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Theme Changer

 Topic: Bible Help Please!

 (Read 5383 times)
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  • Bible Help Please!
     OP - September 28, 2014, 03:19 PM

    The Qur'an mentions the time when Moses called the bani-Israel to go into the Holy Land, but they said there were "giants" in that land and so they said to Moses - You go and fight them with your God.

    The word the Qur'an uses is Jabbar (جبار) for giant and classic tafseers generally make this explicit by using the word giants عماليق in their tafseers.

    Of course modern Muslims squirm at this sort of stuff and so most modern Muslims translate it as big and strong, tyrants, arrogant etc...

    I was just wondering what the Bible said and is there a similar effort to change it's meaning in the Bible too?
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #1 - September 28, 2014, 03:20 PM

    Oh the verses are these:

    "O my people! Go into the holy land which Allah hath ordained for you. Turn not in flight, for surely ye turn back as losers. They said: O Moses! Lo! a giant people (dwell) therein and lo! we go not in till they go forth from thence. When they go forth from thence, then we will enter (not till then).

    Then out spake two of those who feared (their Lord, men) unto whom Allah had been gracious: Enter in upon them by the gate, for if ye enter by it, lo! ye will be victorious. So put your trust (in Allah) if ye are indeed believers. They said: O Moses! We will never enter (the land) while they are in it. So go thou and thy Lord and fight! We will sit here." (5:21-24)
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #2 - September 28, 2014, 04:21 PM

    There was something like that. However, the later books and verses make it clear that the scouts were exaggerating. I can't remember the specific verses, though.
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #3 - September 28, 2014, 04:42 PM

    Nothing to do with that fictional figure Moses but using a creationist timeline several thousand years before possibly the time of that other mythical figure Noah, but possibly soon after those other mythical figures Adam and Eve!

    Quote
    Giants in the Land
    6 1-2 When the human race began to increase, with more and more daughters being born, the sons of God noticed that the daughters of men were beautiful. They looked them over and picked out wives for themselves.

    3 Then God said, “I’m not going to breathe life into men and women endlessly. Eventually they’re going to die; from now on they can expect a life span of 120 years.”

    4 This was back in the days (and also later) when there were giants in the land. The giants came from the union of the sons of God and the daughters of men. These were the mighty men of ancient lore, the famous ones.

    Noah and His Sons
    5-7 God saw that human evil was out of control. People thought evil, imagined evil—evil, evil, evil from morning to night. God was sorry that he had made the human race in the first place; it broke his heart. God said, “I’ll get rid of my ruined creation, make a clean sweep: people, animals, snakes and bugs, birds—the works. I’m sorry I made them.”

    8 But Noah was different. God liked what he saw in Noah.

    9-10 This is the story of Noah: Noah was a good man, a man of integrity in his community. Noah walked with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

    11-12 As far as God was concerned, the Earth had become a sewer; there was violence everywhere. God took one look and saw how bad it was, everyone corrupt and corrupting—life itself corrupt to the core.

    13 God said to Noah, “It’s all over. It’s the end of the human race. The violence is everywhere; I’m making a clean sweep.

    14-16 “Build yourself a ship from teakwood. Make rooms in it. Coat it with pitch inside and out. Make it 450 feet long, seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet high. Build a roof for it and put in a window eighteen inches from the top; put in a door on the side of the ship; and make three decks, lower, middle, and upper.

    17 “I’m going to bring a flood on the Earth that will destroy everything alive under Heaven. Total destruction.

    18-21 “But I’m going to establish a covenant with you: You’ll board the ship, and your sons, your wife and your sons’ wives will come on board with you. You are also to take two of each living creature, a male and a female, on board the ship, to preserve their lives with you: two of every species of bird, mammal, and reptile—two of everything so as to preserve their lives along with yours. Also get all the food you’ll need and store it up for you and them.”

    22 Noah did everything God commanded him to do.

    7 Next God said to Noah, “Now board the ship, you and all your family—out of everyone in this generation, you’re the righteous one.

    2-4 “Take on board with you seven pairs of every clean animal, a male and a female; one pair of every unclean animal, a male and a female; and seven pairs of every kind of bird, a male and a female, to insure their survival on Earth. In just seven days I will dump rain on Earth for forty days and forty nights. I’ll make a clean sweep of everything that I’ve made.”

