Re: All of creation in Six and Seven

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "John" <jdcroft@...> wrote:

> Glen's speculations upon "six" and "seven" in a Semitic religious
> context goes even deeper - to a Sumerian one.
>
> For instance we find in Sumerian the feminine Tiamat balanced with
> the masculine Abzu as the primary divinities. Tiamat is in fact
> an "Akkadianisation" of a Sumerian name *Ti = Life, *Ama = Mother.
> Tiamat (the *-T was a feminine ending in Akkadian), thus is "The
> mother of all living", a title in the Bible reserved for Hawah
> (Eve). Tiamat is in fact found in the opening verses of
> Genesis, "In the beginning God created heaven and earth and

darkness

> was on the face of the deeps". The word for Deeps, in Canaanite-
> Hebrew was *Tehowm, which is derived from the earlier Sumerian
> *Tiama.

No. Tiamat is a Semitic word not a Sumerian one. We have a WELL
ATTESTED Hebrew teho:m "gap", "Deeps"; *tehowm is only orthographic,
the waw has no reality at all, and the item is not a product of
speculation. Tiamat is the Akkadian form, in which the ancient
aspiration was lost, and with a feminine suffix. It is not definitely
a Sumerian item. Semitic is sufficient to explain it. Your Sumerian
etymon is ill-formed, and doesn't account at all for the Hebrew
aspiration, that is a phoneme, not a simple hiatus separator.

> *Abzu also is Sumerian, as it related to the "Watery Deeps" from

the

> Sumerian *A, or *Ab = Water, or Semen and *Zu = Deeps, far. The
> Abzu was the name of the watery marshes which surrounded the hill

on

> which the world's first city was built. This city; Eridu, had a
> temple contained within it, built upon a spring (or Abzu), vitally
> important in an environment where the rainfall is less than 5

inches

> annually. The whole temple was called the Abzu, and was sacred to
> the Sumerian God Enki (more on him later), whose other name Ea was
> Sumerian for "House of Water" from Sumerian *E = House, and *A =
> water. It has been suggested that the Greek (and modern English
> word) Abyss, comes from the Sumerian Abzu.

In Sumerian /a/ is "water". It is not /ab/. The word /ab/ is a late
Sumerian development of /aba/, "lake"; "sea", that is a compound
of /ab/, hole + /a/, water.
Sumerian /zu/ is "to know", so /ab-zu/ is "Sentient Abyss". It is so
translated by Sumerianists.

> There is another very early Sumerian story of how these six
> generations of Gods created the Sumerian Day of Rest, known as the
> Sa-ba-ududa, from the Sumerian *sa = name, *ba = share, portion,
> rations, or wages, *ududa = day of lying down. It tells how the
> sixth generation of Gods went on strike, putting down their tools
> and demanding to be let off the onerous job of keeping the Creation
> Working, on the Sa-ba-ududa, the rest day in which workers were to
> be paid their rations. This created a crisis for the greater
> Anunaki who met in counsel to decide what should be done. Enki,
> Lord Ea, the God of the Abzu, mixes the Red Earth with Blood to

make

> humankind, charged with the responsibility of keeping the creation
> going.
>
> Sumerian Sa-ba-ududa, in Akkadian became Sabbatu, the "Seventh"

day,

> or day of rest (the Biblical Sabbath). Thus the Semitic word for
> seven actually has a Sumerian source. This sacred source of the

day

> of rest, entered the Bible as "the seventh day of creation", and
> thus is the source of the number seven throughout the Middle East,

a

> wander-word which finishes up in Proto-Indo-European as the source
> for the number seven.
>
> Comments anyone?
>

Shabbath is by somebody considered of uncertain etymology. As for me,
it is simply "seventh (day)". I found no mention at all of Sumerain
Sa-ba-ududa. Perhaps it is for my ignorance, but I suspect that it is
a construction of yours, an arbitrary one in order to give to Semitic
for seven a Sumerian origin.
I studied some Hebrew five year ago, and when I was almost able to
speak it I was busy with other matters and I abandoned it. If I
remember well, it is Shabbath with an initial /sh/, and also Hebrew
for "seven" has initial /sh/. It cannot be from Sumerian /s/. We have
no Hebrew word with /sh/ from Sumerian /s/.
Be careful, your hypotheses are often similar to crackpots
elaborations.

A better knowledge of Sumerian is needed.

Marco