Bismika Alllahuma

一位传教士在雅虎之下! 小组 nome de羽毛 “爱国者Tim”做了 指控 在一个讨论组通过阐明，叙利亚异教的神像RIMMON ()如被提及在2位国王5:18是神和一样为穆斯林，有时要求上帝 ar拉赫曼 (仁慈)。 重覆传教士的要求：

在考虑中的诗歌是II国王5:18，并且词由Naaman讲话愈合了他的麻疯病由Elisha先知的叙利亚将军[….]我们看，由于他的重要性位置对叙利亚国王的，会要求他进入和鞠躬对Rimmon在那个神的寺庙在大马士革的Naaman说法。 因此，我们看见RIMMON在圣经被找到。

这篇文章是或多或少改善从 原始的反应 我们提供和意欲深深地论及RIMMON的问题， insha’阿拉。

真正地RIMMON “拉赫曼” ？

在“拉赫曼的”问题，传教士争论那

拉赫曼，如被表明对我们在Qu’为所有跑了， Surah是否是17:110，另一个名字？h. 因此，我们看见有确定连接，语言和否则，在被崇拜所有在叙利亚、Paddan-Aram、亚述和北肥沃月牙的其余中的Rimmon和拉赫曼或者所有之间？h.

我们相信我们有容忍足够这劣等奖学金和现在是时候抨击这位传教士到天国的。 现实是一个不需要来源那他尽职地鹦鹉从基督徒polemicists象博士。 罗伯特Morey，作为圣经的新的强的详尽的和谐，布朗司机布里格斯西伯来英国词典和威廉Gesenius’西伯来和英国词典是全部足够好当局在语源学。

我们及早陈述了，这尊叙利亚异教的神像RIMMON的名字出现于2位国王5:18。 这首诗歌是如下：

5月阁下在这个问题原谅您的仆人： 当我的大师进入RIMMON房子崇拜那里，支持由我的手和我时在RIMMON房子里必须鞠躬自己击倒; when I have to bow myself down thus in the house of RIMMON, may the Lord forgive your servant in this matter.

According to Gesenius, the Hebrew word “rimmon” actually means “pomegranate,” and the Arabic equivalent is “rumman”, which is quite similar to the Hebrew and shares the same R-M-N cognate[1]. The following image would clearly illustrate this relation:

“Pomegranate” is thus the proper translation of “rimmon” in the Bible (Numbers 20:5; Deuteronomy 8:8; 1 Samuel 14:12; Songs 4:3, 6:7). ‘Rimmon’ is also the name of a number of places mentioned in the Bible, specifically the Old Testament, named such because of the number of pomegranates that grow there. As Gesenius states:

The pomegranate tree is still found in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt [...] From their abounding in pomegranates, several places received the proper name Rimmon[.][2]

Examples of such places being named ‘Rimmon’ can be seen in Joshua 15:32, 19:7; Judges 20:47; 1 Chronicles 4:32 and Zechariah 14:10. Indeed, until today there is a specific place in Palestine called Rimmon (reysh-mem-vav-nun) in Hebrew, and Rammwan/Rummon (raa-meem-waw-nun) in Arabic, and it still exists today.

We can see that Rammwan/Rummon is thus the closest Arabic equivalent to the Hebrew “rimmon”, and not “Rahman” as Patriot Tim erroneously asserts.

Referring to Strong’s on RIMMON, the following entry is found:

4. A Syrian god (7417)[3]

The B-D-B Lexicon has more information on RIMMON, and on p. 942 we read that:

[Rimmon] n. pr. dei; as Rammanu, god of wind, rain and storm; thunder; storm.[4]

There are two possible etymological explanations for the RIMMON of Syria. The first is from Gesenius, who says that it is “…perhaps the exalted, from the root RMM.”[5] The other possibility is that the spelling is a deliberate Jewish insult, and this is not uncommon in the Bible. We read that

“Rimmon” is an epithet of Hadad (Adad in Mesopotamia); the Akkadian form is Ram(m)an. It has been suggested that the Hebrew Rimmon, which is identical to the Hebrew word for “pomegranate,” is a deliberate mispointing of an original Ram(m)an (or something similar) to disparage the deity. This epithet Rimmon/Ramman is best understood as “thunderer” (cf. Akkadian ramanu “to roar,” hence “to thunder”). Accordingly, the name Hadadrimmon means “Hadad is the thunderer.” Hadad, or Rimmon/Ramman, was the chief diety of the Arameans of Syria[.][6]

In light of Jewish traditions with disparaging name-games in Hebrew, we favour the possibility that calling the Syrian pagan idol as RIMMON was merely an attempt at insulting this pagan deity, and have no connections with “rimmon” meaning “pomegranate”.