    5 Noah did everything God commanded him.

    6-10 Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters covered the Earth. Noah and his wife and sons and their wives boarded the ship to escape the flood. Clean and unclean animals, birds, and all the crawling creatures came in pairs to Noah and to the ship, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah. In seven days the floodwaters came.

    11-12 It was the six-hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month that it happened: all the underground springs erupted and all the windows of Heaven were thrown open. Rain poured for forty days and forty nights.

    13-16 That’s the day Noah and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, accompanied by his wife and his sons’ wives, boarded the ship. And with them every kind of wild and domestic animal, right down to all the kinds of creatures that crawl and all kinds of birds and anything that flies. They came to Noah and to the ship in pairs—everything and anything that had the breath of life in it, male and female of every creature came just as God had commanded Noah. Then God shut the door behind him.

    17-23 The flood continued forty days and the waters rose and lifted the ship high over the Earth. The waters kept rising, the flood deepened on the Earth, the ship floated on the surface. The flood got worse until all the highest mountains were covered—the high-water mark reached twenty feet above the crest of the mountains. Everything died. Anything that moved—dead. Birds, farm animals, wild animals, the entire teeming exuberance of life—dead. And all people—dead. Every living, breathing creature that lived on dry land died; he wiped out the whole works—people and animals, crawling creatures and flying birds, every last one of them, gone. Only Noah and his company on the ship lived.

    24 The floodwaters took over for 150 days.

    8 1-3 Then God turned his attention to Noah and all the wild animals and farm animals with him on the ship. God caused the wind to blow and the floodwaters began to go down. The underground springs were shut off, the windows of Heaven closed and the rain quit. Inch by inch the water lowered. After 150 days the worst was over.

    4-6 On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ship landed on the Ararat mountain range. The water kept going down until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains came into view. After forty days Noah opened the window that he had built into the ship.

    7-9 He sent out a raven; it flew back and forth waiting for the floodwaters to dry up. Then he sent a dove to check on the flood conditions, but it couldn’t even find a place to perch—water still covered the Earth. Noah reached out and caught it, brought it back into the ship.

    10-11 He waited seven more days and sent out the dove again. It came back in the evening with a freshly picked olive leaf in its beak. Noah knew that the flood was about finished.

    12 He waited another seven days and sent the dove out a third time. This time it didn’t come back.

    13-14 In the six-hundred-first year of Noah’s life, on the first day of the first month, the flood had dried up. Noah opened the hatch of the ship and saw dry ground. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the Earth was completely dry.

    15-17 God spoke to Noah: “Leave the ship, you and your wife and your sons and your sons’ wives. And take all the animals with you, the whole menagerie of birds and mammals and crawling creatures, all that brimming prodigality of life, so they can reproduce and flourish on the Earth.”

    18-19 Noah disembarked with his sons and wife and his sons’ wives. Then all the animals, crawling creatures, birds—every creature on the face of the Earth—left the ship family by family.

    20-21 Noah built an altar to God. He selected clean animals and birds from every species and offered them as burnt offerings on the altar. God smelled the sweet fragrance and thought to himself, “I’ll never again curse the ground because of people. I know they have this bent toward evil from an early age, but I’ll never again kill off everything living as I’ve just done.

    22 For as long as Earth lasts,
            planting and harvest, cold and heat,
        Summer and winter, day and night
            will never stop.”

     


    The above is a paraphrase - not a translation.

    Does the koran muddle stories?  Couldn't Allah remember them?  

    Other possibilities are Samson or David and Goliath - neither anywhere near Moses!

    https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+6-8&version=MSG

    When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.


    A.A. Milne,

    "We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #4 - September 28, 2014, 04:53 PM

    I think these are the relevant verses about Moses leading the Bani Israel into the Promised Land. (I can't help wondering why God didn't promise them a land that wasn't already inhabited. It's a bit like pointing to a house and saying, "That shall be your new house!" when there are people living in it already. But hey ho, God's such a joker  grin12)

    Numbers 13:30-33King James Version (KJV)

    30 And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.

    31 But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.

    32 And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature.

    33 And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #5 - September 28, 2014, 05:01 PM

    Strange how the archaeology shows there never was an invasion of the Israelites from Egypt!  What happened is that you have various tribes living in the same area for centuries, some of whose rubbish areas never have pig bones in them!

