Perhaps, but I think it's very
unlikely that Kamal Salibi is right. I don't know much about his ideas, although
I remember something from way back, about equating Wadi Damis (root /dms/) with
Sodom (root /sdm/), and Ghamra with Gomorrah. The problem is that once you start
rearranging the order of Semitic root consonants, you can make just about
anything equate to anything. Also Canaanite/Hebrew sound changes would have
rendered Ghamra to 3amra.
Hebrew seems very definitely to
belong to the geographically north-western group of Semitic dialects with
Phoenician and other "Canaanite" dialects such as Eblaite, Ugaritic etc. Arabic
does not.
So, if the Israelites originated
in south-west Arabia, why didn't they speak a south Semitic (e.g. Sabaean) or
Arabic dialect?
This is all a bit off-subject
for this group, but if you're interested in this kind of thing, you should check
out Ahmed Osman ("The House of the Messiah", "Moses:Pharaoh of Egypt"). He
basically claims (more plausibly IMO) that Moses was Akhnaten, and the
Israelites his Egyptian followers.
On the other hand there's David
Rohl ("A Test of Time") who equates the biblical pharaoh Shishak with Ramses II,
and thereby "proves" the historical accuracy of the OT. However, to do this he
has to remove some 300 years from history, thus bringing events such as the
Invasions of the Sea Peoples down to about 900BCE or later.
I rather suspect contemporary
political motives behind such writings.
Cheers
Dennis
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, 18 May, 2000 3:36
AM
Subject: Re: [TIED] Hebrew and
Arabic
Thanks, Dennis. Very illuminating. If Kamal
Salibi is right, Arabic could almost be called a daughter language of
Hebrew?