How Africa's Original Resurrection Story Became Christianity's Holiest Celebration
The African Astronomical System That Birthed Christianity
Anthony Browder
Apr 23, 2025
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The Bible contains truth, but the Bible is not true.
This powerful insight—first shared with me by Baba Derrick Jackson, Chief Priest and Thought Leader of KRST Universal Temple—changed my understanding of Christianity forever. KRST is an ancient title given to someone who has attained spiritual enlightenment. It is a title not a name. KRST is an African word and is the origin of the word “Christ.”When something contains truth but isn't true itself, we must approach it with both respect and critical analysis.
Easter presents the perfect opportunity to examine how ancient African spiritual wisdom was transformed into modern Christian practices.
The Distinction Between Truth and Fact
Universal truth transcends time and location.If I plant an apple seed anywhere on Earth, I get apples—that's truth. But what's "true" is relative to specific circumstances and cultural contexts. What happens in Washington DC doesn't necessarily translate to South Carolina or New York.
The Bible is filled with myths that weren't meant to be taken literally.
When we interpret these myths literally rather than symbolically, we miss their deeper meaning.
To understand these deeper meanings, we must first understand how the Bible itself came to be.
How the Bible Was Constructed
Most Christians don't realize the Bible isn't a single book but a carefully curated collection:- Originally contained 72 books in the Catholic tradition
- Was reduced to 66 books under King James (note the symbolism: 6 and 6)
- Written by various authors over a period of 2,000 years
These texts were selected through at least 18 ecumenical councils where human beings—not divine intervention—made decisions about what to include and exclude. The first six councils, occurring between 325 AD and 620 AD, established Christianity's foundation and basic structure.
The version most Americans know comes from decisions made by people with specific agendas.
These editorial decisions created a critical distinction that Dr. John Henrik Clark often emphasized between the religion itself and its institutional power.
Christianity vs. Christendom
Dr. John Henrik Clark masterfully explained the difference between:- Christianity: a religion centered on Jesus Christ's life, teachings, death, and resurrection
- Christendom: the impact of Christianity on society, culture, and political structures
These African origins were deliberately obscured through a strategic political process that began in the 4th century.
Africa's Lost Connection to Early Christianity
The Christianity practiced today bears little resemblance to its African origins.In 325 AD at the Council of Nicaea, Constantine strategically moved Christianity's power center from Africa to Asia and Europe. He deliberately held this pivotal meeting in Nicaea—a small town in Turkey—because hosting it in Rome itself would have deterred attendance.
The most powerful faith leaders of that time came from Africa.
Constantine's goal was to appropriate this spiritual power and redirect it toward Asian and European control. From that moment forward, Christianity fundamentally changed from what Africans were originally practicing.
This systematic appropriation of African spiritual concepts continued through aggressive efforts to erase their source.
The Systematic Erasure of Ancient Knowledge
The suppression of African spiritual wisdom didn't stop with Constantine.In 350 AD, Roman Emperor Theodosius I banned the writing of hieroglyphics (Medu Netcher, the "divine words"). This deliberate act of cultural suppression targeted the very language that preserved the spiritual concepts Christianity had borrowed from.
Why would a Christian ruler ban hieroglyphics?
Because the walls of temples throughout Kemet (Egypt) contained the original spiritual concepts that Christianity had appropriated.
These inscriptions revealed that Christianity's core ideas:
- Resurrection
- Virgin birth
- Divine trinity
In 550 AD, the Roman Emperor Justinian closed Phile (the last temple in Egypt) and the ability to read hieroglyphs and ancient sacred texts was lost for 1,300 years.
It wasn't until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799 and its decipherment by Champollion in 1822 that humans could once again read the hieroglyphic language.
Once European scholars could began deciphering these texts, they discovered something shocking:
The biblical narratives were preceded by almost identical stories written on temple walls thousands of years earlier. This revelation threatened the claimed originality and divinity of Christianity.
The response?
A concerted effort to separate Egypt from Africa—to whitewash this ancient African civilization and dismiss its profound spiritual contributions to human consciousness.
Fortunately, several courageous scholars have worked to reveal these connections through meticulous research and analysis.