    I think the stories of giants, Samson, Goliath, Anak, trace back to the Nephilim, which probably have Greek and Babylonian roots.

    When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.


    A.A. Milne,

    "We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #6 - September 28, 2014, 05:05 PM

    Quote
    THE GIGANTES were a tribe of one hundred Giants born of Gaia the Earth. Some say their father was Tartaros the hell pit, others that they were born from the blood of the castrated Ouranos (Heaven).

    At the instigation of Gaia they made war on the gods but were destroyed in the ensuing battle with the help of Herakles. The most famous of the combatants were Enkelados who was burried beneath the island of Sicily by Athena, Polybotes who was crushed beneath the rock of Nisyros by Poseidon, and Porphyrion who was slain by Zeus and Herakles when he attempted to violate Hera.

    The Gigantes were depicted as either hoplite warriors dressed in armour and wielding spears or as primitives wearing panther skins armed with rocks and flaming torches. In sculpture and mosaic they were usually shown with the tails of serpents for legs.
    The Gigantes might have represented the primitive northern tribes of Thrake, whose barbarian culture was viewed as standing in opposition to Greek civilisation. Some say the Thrakian tribes were born from the blood or ashes of the vanquished Giants.

    In Italy the turning of these buried giants was believed to be the cause of volcanism and thermal activity, from the thermal plains of Campania, to the volcanoes of Etna and Vesuvius.



    http://www.theoi.com/Gigante/Gigantes.html

    Nothing like some great stories!  You know Achilles and his male lover Patroclus were trained by Chiron, half horse, half man?

    When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.


    A.A. Milne,

    "We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #7 - September 28, 2014, 05:09 PM

    Quote
    Like the Norse, the Babylonians had a kind of gory creation story. The Babylonian creation myth is called the Enuma Elish, and it's found on seven clay tablets. In this myth, the sky god Marduk kills the earth goddess Tiamat. He splits her body in two and uses half to create the earth, and the other half to create the sky


    http://www.shmoop.com/norse-creation-myth/babylonian-creation-myth.html

    When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.


    A.A. Milne,

    "We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #8 - September 28, 2014, 05:34 PM

    However, the later books and verses make it clear that the scouts were exaggerating. I can't remember the specific verses, though.


    If you do come across them I'd be interested to see them.

    It looks to me though that both the Quran and Bible suggest they are giants. In fact the Bible is even more explicit than the Qur'an, as it says they themselves looked like grasshoppers in comparison to these giants.
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #9 - September 29, 2014, 02:36 AM

    Hmm, I seemed to get that they were lying/exaggerating.
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #10 - September 29, 2014, 06:58 AM

    A number of archaeologists try to tie the "miracles" in the Bible to natural events in older to appease the secular community. So the Red Sea becomes the Reed Sea which is marsh land. No great spiting of a body of water. The blood in the Nile ends up being a chemical which causes the color. It is also acidic enough to cause certain animals to die or leave the water. The darkness is from the explosion of Thera. Only the death plague is not explained in a natural way since it is too specific.

    The giants of Canaan are explained away as false reports by 10 of the 12 spies. The two spies which did not bring these reports were spared, the other 10 were killed. These 10 are considered traitors so the whole giant idea fear mongering. However this reason fails as people believed there were giants. The wondering of 40 years is directly caused by reports of Giants. The time line of the giants is before the wandering in the wilderness. The change is to say these cities are too powerful, ie giant in power and size of the civilization not the people. Yet this fails as these cities were in fact destroyed before Moses. Only 3 places of the conquest of Canaan were inhabited during the Biblical time line. Jericho had been destroyed in 1700 BCE which is the time line for people going into Egypt not out of
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #11 - September 29, 2014, 08:21 AM

    A number of archaeologists try to tie the "miracles" in the Bible to natural events in older to appease the secular community. <snip> The blood in the Nile ends up being a chemical which causes the color. It is also acidic enough to cause certain animals to die or leave the water.

    Here's a factlet for you. Some years ago I did a bit of swotting up on Nile River sediments during the Old Kingdom period. One of the major factors in the collapse of the Old Kingdom appears to have been a severe drought, around 2200 BC. One of the odd results of that drought was reddish layers of sediment in the Nile Delta. These were caused by the oxidation of iron in the sediment, due to the sediment being exposed to air when the water level dropped (yes, even as far downstream as the delta).

