Monday, March 11, 2013

The Women in Moses's Family and Possible MT DNA Haplogroups

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                       
Noah's wife was Naamah.  They were the parents of Shem, Ham and Japheth.  The Babylonian Gilgamesh epic tells the flood story but instead of Noah, has a hero named Utnapishtim.  This was a Sumerian poem from the 3rd Dynasty of Ur found on clay tablets dating back to 2,150 -2,000 BCE.  The story of the flood  with Noah is  in Genesis in the Bible (Torah). 

1. Levi, son of Jacob, was the father of Kohath and the female Jochebed.  His wife, mother of his children was Milkah, a daughter of Aram.  Aram was one of the sons of Shem.    As Abraham came from the line of Arpachshad, Aram had fathered Uz, Hul, Gether and Mash.
 2. Kohath was the father of Amram, Izhar, Hebron and Uzziel
  3. Amram and his wife, Jochebed  were the parents of Moses and Aaron.
   4. Moses was the father of Gershom and Eliezer.
   4. Aaron was the father of Nadab, Abihu, Elazar and Ithamar.  Produced lots of descendants.  
     5. Elazar was the father of 16; Jehoiarib, Harim, Malchijah, Hakkoz, Jeshua, Eliashib, Huppah, Bilgah, Hezir, Hapizzez, Pethahiah, Jehezkel, Jachin, Gamul, Delaiah, and Maaziah.
    5. Ithamar was the father of Jedaiah, Seorim, Mijamin, Abijah, Shecaniah, Jakim, Jeshebeab and Immer.

Leah and Rachel, sisters and the two wives of Jacob were the daughters of Laban and Adinah and lived at Haran in Aram-Naharaim.which was on the upper Euphrates River in Mesopotamia.  Leah had a daughter, Dinah.  Dinah had been raped by Shechem which was avenged by her 2 brothers, Simeon and Levi who killed all the people of Shechem for doing it.  Dinah would have carried the same mt dna as Leah and Rachel.    Laban was Rebekah's brother.  He had given his sister Rebekah in marriage to Isaac.  Laban and Rebekah were the children of Bethuel.  Rebekah was the mother of Esau and Jacob.  Bethuel was an Aramean, "Syrian,"  the youngest son of Nahor and Milcah and was the nephew of Abraham.  He was a descendant of Arphaxad "Arpachshad" who was the grandson of Noah. .   Nahor was Terah's father and Terah was the father of Abraham.

Jochebed carried a special mtDNA that was inherited by Moses and Aaron who carried the Ydna of their father, Amram as well.  Amram's Ydna was the very same haplogroup as Levi's DNA.  Jochebed was married to Amram who was also his aunt.  She had been the daughter of Levi, just like he was. She would have the same mtdna as her mother, Milkah.   According to Chabad, Jochebed was born 2,238 years after the Creation just when Jacob and his household of 70 people entered Egypt because of the famine.  She was the youngest of the 70.

Jochebed  must have had one of 7 possible haplotypes for mt DNA.  Bryan Sykes had identified only 7 types, which he called the 7 daughters of Eve.  The copyright of his book by the same name was in 2001, and since then a few more have been found.  Mt dna does not change very much and can stay the same for about a  thousand years.

*My first thought is that Jochebed could have been of the J, J1 or J2 which originated about 45,000 years ago in central Asia and is associated with the spread of farming and herding in Europe during the Neolithic Period beginning 10,000 years ago.  Moses lived from about 1391 to 1271 BCE, so his mother was born about 1,410 BCE.  These haplogroups are common in the Near East, , Europe, the Caucasus, North Africa and the Middle East and among Jews.  J2 is more localized in the Mediterranean.  Sykes calls J's "Jasmine."  He places her about a mile from the River Euphrates in today's Syria when the ice age had ended.  Because food could now be produced and the landscape was under human control, the population increased relentlessly.  Of course it was a famine that drove Jacob's children into Egypt where they stayed for 400 years.  When they left, their count had gone from 70 to 600,000.  They had this same population to intermarry with for the 400 years.

It could also have been haplogroup I.  This started some 30,000 years ago in Eurasia and found in Egypt and Arabia as well as southern Europe.  The handmaids, Zilpah and Bilhah could have been of this group.

A 3rd possiblity could have been K.  This is a subbranch of U that appeared in the early part of the Holocene Epoch after the last glacial maximum.  About 1/3 of people with Ashkenazi ancestry carry a subclade of this K haplogroup.  Sykes named K's Katrine, who is more centered in Italy.

One more that can't be overlooked after 400 years of living in Egypt is N haplogroup together with M make up 2 superhaplogroups.  N is the daughter of one of the NE African lineages thought to have originated in Africa some 60,000 years ago.  It's common in the Middle East.  N1b is also found in the Near East, Egypt and Arabia and radiated around 39,000 to 52,000 years ago.  Sykes other daughters, H (Helena) , J (Jasmine) , T (Tara)  and U (Ursula)  come out of this line.

References: Abraham's Children race, identity, and the DNA of the Chosen People by Jon Entine
The Seven Daughters of Eve, the sicence that rteveals our genetic ancestry by Bryan Sykes
The Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Tanakh, The Stone Edition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jochebed
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/112040/jewish/Jochebed.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethuel
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3227-bethuel
http://www.mts.net/~arphaxad/arphaxad.html
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/9568-laban
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_names_for_the_biblical_nameless  TERRIFIC WEBSITE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh

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