Three Essential Books That Unveil Biblical Origins
For decades, I've studied texts that reveal the true origins of biblical stories.These three transformative books should be required reading for anyone seeking to understand Christianity's African roots:
The Moses Mystery by Gary Greenberg
This archaeological investigation reveals striking contradictions between biblical narratives and historical reality.
Greenberg meticulously documents how biblical stories differ from historical facts. For example, in Genesis 13:1-3, Abraham allegedly "went up out of Egypt... into the south" on his journey to Canaan. Yet geographically, this is impossible—you cannot travel south from Egypt to reach Canaan. The biblical account contradicts basic geography, suggesting these stories were compiled by people unfamiliar with the actual locations.
Greenberg later wrote "101 Bible Myths". In this more accessible version, he brilliantly organizes the information into a myth v reality format:
- The "Myth" column presents a verse from the Old Testament
- The "Reality" column reveals its historical truth and origins
The book systematically analyzes the discrepancies and demonstrates how biblical stories were adapted from earlier Egyptian narratives.
Who Is This King of Glory? by Alvin Boyd Kuhn
This masterpiece, written in 1943, explains how the discovery of the Rosetta Stone challenged historical Christianity.
When the Rosetta Stone was unearthed in 1799, it unleashed "the voice of a long voiceless past to refute nearly every one of Christianity's historical claims with a withering negative."
The decipherment of hieroglyphics in 1822 revealed that Egyptian texts predated and directly informed biblical stories.
Kuhn demonstrates that the Christ figure was not intended to be a historical person but a symbolic representation of divine consciousness—a concept taken directly from the Nile Valley Ausarian drama.
This spiritual principle taught that any human could achieve Christ-like consciousness through inner transformation.
The Mind of Egypt by Jan Assmann
This profound work helped prepare me emotionally and intellectually for my 15-year journey excavating 25th Dynasty tombs.
Assmann reveals how the 25th Dynasty kings, particularly Shabaka and Taharka, initiated "the first documented Renaissance" by reaching back 2,000 years to revive the best of Old Kingdom architecture, art, and spiritual practices.
This period represents what Dr. John Henrik Clark called "Africa's last great walk in the sun"—the final era when African people were the most powerful humans on the planet.
What's striking is that Taharka, who controlled an empire stretching from South Sudan to Syria, is the only African king of Kemet mentioned by name in the Bible (in 2 Kings 19:19 and Isaiah 37:9).
He's remembered for rescuing Israel from its enemies—a historical fact conveniently omitted in most religious discussions.
These scholarly works illuminate what lies at the heart of our most sacred holidays: ancient astronomical observations that were transformed into religious narratives.
The Astronomical Origins of Christmas and Easter
We know precisely when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated: April 4th, 1968.We know exactly when Malcolm X was killed: February 21st, 1965.
So why don't we know the exact date Jesus died and was resurrected?
The answer reveals the astronomical origins of Easter.
This is not an arbitrary date but a precise astronomical event that was later mythologized into a religious narrative.
To fully grasp this celestial connection, we must understand how our ancestors viewed their relationship with the cosmos.
Cosmic Connections in Ancient African Spirituality
To understand the true meaning of Christmas and Easter, we must grasp two fundamental concepts:- Cosmology: The philosophical understanding of the universe
- Cosmogony: The physical structure and properties of the universe
To understand ourselves and the creator, we must first understand nature and the universe.
Christmas: The Winter Solstice
My watershed moment came in 1979 when I read John Jackson's masterpiece "Introduction to African Civilization."
Jackson broke down Christmas as an astro-theological event:
- During the winter solstice (around December 21-22), the sun appears to stand still for approximately four days. The daylight hours neither increase nor decrease during this period.
- Then, on the fifth day (December 25th), the length of daylight begins to increase by one minute per day.
- Ancient astronomers interpreted this as the "birth" or "rebirth" of the sun on December 25th.
The constellation Virgo (the Virgin) rises partially above the horizon during this time, bisected by the horizon line
Thus, it was said in astronomical terms that "the sun was born of a virgin"
These celestial observations from over 4,000 years ago—2,000 years before the birth of Christ—were later codified into religious narratives that people took literally.
Easter: The Spring Equinox
Easter follows the same astronomical pattern.It's always:
- The first Sunday
- After the first full moon
- After the spring equinox
This formula explains why Easter moves each year.
If Easter truly commemorated a historical event, we would celebrate it on a fixed date like we do other historical occasions.