    So, you have a time of turmoil in Egypt (collapse of the Old Kingdom) and you have the lower regions of the Nile "turning red". It is possible, given the ways myths and legends tend to generate, that this info was incorporated in stories later on. The timeframe fairly closely matches the origin of some of the OT, if I'm not mistaken, and the Nile "turning red' is the sort of story that travellers would be likely to pass on.

    Devious, treacherous, murderous, neanderthal, sub-human of the West. bunny
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #12 - September 29, 2014, 08:48 AM

    Read some professors of archaeology please, not spin by evangelists!

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/56102396/The-Bible-Unearthed-by-Israel-Finkelstein

    When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.


    A.A. Milne,

    "We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #13 - September 29, 2014, 01:41 PM

    Does anyone have a reference for the spies exaggerating or put to death?
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #14 - September 29, 2014, 02:08 PM

    Hmm.. here  It is worth reading the father/mother of Quran.. the NT/OT...  let me put here and read it..


    Quote
    Numbers 13.1-3 Spies Sent into Canaan

    13 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a chief among them.” 3 So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran, according to the command of the Lord, all of them men who were heads of the people of Israel.


    Numbers 13:17-33  

    Quote
    17 Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said to them, “Go up into the Negeb yonder, and go up into the hill country, 18 and see what the land is, and whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many, 19 and whether the land that they dwell in is good or bad, and whether the cities that they dwell in are camps or strongholds, 20 and whether the land is rich or poor, and whether there is wood in it or not. Be of good courage, and bring some of the fruit of the land.” Now the time was the season of the first ripe grapes.

    21 So they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, near the entrance of Hamath. 22 They went up into the Negeb, and came to Hebron; and Ahi′man, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, were there. (Hebron was built seven years before Zo′an in Egypt.) 23 And they came to the Valley of Eshcol, and cut down from there a branch with a single cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between two of them; they brought also some pomegranates and figs. 24 That place was called the Valley of Eshcol,[a] because of the cluster which the men of Israel cut down from there.
    The Report of the Spies

    25 At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. 26 And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. 27 And they told him, “We came to the land to which you sent us; it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. 28 Yet the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. 29 The Amal′ekites dwell in the land of the Negeb; the Hittites, the Jeb′usites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan.”

    30 But Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once, and occupy it; for we are well able to overcome it.” 31 Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.” 32 So they brought to the people of Israel an evil report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature. 33 And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim); and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”


    well all that thing sounds to me like Hakuna matata

    Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything   
    I renounced my faith to become a kafir, 
    the beloved betrayed me and turned in to  a Muslim
     
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #15 - September 29, 2014, 02:47 PM

    It's very explicit in the bible that a number of mythological creatures exist. Biblically the stated origin of giants is that they're the offspring of human/angel coupling. It's never stated that giants are half human, half angel in the sense of being some kind of sci-fi hybrid comic book superhero (when Sam was a teenager he discovered he had angelic powers), simply that giants are the result of angels impregnating humans. Genesis 6:4 says "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."

    Thought other names are given to different groups, biblically giants are usually known as the Nephilim. As for your question on if christians try to explain it the way muslims do, these people sure are.

    https://answersingenesis.org/bible-characters/giants-in-the-old-testament/

    `But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
     `Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad.  You're mad.'
     `How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
     `You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #16 - September 29, 2014, 03:01 PM

    Fascinating discussion here about pigs!

    http://www.academia.edu/4062281/Pig_Husbandry_in_Iron_Age_Israel_and_Judah

    When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.


    A.A. Milne,

    "We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #17 - September 29, 2014, 04:25 PM

    That pig article is fantastic Moi thanks for the reference.
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #18 - September 29, 2014, 05:05 PM

     parrot

    When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.


    A.A. Milne,

    "We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #19 - September 29, 2014, 08:29 PM

    Here's a factlet for you. Some years ago I did a bit of swotting up on Nile River sediments during the Old Kingdom period. One of the major factors in the collapse of the Old Kingdom appears to have been a severe drought, around 2200 BC. One of the odd results of that drought was reddish layers of sediment in the Nile Delta. These were caused by the oxidation of iron in the sediment, due to the sediment being exposed to air when the water level dropped (yes, even as far downstream as the delta).

