Shem? A Name, Title or Office?

Zulu groom in Shem Leopard Skin

We always have to go back to the name of a thing.  “A name expresses the intrinsic value [of the Creator of Created]”.

Ecclesiastes 6:10  "Whatever one is, he has been named already, For it is known that he is man; And he cannot contend with Him who is mightier than he."

Name: a word or phrase that constitutes the distinctive designation of a person or thing b : a word or symbol used in logic to designate an entity.

Title: Designation, name, call, label, entitlement

Office: Responsibility, position, task, agency, department

What made the biblical Noa[h] name his child name which is the Hebrew word Shem?

The Bible is layered like an onion.  There are allegories, idioms, and illusions and because the writes were trying to hide something. There are the surface, middle and deeper part of the word but for the most part the average reader like you and I will be satisfied with the surface reading. We may do a little word study and find out the meaning to the names and places we read about we may even get some insight on the manner and customs of the people we read about.   In our reading we came prepared to sit at a table and eat a meal previously digested. We were babes in the arms of a larger mother church and that other trained us in-utero.

Judaism did not grow up in a vacuum and neither did Christianity or Islam. They had a root and that root was originally Africa. In under to understand the fruit we must go to the root, the root is where the nutrients flow and from there it goes through the limbs then the branches and on to the shoot and finally the leaves and bears fruit. The lesson is in understanding the growth. So when the tree beings for the bad fruit you must see what is attacking the root. You do not spray the fruit you look at the root for the cause of the problem.

What is at the root of this scripture? We were told the elemental or pedagogical meaning of these and other verses surrounding Noah. We believed for years that the 3 races came from the sons of Noah and we did so without question. We did so without scientific facts because we were told science and religion were in opposition, but that was never true in the Mystery or Religious/Spiritual system of Africa all disciplines flowed out of the whole and the whole was knowledge and communication with the Creator and understanding his creation on every level. This encompassed all manner of science. Spirituality or religion went part and parcel with this full education. It was in every phase of daily life. Our people understood there was no real spiritual growth, without first understanding the Creator and the process of creation.  

Kindergarten Level: The first people who inhabited the earth were black Africans. From us all races sprang. So if there were a Noah his sons would have been black like him. There are many photographic and written proofs that every race has black roots and culture, from Europe to America, from China to Russia and all the islands of the seas.

Take a look at this site for definitive proof:

http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/runoko.html

The truth is 'hidden in plain sight' and it is because it is the safest place to hide the truth. We stumble over it everyday and we don’t see it, because we were taught to ‘self police’. What is self policing?

Carter G' Woodson from his book the Mis-Education of the Negro expresses it best.

"When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand her or go yonder. He will find is 'proper place and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary."

When you have been trained to limit your own right to think and investigate, my husband calls it the invisible fence, you self-police. Live wires have been placed in our educational and intellectual way and at different phases in our [seeming] growth we are given an electrical shock when we come to close to the truth. We are given the same shock when we come close to error [in the mind of the shocker] so we are then afraid of the lie and the truth and soon we can not tell the difference. We are afraid to venture out too far for fear of the electrical current.

So, when we see passages like the one below we look at it in a benign manner. We pass over it to find the meat that is given to very captive person that will not venture past the stock understanding.

We sit in our assigned seats and save them for our children and our children’s children and then we wonder why the world is getting so bad.

Proverbs 29:18 says: “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.”

 

Hosea 4:6 says: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.”

Did you know that the Proverb sited was not written by the Hebrew Solomon or David?

"This simple picture of the social context of Proverbs has been challenged from every side and I am not about to promote it! In the critical period, the Solomonic attribution has been questioned.  There is no doubt that Solomon was famed for his wisdom and that he may have had an interest in collecting proverbs and even promoting the exercise. He may have even coined one or two proverbs himself. But, the consensus of opinion is that the attribution is both [Alt ( 1976) stresses the role of Solomon as portrayed in the Deuteronomistic history as collector of wisdom traditions, regarding the influence from the ancient Near East and also the distinctiveness of the Israelite version of wisdom as promoted by him.] has recently

stressed afresh the importance of Solomon as a figure of legitimization for wisdom. The name of a great king renowned for wisdom gives authority to a mass of material that may well have had a much more diverse origin. Solomon is also attributed with Ecclesiastes and the Wisdom of Solomon, both books that he is unlikely to have written and that represent different periods of thought and of the development of ideas.

Proverbs is the most likely book to which Solomon might have had a historical link, but this link was probably of a limited character. Once scholars in the critical period, which effectively began at the end of the nineteenth century, started to look at the literary, historical and theological features of the text, the conclusion was drawn that Proverbs was unlikely to be the work of one author Solomon or otherwise and that it is in fact a collection of collections, in that different parts of the book of Proverbs were probably composed separately.

