patriarchs were called Mizraim when mourning their father Jacob, and the place was thus called Abel-Mizraim (Genesis 50).
Conclusion:
What is to be said of the above observations? In all probability, we are faced squarely with facts which prove the authenticity of the message in the Pentateuch if only indirectly, especially concerning Mosaic authenticity. Kolbe Centre avails the curious reader the possibility to cut into arguments against the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, courtesy of the book The Rise and Fall of the Documentary Hypothesis. For me, the strong connections between languages like the Bantu and Biblical Hebrew, coupled with the fact that these philological associations amplify the truth of the message in Scripture, seal the end of conjectures like the documentary hypothesis. A mukiga versed in Hebrew from Sub-Saharan Africa can confirm these things; how for example the explicit naming wordplay by which Isaac (Yitshak) was named, indeed implies that ‘God has made a laughter for me.’ Against Hegelian pretensions then, that Africans have no history,[5] the ‘linguistic fossils’ we have seen affirm that they do have a history which is not to be sought in evolutionary tales but in Sacred Scripture. In fact, the only ‘history’ recognized by modernist thinkers is that agnostic version of history which makes no reference to God, which was invented by Buffon according to certain writers when he innovated the idea of ‘deep time.’ But such epistemic arrogance which we witness in Hegel’s Philosophy of History results from a deep-seated anti-religious sentiment. Now, certain writers attempted to ‘undo’ this by proposing in narratives of natural history how evolution first happened on the African continent. In reality, the Pentateuch offers an astonishing testimony to the authenticity of the common history of mankind as recorded in the sacred history of Genesis. If modern scholars studied the evidence without prejudice, they would surely be impressed by the philological connections between Hebrew and African languages which point to a history far more interesting than the wild conjectures of evolutionary mythology.
Footnotes:
[1] See Isidore, Etymologies VII.v.31–vi.17; cf The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville (De hominibus qui quodam praesagio nomen acceperunt)., ed. Stephen A. Barney, Cambridge University Press; New York, 2006, p. 162.
[2] Eliyahu Lizorkin-Eyzenberg The Hidden Story of Jacob. Other works include Becoming Israel, etc. In these works, he discusses much content in the book of Genesis.
[3] It has been suggested by some that the word tebah probably means ‘lifeboat,’ but I believe it is closer to ‘basket’ or something woven like a basket, as in Runyankore-Rukiga, which attests both to the way planks were fitted together in Noah’s ark and in the baby cot into which Moses was laid. Thus: “Moses used the obscure term tebah, a word that is only used again for the basket that carried baby Moses (Exodus 2:3). One was a huge wooden ship and the other a tiny wicker basket. Both float, both rescue life, and both are covered. But the similarity ends there. We can be quite sure that the baby basket did not have the same proportions as the ark, and Egyptian baskets of the time were typically rounded. Perhaps tebah means “lifeboat” (See Answers in Genesis (Ryan Freeman ed.), Noah’s Ark. A Biblical and Scientific Look at the Genesis Account, p. 13).
[4] Gerard Gertoux (80 Old Testament Characters of World History: Chronological, Historical and Archaeological Evidence., 2016, p. 94: “When they are mentioned in the texts of Lagas, the rulers of Umma are called ENSI (governor), such as those of Lagaš, while in their own inscriptions they use the title of LUGAL (king). At the beginning of his reign, Ur-Nammu controlled neither Uruk, since he did not adopt immediately the title EN (lord), nor Girsu where there was the “Dynasty Gudea” or Umma held by vassals ENSI of the last Gutian kings.”
[5] Thus Hegel claimed that Africa is ‘ahistorical,’ in his Philosophy of History.