    So, you have a time of turmoil in Egypt (collapse of the Old Kingdom) and you have the lower regions of the Nile "turning red". It is possible, given the ways myths and legends tend to generate, that this info was incorporated in stories later on. The timeframe fairly closely matches the origin of some of the OT, if I'm not mistaken, and the Nile "turning red' is the sort of story that travellers would be likely to pass on.


    2200 BCE is 500 years before the "into Egypt" event and 900 before the "exodus" event. The time lines do not match similar to Thera's eruption not matching the time line.

    The archaeologists I am talking about are not linking time lines properly. They are literally accepting the Biblical time line and plugging natural events into these gaps regardless of the time line of these events. The time line is accepted as fact regardless of lack of evidence or evidence against the idea. So the Bible ended up being a series of natural events which mostly turn out positively for the Hebrews over and over.  Kenneth Kitchen is the best known for this type of work with his latest book on the OT. Such views seem acceptable to the secular nature of academy while at the same time allowing the religious to link these natural events to miracles. The major issue is the verses covering the Exodus time line contradict each other. There are 4 settlements mentioned in the Bible but 1 is far to the south before the Delta starts. This site is link to a Red Sea crossing not a reed sea. Another settlement in the Delta was a palace city, Ramesses' city but had no such complex during the exodus time line. Tanis is another settlement but this requires either crossing a bay or backtracking up the Nile to the palace city which was not present at the time. All but the Red Sea route out of Egypt pass border forts which were placed in the area to stop illegal movement of people.
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #20 - September 29, 2014, 08:32 PM

    Read some professors of archaeology please, not spin by evangelists!

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/56102396/The-Bible-Unearthed-by-Israel-Finkelstein


    This a low chronology time-line. The view is the Bible was written between the 8th and 5th centuries BCE rather than written by namesakes or higher time-line of 12th to 10th century BCE starting date.
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #21 - September 30, 2014, 02:25 AM

    So my mother stopped by after from a wedding out east. I told her about these verses about giants and later parts of Joshua. She didn't believe me until I showed her. I think I have seen the first cracks in her faith forming. Apparently giants are not believable in her view  Cheesy
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #22 - September 30, 2014, 06:11 AM

    Hey Hassan, do you think it would be possible to see your ''on the spot'' interpretation of the verses as an Arabic speaker?
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #23 - September 30, 2014, 07:53 AM

    Do you mean (5:21-24)? The translation above is fine. In fact the word translated as giant جبار is not a word that specifically means giant. It s means mighty, powerful, tyrannical, The one who forces... and it is in fact one of the names of God al-Jabbar and there is an American basketball player called Abdul-Jabbar.

    So it is by no means certain it means giant. Which is kinda why I originally asked the question about the Bible, since the Qur'an often plagiarises the Bible and so if the Bible says giants then that is probably what the Qur'an meant. As I say the classical tafseers certainly thought so.
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #24 - September 30, 2014, 08:14 AM

    Btw the above translation is Pickthall's. He is generally the most literal and mostly keeps to the classical tafseers.
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #25 - September 30, 2014, 08:32 AM

    Hmm, I seemed to get that they were lying/exaggerating.


    Yes, so you keep saying, but on what basis? Are there other verses that say that?

    If you don't mind me saying, it appears that you are seeing what you want to see rather than what's actually written there just like Muslims.
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #26 - September 30, 2014, 09:06 AM

    Quote
    one of the names of God al-Jabbar



    When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.


    A.A. Milne,

    "We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #27 - September 30, 2014, 09:27 AM

    Yep looks just like Allah Cheesy
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #28 - September 30, 2014, 09:31 AM

    Btw isn't abdul-Jabbar that really tall guy? I wonder if his name was chosen because of his size? The slave of the giant? Lol...
  • Bible Help Please!
     Reply #29 - September 30, 2014, 04:53 PM

    Definitely means giants in Hebrew ... they specifically use the term "rephaim" to describe the Canaanites, which means giants.

    There are other terms that are used in the Bible to describe ancient giants, most famously "nephilim."  Giants are also called "gibborim," meaning powerful.

    Because these are very strange words, I suspect that in Arabic they adopted "jabbar" as a translation of the meaning of the Hebrew -- Arabic probably did not have anything that readily fit the translation of "rephaim," no cognate for it.

    It would be interesting to know what term the Syriac Peshitta OT used for this term.  I suspect it was left untranslated Hebrew, "Nephilim."
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