What is a Semite?

Noah had three sons (Genesis 10:1) after the flood; from one of which, Shem, there derives the word ‘Semitic’ – according to the Oxford Dictionary. One descendent of Shem is Abram (11:26) - i.e. he’s a semite.

The first son of Noah was Japheth, and his descendents include ‘Ashkenaz’. The Jews of Europe many centuries ago decided to call themselves Ashkenazi, indicating that they believed they had descended from that lineage. So they are not semites. From the second son of Noah the line of descent goes to ‘Mizraim’ and the Egyptian Jews decided long ago to name themselves in this way, as Mizraim Jews. This applies to north African jews, (‘Sephardic’).

Modern Israel is mainly composed of Ashkernazi and Mizraim Jews, which means that only a small proportion maybe 10% or less of its citizens are what, based on the Bible, should be called semitic.

One of Shem’s descendants is called Eber, from whom the ‘Hebrews’ come. Thus The Book of Genesis alludes to Abram as ‘Abram the Hebrew’ (14:13). So he is both a Hebrew and a semite.

God makes his big promise to Abram, that his descendents will be as many as the stars in the sky (15:5). Near the river Jordan, He promises to give to Abraham’s descendants all the land that he can see – let’s say, a hundred square kilometres (13:15).

We eagerly await to hear who his lucky descendents will be - as Hebrews and/or semites - to gain this God-given inheritance. 

When Abraham and his wife Sarah were quite old, his first son Ishmael was born, from whom descend the twelve tribes of Arabia (17:20).

When the couple journey into Egypt they meet the pharaoh - on account of the beauty of Sarah: '...when Abram came into Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.' (12:15)

'When the palace officials saw her, they sang her praises to Pharaoh, their king, and Sarai was taken into his palace.'

She's taken to the pharaoh who marries her.  Abraham offers his wife to the Pharaoh, explaining that she’s his sister (she is, it’s incest, they had the same father). We quote Ahmed Osman here: 'The Hebrew original makes clear that the marriage between pharaoh and Sarai had already taken place. that is why Abram was given Sarai's dowry.'  (Stranger in the valley of the Kings' Osman p,39) Surely the beauty of Sarai in the eyes of the pharaoh, is evidence that she was fertile for him. But, the Pharaoh's marital bliss is soon interrupted, as God denounces him for taking another man’s wife and some divine punishment begins.

Abram soon gets back his wife/sister and the two exit from Egypt, he being then a hundred years old (21:5). Sarah then has a child, Isaac, and it’s not too hard to guess to whom it belongs. The Talmud, an oral-tradition text, has people scoffing at Abraham because the child did not look like him[1]. Eventually he cannot bear it any longer, and takes the child to an altar to sacrifice him (Genesis 22) - but God stays his hand, and Isaac lives. 

Again we quote Ahmed Osman: 'The critical question, upon which everything else turns, is; Who was Isaac's father?' (p.41)

What is the point of this whole story? The point is, we suggest, that the grandson of Isaac, Joseph, can go into Egypt and get along with everyone there, and become the grand vizier, i.e. top advisor to the pharaoh. He can do that because he has got Egyptian blood in him. Indeed he has got royal blood - that of the pharaoh.

Abraham is given 'the covenant of circumcision - and here the Bible conceals the fact that circumcision was normal in Egypt long before the Hebrews started doing it. Every male child in Egypt was circumcised. Why would it conceal this fact?

'And Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him eight days after his birth' (Acts 7:8)

 That is evidence for the Egyptian princely lineage coming through there, that the Egyptian practice of circumcision  is here used - for the first time as given in the Bible - on Isaac, son of the (unspecified) pharaoh.

If you don't want to believe this, and accept instead the usual version, then the tale is merely silly and sordid: Abram pimps out his wife, 'God' colludes, and Abram in return gets a load of gold and silver. Do you really want to believe that?

Its worse than that: do you want to believe in a god who magically causes a hundred year old man to become fertile, and then inseminates his own sister? And then, for no reason, the Deity describes an operation called 'circumcision.' to be performed upon the child? Do you want to believe in a god who advocates incest?

The promise made by the deity to Abraham about his wife was: 'I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her."' (17:16) That did indeed come to pass - if we accept Ahmed Osman's argument, that Joseph when he came into Egypt married into the royal dynasty. Its an epic tale, as a result of which, four pharaohs had Hebrew blood - and this caused such a disturbance that they were blotted out from historical memory for three thousand years! Hebrew scribes were concerned to draw a veil over this marvellous process - i.e., where their 'Moses' had come from - but then, how could they claim that the prophecy has been fulfilled? They did so by making up the fictional and nonexistent kingdoms of David and Solomon - but that is another story. 

 Isaac has two children and they have a row about the birthright that is inherited from their father. What birthright was that? Were they not just nomadic shepherds? Only if Isaac had princely blood in him, would that make sense.

Returning to our original theme, what is a semite? The twelve tribes of Israel descended from Isaac. We conclude that, any divine promise was given to Abraham, concerning his descendants, applied to Ishmael but not Isaac. It is the descendants of Ishmael who have to be the semites and Hebrews and maybe they deserve to inherit that divinely-promised plot?

  

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[1] Quoted by Ahmed Osman, Stranger in the Valley of the Kings, 1987, p.41.