Oliver Benjamin
of the lake. And they sailed down the Nile until Egypt. Originally,
though, they lived near Axum in a city called Yeha, where they built
temples to the god of the sun.”
He pronounced it “Yehwah.” It sounded remarkably like the
sharp inhalation of breath Ethiopians employed to say “yes.”
Roy was starting to see where this was going. “Yehwah,” he said.
“Mm.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Exactly. That’s how you pronounce it. Not Jehovah. Not
Yahweh. But Yehwah. Hebrew has no written vowels so no one knew
how to pronounce it. They’ve been stabbing at it in the dark for eons.
On go the lights. Yeha. It’s where monotheism came from. The
greatest, most powerful, most edifying lie in the history of the world.
The idea of a universal, singular truth. The name of God. And his
birthplace.”
“Isn’t that ass-backwards? They started here and ended up in the
Mediterranean? It makes infinitely more sense to presume the
reverse is true.”
“Sure. That’s because Europeans can’t stand the idea that the
seeds of our culture were planted by a bunch of unrefined Africans.
They had a hard enough time giving the Jews credit for it. The same
exact thing happened in India. The Aryans, a tribe of dumb,
belligerent white folks went in and beat up the more sophisticated
black Dravidians, took their culture and placed themselves at the top.
Then they said that they made it all up. Typical. A similar thing
happened in America. The freedom, self-reliance and egalitarianism
we’re so proud of came directly from the Indians.”
“But how do you prove it? You might as well say Jews came from
Venus. Just because it’s an interesting idea doesn’t mean it’s right.”
“One of the most compelling bits of evidence comes from
language itself. The Semitic languages—Hebrew, Arabic, Ethiopian,
all trace their origin what is now Ethiopia. Linguists agree on this.
Historians also agree that the Hebrews make their first historical
appearance in lower Egypt. But no knows for sure what happened
before that, largely because of a lack of archaeological evidence.
That’s why I’m here, you see. I dug up some sacrificial animal bones
from Yeha. I have a friend who works in a carbon dating lab. I still
need to get some from next to the altars on one of the islands. If he
can find that the bones are older than Solomon’s Temple, that would
suggest Judaism began here.”
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