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Publishers Weekly notes that in The Face of God: What Enoch Saw in Heaven, "Kakembo examines the biggest of questions: How did we actually get here and why, and what or who was responsible?” Kakembo seeks answers scientifically, as religion often attributes life’s origins and our purpose to its own creators. Today, modern technology enables us to look beyond our galaxy and all the way to the edge of the universe. But we do not find a creator in it, making the existence of such a being questionable, quashing our hopes of finding the reason we are here. Science has its own view on how the universe came about and stars and galaxies formed. It also investigates the origins of life and how evolution shaped it into the milliards of life forms we see today.

Going by work from archeology and DNA analysis, The Face of God tracks our ancestors’ footsteps as they left Africa to claim the “four corners” of the world by right of “finder’s keepers.” Then, it examines the cradle of civilization and the source of writing. The latter would be central to the building of nations and empires. A deep dive into the background of preeminent scholars, historians, and theologians offers insight into the formation of organized religion from its humble shamanic beginnings to the present. Why are we religious? The book finds that an instinct for belief in supernatural powers, superstitions, and stories such as Enoch isn’t the only reason behind religion's staying power. Many studies show that belief has benefits that promote survival. Overshadowed by the faith instinct and intertwined with our evolutionary purpose to reproduce and embedded in love, the author finds and teases out the true meaning of life.

The Face of God is well sourced for enquiring minds as well as healthcare providers investigating the effect of spirituality on behavior and health when managing mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression. The book encourages readers to aspire toward attaining fulfillment, thus helping to improve their quality of life. Kakembo, then, proposes means by which people could come to terms with nature and live in harmony with it and in peace with one another by embracing spiritual practices such as meditation. Readers should become more interested in tracing their ancestries back some generations through DNA testing and thus grow the family tree. However, setting aside brain imaging or donning an electromagnetic hat, readers may be shocked to learn that they're divine, particularly since Adam, our biblical ancestor, was the son of God (Lk 3:38) and that the Kingdom of God is inside of us (Lk 17:21). In a nutshell, we are The Face of God.

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WAS MOSES MYTH?

Did the Exodus take place?

Moses didn’t write the Torah as is reported. God only gave him the Ten Commandments. Deuteronomy 34:1 says, “Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses….” But Moses being the first prophet, he couldn’t have written this, as he had died before the book recorded it. Moses died before the Israelites reached the promised land, so before there were other prophets. He also lived centuries before the time of the Edomite kings listed in Genesis, and they couldn’t have denied him passage through their kingdom during the exodus. Sites like Kadesh Barnea, Heshbon, and Gibeon mentioned in Exodus weren’t even occupied at the time. Also, laws credited to Moses were similar to the seventeenth century BCE Babylonian Code of Hammurabi and others. In turn, the code was likely based on the Egyptian 147 Negative Confessions from the book of the dead.

Moses’ story, too, of floating down the River Nile in a basket is similar to that of Sargon of Akkad, a third millennium BCE Mesopotamian king. Moreover, what happened on Mount Sinai (if you can find it) was a copycat. Laws of the Greek mythological god Bacchus, called “the Lawgiver,” were written on two tablets of stone. And one day as the Persian prophet Zoroaster prayed on a high mountain, the Lord appeared before him and handed him the “Book of Law.” Zoroaster brought the book to the King and people at the foot of the mountain. The Persians could have introduced this story when imposing The Law on the Jews after they returned from their Babylonian exile.

Were Moses, Abraham, and Noah humans like us? One could hardly live 120 years with semblance of a sound mind as Moses did, but Abraham’s sojourn of 175 years is a stretch, and Noah’s 950 years a fantasy. None of the tens of thousands of cuneiform tablets from the archives of the ancient city of Mari specifically refers to Abraham either. Failing to find evidence for these figures, or the Exodus—the Egyptians have no records of it—John Loftus, a former preacher, wrote in Why I Became an Atheist, that Jewish history “…rested on myths, legends, and superstitions.”

Because Bible events tally poorly with history, Joseph’s Egyptian stay, the Exodus, and accounts revolving around figures like Abraham and Jacob, were most likely based on earlier Canaanite traditions and written late, according to archeologist Donald Redford. For instance, when Joshua supposedly conquered the Canaanite cities in 1407 BCE, the area was under constant Egyptian rule. Also, cities like Jericho, unoccupied since 1550 BCE, had no sky-high walls, if any. Moreover, even if there had been walls, Joshua would have torn them down before the time of Moses and the Exodus, dated to the thirteenth century during Ramses II’s reign. The Israelites do not mention the Egyptians, as Israel wasn’t a nation yet. Like resettled Jericho, cities that fell did so to the Sea Peoples. And since Pithom was a fort built by Pharaoh Necho around 608 BCE, and Ramses, a city constructed by Ramses II in the 1,200s BCE on top of Avaris, the main center of the Hyksos until 1,550 BCE, Moses couldn’t have existed before the third century BCE, when the Egyptians invented him and gave him an Egyptian name. Ex 1:11.

CHRIST BEFORE JESUS

“Christ before Jesus” is a revealing book by Mathew Britt and Jaaron Wingo that takes a deep dive into ancient texts to search for the history of Christianity through computerized stylometric analysis. It supports the authors’ hypothesis that the name Jesus was not used for Christ before the second century CE. Instead, Jesus was called Christ, or Messiah, meaning anointed with oil. But many other deities from the Mediterranean area to the Indian subcontinent were also addressed by the same title, Christ.

Around the first century, Rome worshiped many gods. These included emperors. However, Jewish extremists’ sects like the Sicarii in Judea refused to go along since they believed in one God. They were waiting for a Messiah the Old Testament had prophesied would come to liberate them from foreign oppressive rule. Rome, then, tried to trick them into believing that the Messiah had come back as promised in the form of Flavius Titus, the son of man, or the god emperor Flavius Vespasian.

Flavius Josephus, who was adopted by the Flavians helped the Romans with the con following the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE. He said that the war fulfilled Jesus’ prophesy from 40 years earlier and he declared Titus the Messiah returned and he should be worshipped.

Josephus effectively crafted the first gospel (meaning good news from the war front). It contained many narratives found in his book, ‘The Jewish War.’ It’s what Britt and Wingo called Proto-Mark and it became the launching pad for the other three synoptic books, into which it was expanded liberally by adding new stories to create a historical early first century Jesus, as the book argues. Modern scholars have long sought such a “Source,” Quelle or Q the other gospels appear to have copied.

The authors convincingly support their hypothesis that the name Christ was used centuries before Jesus, for instance in Egypt by Pythagorean followers, the Therapeutae, and the worshippers of Serapis.

“Christ Before Jesus” is an evidence-based history of Christianity with transparency. It contributes toward solving of the puzzle of the Synoptics’ source Q, and shines a light on the meaning of “the son of man.” Only Josephus would have addressed Jesus in the gospels this way.

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