A further area of scholarly interest is the book’s relationship with the ‘wisdom’ of other nations, particularly that of Egypt. The close relationship of part of the book with an Egyptian ‘Instruction’ Ameneopes has made this particularly fertile ground when addressing the question of the origins of ideas and literary genres.” Katherine J. Dell Cambridge University –The Book of Proverbs

This is an example of the exchanging of ideas in the African world Judaism did not grow in a vacuum and Solomon was not the wisest man in the world. Now let’s look at the scripture below and try and find out what it is all about shall we? I said this is my understanding and my study. You must study to show yourself approved. All those who want to stay with the old understanding are welcome to do so, but the highest form of praise is not to sing or say Hallelujah but it is to sit down and STUDY

 

“These are the descendants of Noah's sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, to whom sons were born after the flood.” Gen. 10:1

Above shows differing types of men as chronicle by the Egyptian. The original number of men were 16, each representing the race divisions of the world but it was later condensed to four as we see above. Here two are the same and two different. The Semite, in this case did not ethnically relate to the Egyptian or any other Black in Africa.  This begs the question: Was there a difference between and Semite, Egyptian and Shem the Biblical brother of Ham and Japheth?

When tracing the biblical root of the name Shem we find:

Shem (שֵׁםrenown; prosperity; Name", Standard Hebrew Šem, Tiberian Hebrew Šēm; Greek Σημ, Sēm; Arabic سام) was one of the sons of Noah in the Bible.

Why would Noah name his child NAME? It seems redundant on the surface. 

According to Strong's Exhaustive Concordance each name for the sons of Noah seem to be unique and have no history outside of the Biblical context, but is that true?

Shem means: Name [mark, sign]

1) the eldest son of Noah and progenitor of the Semitic tribes

Ham means : Hot

1) 2nd son of Noah, father of Canaan and of various peoples which were inhabitants of southern lands of the known earth [Africa].

2) in late usage, a collective name for Egyptians.

Japheth means: Opened [to be persuaded or deceived]

1) the 3rd son of Noah whose descendants after the flood settled on the coastal lands of the Mediterranean spreading north into Europe and parts of Asia.

What was their near kinsman’s definition of S[h]em? 

"Biblically, he is most popularly regarded as the eldest son, though some traditions regard him as the second son. Genesis 10:21 refers to relative ages of Shem and his brother Japheth, but with sufficient ambiguity in each to have yielded different translations. The verse is translated in the KJV as "Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born."

Sem priest of Egypt and Zimbabwe

“The higher ranks were favored with special robes such as the leopard-skins worn over the shoulders by the Sem priests…”

The name Shem is interesting, according the Catholic Encyclopedia:

His reward was a blessing of great import (cf. Ecclus., xlix, 19). Noe's prophetic words (according to Massor. Text), "Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Sem" (for the glory of a nation is its God), designate, in a special manner, Yahweh as the God of Sem and, consequently, Sem as the bearer of the Messianic promises.

“Blessed be Yahweh [I am or I will be ] the God of [the]Names.”

Who were the Sem priests in Egyptian Eschatology?  *Eschatology is the writing having to do with the culmination of an age or the last day and times and/or the next life. 

Did this bear [support] a Hebrew messianic copy story? Yes, it did. 

Sem-Priests bearing [supporting] the Ark [Barque] of Amun/Amen

The Sem priest were the ones who acted as the eldest son in the mummification rituals as well as other priestly duties in Egypt. They conducted the Ritual of giving back the life [promise of life] to the god [man].

“The priest stretches out a hand to 'give the god back his soul' and reassert his earthly shape, while he recites a prescribed prayer four times over.”

Another point:

In the scenes for the Opening of the Mouth ceremony, the deceased's mummy is usually shown propped up before a representation of the tomb chapel. The "sem" priest, distinguished by the wearing of a panther or leopard skin, prepares to use the ritual implements set out nearby. Genesis 50 says:

1And Joseph fell upon his father's face, and wept upon him, and kissed him. 2And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel. [which physicians…Egyptian Priests of the Sem Priests]

3And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of embalming: and the Egyptians wept for him three-score and ten days. [Total of 70 days]

4And when the days of weeping for him were past, Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found favor in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying, 5My father made me swear, saying, Lo, I die: in my grave which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. Now therefore let me go up, I pray thee, and bury my father, and I will come again. 6And Pharaoh said, Go up, and bury thy father, according as he made thee swear.

7And Joseph went up to bury his father; and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, 8and all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father's house: only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen. 9And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen: and it was a very great company. 10And they came to the threshing-floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, and there they lamented with a very great and sore lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days. 11And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians: wherefore the name of it was called Abel-mizraim,[spirit or vapor of Mizraim] which is beyond the Jordan. 12And his sons did unto him according as he commanded them: 13for his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field, for a possession of a burying-place, of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre. 14And Joseph returned into Egypt, he, and his brethren, and all that went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father.

