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Post by zain on Jun 28, 2004 21:18:15 GMT -5
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Post by zain on Jun 28, 2004 22:41:16 GMT -5
cc.usu.edu/~fath6/patriarchs.htmThe South Arabic Connection It may well be that the story of Abraham's wanderings out of northeastern Mesopotamia was taken into the Bible from the South Arabic language of those Bedouin-like peoples who maintained the wandering Hebrew lifestyle even after the Israelites had settled down as farmers in Palestine. The evidence that suggests this possibility is the fact that in South Arabic, the name Abraham is spelled 'brhm (where the letter h indicates a vowel). The South Arabic pronunciation of the name is Abram, the name by which Abraham was originally called, but which later Hebrew readers mistakenly interpreted as Abraham, thinking the h to have been a consonant. Similarly, the South Arabic spelling of Sarah is Sarai, the name by which she is first called in the biblical story, and South Arabic -ai is simply the spelling of the feminine suffix that is pronounced the same as the Hebrew feminine suffix -ah. If South Arabic is the source of the Abraham tradition, then we have both an explanation for the supposed change of the names Abram and Sarai to Abraham and Sarah and an explanation of why the etymologies of the names given in the Bible seem to be incorrect. In Western Semitic languages such as Hebrew, the name Abram (or Abi-ram) means 'the (divine) Father is high', but the name Abraham does not mean, as the Bible asserts, 'father of a multitude of nations', which would be redered as Ab-hamon, not Abraham. The etymologies, in other words, are simply folk interpretations of an earlier nonHebrew name taken over into the Bible from the South Arabic language. __________________________________ notes : There is a new theory about of the bible came from Arabia home-3.tiscali.nl/~meester7/engarabia.html
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Post by Melnorme on Jun 28, 2004 22:49:01 GMT -5
Interesting.
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Post by Graeme on Jun 29, 2004 10:38:36 GMT -5
I am not a believer of any book. My view of Abraham/Abram/Ibrihim is that he is an eponymous male ancestor of the Semitic speaking people and common to all. All people have or had stories explaining their origins and where they came from if it was different from where they happen to be. The Australian Aborigines have their Dreamtime stories of how the earth was made and the ancestor spirits. Does it mean it is true? Well it is up to you what you believe.
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Post by Aria88 on Jun 29, 2004 22:16:16 GMT -5
I've told y'all before; the Old Testament is the product of the Demiurge, the Evil God.  At least the Manichaeans knew it was all filth. Yes, and a multitude of other wonderful things came from Arabia, such as... (I'm thinking...) I'm still thinking... Thinking... I'll get back to y'all later. |
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Post by One Humanity on Jun 29, 2004 23:21:16 GMT -5
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Post by Graeme on Jun 30, 2004 9:23:52 GMT -5
Isn't Hammurabis Code better? And he was a Semite. And his code was not religious or tied to any God.
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Post by Aria88 on Jun 30, 2004 21:11:40 GMT -5
Yes, the Semites of Mesopotamia (Akkadians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, etc.) were highly civilized, as opposed to those from the desert.