Both Christmas and Easter reveal the same pattern: astronomical events in the heavens being encoded into symbolic narratives that were later taken literally, disconnected from their celestial origins.
These astronomical observations were part of a sophisticated spiritual system that placed the divine feminine at its center, something our modern religions have largely erased.
The Divine Feminine in African Cosmology
The Africa Eyes Mural in the Clark Enhanced History Project begins with Ma'at—the female representation of cosmic order.
Ma'at appears with wings, representing the first artistic depiction of what would later be called "angels" in Abrahamic traditions.
This feminine divine energy preceded the masculine focus of later religions.
The Sacred Symbolism of 42
The number 42 holds profound significance in African cosmology.While excavating the 25th Dynasty tomb of Karakhamun on the West Bank of Luxor, Egypt, I witnessed a Spanish Egyptologist counting references to dismembered parts of Ausar's (Osiris's) body. Most people are familiar with Plutarch's version that Ausar's body was cut into 14 pieces, with Aset (Isis) finding 13 of the 14 parts.
But the original African story is far more profound.
In the authentic Kemetic tradition, Ausar's body was divided into 42 pieces—not 14.
Why 42?
- There were 42 nomes (states) in ancient Kemet
- There were 42 principles (laws) of Ma'at
- The number 42 represented completeness and cosmic order
Each piece of his body corresponded to a region of the land, creating a powerful metaphor of national and spiritual wholeness.
Christianity adopted this resurrection story but removed its cosmic and national significance, reducing it to the story of a single man rather than a profound metaphor for collective spiritual transformation.
Nut and the Celestial Womb
In African cosmology, the goddess Nut represents the Milky Way galaxy.
Each day:
- She swallows the sun when it sets in the west
- The sun travels through her body during the night
- At dawn, the sun emerges from her womb
Modern religions have inverted this relationship, diminishing the feminine principle that was central to African spirituality.
During my excavation work, I learned that Nut doesn't merely represent "the sky" in general. She specifically represents the Milky Way galaxy—our cosmic home. Time-lapse photography in the Egyptian desert reveals how the Milky Way spans from horizon to horizon, forming what our ancestors called "the river in the sky."
We've become fixated on the male principle of creation while ignoring the feminine which gave birth to it.
Imagine how different our world would be if we understood the significance of the feminine expression of creation.
This profound feminine wisdom reflects a creation narrative far older than the Genesis story most people know today.
The Creation Story You Never Heard
The ancient African creation narrative states:This creation account preceded the Genesis story by thousands of years.
Yet most people never learn this original narrative, despite its profound spiritual wisdom.
At the heart of this ancient wisdom was something rarely emphasized in modern religious practice: profound gratitude for existence itself.
African Spirituality Was Built on Gratitude
I've spent a lifetime studying ancient African spiritual systems and their modern applications.What strikes me most is that ancient Kemetic (Egyptian) culture was fundamentally built on gratitude, not fear. The monuments weren't constructed to appease vengeful gods but to express profound appreciation for existence itself.
When you examine the magnificent temples along the Nile, you're witnessing a people saying: "Thank you, Divine Creator, for all you have done for our existence."
This spirit of gratitude offers us a pathway back to our spiritual roots—a way to reclaim the wisdom that has been hidden from us for too long.
Reconnecting With Our Spiritual Heritage
I invite you to look beyond the surface narratives.The resurrection story contains powerful symbolic truth about spiritual rebirth and renewal. But we must recognize that these concepts originated in Africa thousands of years before Christianity existed.
Reclaiming this knowledge isn't about rejecting spirituality—it's about deepening it. When we understand the astronomical, symbolic, and African origins of Easter, we connect with a more profound understanding of our place in the cosmos.
Freedom isn't free. We must become masters of our own destiny rather than servants to someone else's interpretation of truth.
Know yourself. Love yourself. Free your mind.
Then free the minds of those you love.
Thank you for reading
Anthony T. Browder
Founder of IKG Cultural Resource Center
PS.
If you liked this newsletter and want to find out more about the subjects covered in this newsletter, check out my book Nile Valley Contributions to Civilization and my webinar Nile Valley Origins of Christianity
Also:
- Join me on my field Trips in Washington DC: Egypt on the Potomac
- And (if you haven't already), check out the online Clarke Enhance History Project