Sometimes the "Sem" priest takes on the role of the deceased's son, although often the ceremony was performed by the deceased's [eldest] son and heir as a final act of piety. [See Joseph and Jacob's funeral] 

The biblical Joseph was the 11^th son of Jacob. He was born to Jacob’s favorite wife, Rachel, in Paddan-Aram after she had been barren for seven years. Joseph fathered two of the 12 tribes of Israel: Ephraim and Manasseh b his wife or Egyptian heritage Asenath Information about Joseph is found in Genesis chapters 37-50.

Although Joseph was not Israel/Jacobs actual 'First son' he was the first-born of the one Jacob loved which was Rachel his favorite wife. Joseph understood and was schooled in the mummification rites and oversaw [as the priest] his father 'Egyptian Funeral' service.

How and what was Joseph a Priest of? Ho did he get his credentials where did he learn the rituals? We see a synopsis of his life in Egypt from slavery to a 3rd ruler of the lands and 'Father to Pharaoh'. 

Joseph, like Moses learned the ways from the priests of On or Anu.  The name Joseph means: The boy's name Jo-seph \j(o)-se-ph\ is pronounced JOH-sef. It is of Hebrew origin, and its meaning is "Jehovah increases". But, the name Jehovah was not known to the people until the time of Moses according to Exodus. So, what would the YOH or JOH mean? Was it Yahweh or Yah since there was not J in Hebrew, but still the name Yahweh was not known to the Children of Israel.

Was Joseph a Shem[Sem]Priest?

4 Sons of Horus, similar to the picture of Noah with Shem Ham Japheth and Canaan

What is the name Joseph an in a pre-Yahweh or Jehovah context?

"Yo/Ya/Io: Io was further said to have been at Joppa and in Aethiopia, together with Perseus and Medusa (Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 835, &c.); but it was more especially the Greeks residing in Egypt, who maintained that Io had been in Egypt, where she was said to have given birth to Epaphus, and to have introduced the worship of Isis, while Epaphus became the founder of a family from which sprang Danaus, who subsequently returned to Argos. This part of the story seems to have arisen from certain resemblances of religious notions, which subsequently even gave rise to the identification of Io and Isis. Herodotus (i. l, &c., ii. 41) tells us that Isis was represented like the Greek Io, in the form of a woman, with cows' horns. That Io is identical with the moon cannot be doubted (comp. Eurip. Phoen, 1123; Macrob. Sat. i. 19), and the various things related of her refer to the phases and phenomena of the moon, and are intimately connected with the worship of Zeus and Hera at Argos. Her connection with Egypt seems to be an invention of later times, and was probably suggested by the resemblance which was found to exist between the Argive Io and the Egyptian Isis." Encyclopedia

Horned Isis with Horus

Saph: A container or vessel for water and blood.  The name IO or YOseph can mean Isis the container or vessel. Can the name Joseph in Hebrew related back to his service for Isis or Auset? He married Aseneth/Anu-Set a priestess of On or Anu, was Isis worshipped there? 

Together the name the so Jo-speh who performed the ritual of the Sem [Shem] priest in his father funeral service could mean 'The blood of Isis'

In the Theban Recension of the Book of the Dead is found a Chapter (No. clvi.) which was composed for the purpose of bestowing upon the deceased some of the magical power of the goddess. The Chapter was intended to be recited over an amulet called thet, made of carnelian, which had to be steeped in water of ankhami flowers, and set in a sycamore plinth, and if this were laid on the neck of a dead person it would place him under the protection of the words of power of Isis, and he would be able to go wheresoever he pleased in the Underworld. The words of the Chapter were: -- "Let the blood of isis, and the magical powers (or spirits) of Isis, and the words of power of Isis, be mighty to protect and keep safely this great god (i.e., the deceased), and to guard him from him that would do unto him anything which he abominateth."

 

Tyet 

"The exact origin of this symbol is unknown. In many respects it resembles an ankh except that its arms curve down. Its meaning is also reminiscent of the ankh, it is often translated to mean welfare or life. As early as the Third Dynasty we find the tyet being used as decoration when it appears with both the ankh and the djed column, and later with the was scepter. The tiet is associated with Isis and is often called "the knot of Isis" or "the blood of Isis." It seems to be called "the knot of Isis" because it resembles a knot used to secure the garments that the gods wore. The meaning of "the blood of Isis" is more obscured but it was often used as a funerary amulet made of a red stone or glass. In the Late Period the sign was associated with the goddesses Nephthys, Hathor, and Nut as well as with Isis. In all these cases it seems to represent the ideas of resurrection and eternal life." [see Essay on Menses]

What does all this have to do with Shem?

To be continued........

Ekowa

3/2oo7

Table of Contents

http://www.egyptologyonline.com/book_of_the_dead.htm