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Post by zain on Jul 2, 2004 0:49:53 GMT -5
I am not a believer of any book. My view of Abraham/Abram/Ibrihim is that he is an eponymous male ancestor of the Semitic speaking people and common to all. All people have or had stories explaining their origins and where they came from if it was different from where they happen to be. The Australian Aborigines have their Dreamtime stories of how the earth was made and the ancestor spirits. Does it mean it is true? Well it is up to you what you believe. interesting the founder of my own tribe suppose to come from Iraq also (in the last thousand years ) after a long searching i made (mostly by the internet using the early Moslem books and the pre-Islamic record ) i found out it was a myth ,and i found out we have been in the same region (as bedouin )for at least 15 century and i know how that myth of Iraq evolve.. until today some tribes in Arabian desert have story for their founder i think most of their clams are myths ,however some of their clam might be true. same thing for Abraham origins it might be a myth ,but maybe it is true or at least some of it ,or at least it represent something that was true .myth does not come out of nothing |
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Post by zain on Jul 2, 2004 1:08:10 GMT -5
I've told y'all before; the Old Testament is the product of the Demiurge, the Evil God. At least the Manichaeans knew it was all filth. Yes, and a multitude of other wonderful things came from Arabia, such as... (I'm thinking...) I'm still thinking... Thinking... I'll get back to y'all later. don’t think to much, and there is nothing wrong with it,the sematic in Arabian desert were the least civilized . but look! in India if a man die ,his wife has to follow him(i.e to kill herself)and they are suppose to be more civilized than the Semitic bedouins !!!. nomadic -Semitic (the bedouins) might have a harsh laws and banishments ,but it is only harsh for those who violate the laws, (so it is their mistake to began with)like an eye for an eye. According to some anthropologist , in general any nomadic invitation with ideology (religions) tend to be more tolerance than that of non-nomadic nations ,because nomadic-bedouin are less influence by ideology and more interested in economic benefit ,they might fight for taxation ,but not for imposing their ideology .so there are many positive thing can come out of those nomadic .however i don’t expect them to cultivate the desert and built houses out of the sand . |
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Post by Graeme on Jul 2, 2004 12:41:24 GMT -5
I do not want to belittle anyone's religious beliefs whatever they are. What I find annoying is the way Chrisitians in particular go out of their way to try to prove the bible as some sort of book of facts of the ancient world. Everything I have read on Israeli archaeology shows that no proof of Solomon or David have been found. Towns such as Jericho were already in ruin long before the Hebrews entered Palestine. Embroidering fact with fiction has been an ancient pastime and incorporated into the bible. But accepting the old testament is not conditional to being a christian and christians can and often ignore it except as fables. Because Plato wrote about Atlantis some people want to believe in it. Some Maltese people think Atlantis was Malta! Even the story about St. Pauls shipwreck on Malta and the conversion of the people to christianity is unproven. But the bible says it is so, thus it must be right.
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Post by nevada85 on Jul 6, 2004 17:41:18 GMT -5
none of the semites didnt originate in the arabian desert in the first place, they all migrated southwards passing via mesopothamia.
abraham's story is pretty confusing and contradictory, he is supposed to have lived till the age of 900 and supposedly should have came from harran(southeast turkey) and chaldea(near basra) at the same time while also settling in nile delta. his grave is supposed to be in the ancient arabian city of eintab(antep-turkey) and also in a couple of other places.
so bible shouldnt be quoted concerning the migration routes and the emergence of the semitic speaking peoples.
i wont agree that semites of the arabian peninsula arent civilised, i do agree that once nomadic arabs or hebrews whatever were savage and violent, but altough im not politically a big fan of islam its non arguably one of the most complex civilisations ever created. it might be argued if monotheism did good or bad but definitely it had a giant magnitude when faced the fact more than a billion people worldwide are named after a few leaders of a small nomadic tribe aka hebrews.
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Post by Melnorme on Jul 6, 2004 18:03:08 GMT -5
Ur :  |
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Post by Kukul-Kan on Jul 10, 2004 19:34:30 GMT -5
Isn't Hammurabis Code better? And he was a Semite. And his code was not religious or tied to any God. Well The Code of Hammurabi didn’t favor equality in society as its laws explicitly protected the rich. From the Code itself: 202. If any one strike the body of a man higher in rank than he, he shall receive sixty blows with an ox-whip in public. 203. If a free-born man strike the body of another free-born man or equal rank, he shall pay one gold mina. 204. If a freed man strike the body of another freed man, he shall pay ten shekels in money. 205. If the slave of a freed man strike the body of a freed man, his ear shall be cut off. www.sacred-texts.com/ane/ham/index.htm |
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At least the Manichaeans knew it was all filth.