This is already enough to refute the missionary’s mendacity. But let us take one step further and look up the meaning of the Arabic ar-rahman, as stated in Hans Wehr’s Arabic-English Dictionary:

ar-rahman : the Merciful (i.e. God)[7]

The root of ar-rahman is the word rahma, and from the very same page, we find that the root means

pity, compassion; human understanding, sympathy, kindness; mercy[8]

Clearly, we certainly do not see any etymological relation at all with the Hebrew noun RIMMON (). Indeed, one does not blindly assume that a word is connected to another simply by the play of sounds, and we need to look at several established rules for finding etymological connections. The rules are:

1. Geographic proximity
2. Shared cognates/roots
3. Relative synonymy

So what does this mean? It means that the languages have to originate near one another, and indeed Hebrew and Arabic are from the same branch and area. They have to share the same cognate, and lastly, they have to share the same meaning. While we do not deny that the Hebrew noun RIMMON conforms with criteria 1, it does not conform with criterias 2 and 3, and hence fails the ruling for determining whether RIMMON is indeed related to the Arabic word ar-rahman. As one of the greatest Philosophers of Language (one of the founding fathers of the field), Ludwig Wittgenstein, put it:

The meaning of a word is its use in the language.[9]

The equivalent word for ar-rahman in the Hebrew would be “Ha-Rachman”, as found in Rivlin’s Hebrew translation of the Qur’?n, 1:1:

In the name of God, Ha-Rachman, the Merciful[10]

Apparently this title is not alien to the South Arabian Christians, for Philip K. Hitti informs us the following:

The earlier South Arabian civilization could not have altogether passed away without leaving some trace in its northern successor. The inscription (542-3) of Abrahah dealing wih the break of the Ma’rib Dam begins with the following words: “In the power and grace and mercy of the Merciful [Rahman-an] and His Messiah and of the Holy Spirit”. The word Rahman-an is especially significant because its northern equivalent, al-Rahman, became later a prominent attribute of All?h and one of His names in the Koran and in Islamic theology.[11]

Philip K. Hitti further informs us in a footnote that

Rahmanan appears as title of the Christian God in a fifth-century South Arabic inscription.[12]

So we see that the South Arabic Christians themselves using the appelation Rahmanan for their God, and hence we begin to see how perjurious the claims of the missionary really is.

The Aramaic word for Rachaman/Rahman is rachamanaa, and indeed this is found in the Talmud. Consider the Aramaic text of Qiddushin 81b, where it is recommended that those looking to be protected from evil say:

Rachamanaa nighar beih ba-Satan
Translation: May the Most Merciful rebuke Satan.

In the same part of the Talmud, there is a fascinating story about Rabbi Chiyya:

Rabbi Chiyya bar Ashi hawah raghil kal eedan dahawah nafal l’apeih hawah amar: ha-Rachaman yatsileinu miyetser haraa’
Translation: Rabbi Chiyya bar Ashi had a practice where everytime he prostrated he would say “may the Most Merciful save us from evil inclinations”.

So, even the great Talmud sages were doing as the Muslims do to this day, prostrating and giving homage to the Most Merciful, ar-rahman. This passage from the Talmud is still relevant, as there is yet one more point to be made here. Later in the story Rabbi Chiyya is tempted by his wife, who asks him to bring him a pomegranate. She is quoted as saying:

aiytei neehaleih l’hakh rumanaa d’reish tsutsitaa shawur aazal
Translation: Bring me that pomegranate on the uppermost branch.

The word for pomegranate in the Aramaic is rumanaa, which is quite close to the Arabic rumman. What we learn from this is that in Hebrew, Arabic, and even Aramaic (from this look at Qiddushin 81b), there is no connection between the word for “Most Merciful,” a name given to God, and pomegranate, a name heaped upon a pagan deity.

This is further collaborated when we refer to the root word of ha-rachman, which is rachuwm, in Strong’s number 7349 and find the following:

rachuwm rakh-oom`; from 7355; compassionate:- full of compassion, merciful.[13]

Thus we see that rachuwm and rahma share the same R-H-M cognate, and thus we have established a solid etymological connection between both words. Of course, there is another Hebrew word that is even closer to raheem (RHYM) than rachuwm is, and that is the exact Hebrew equivalent! Consider the following:

Summary

As the final nail in the coffin, let us summarise what we have discussed above:

1) RIMMON is a Syrian pagan god of thunder and the name itself is a noun and has nothing in common with ar-rahman, which is an attribute/appellation of God, as any Muslim schoolchild would know.

2) RIMMON has its roots in the Akkadian Rammanu, meaning “thunderer” or “to roar, to thunder” and its only connection to the “pomegranate” (rimmon) is that this is part of a deliberate Jewish insult against this pagan idol. “Rahman” came from a TOTALLY different root word, rahma, which means “pity; compassion; sympathy”, etc.

3) RIMMON is the Syrian “god of wind, rain and storm”. By no stretch of imagination can this be applied to ALLAH, the God of Abraham(P), Moses(P), Jesus(P) and Muhammad(P)! Further, we have seen how the South Arabian Christians themselves use the appelation Rahman-an (equivalent to the northern ar-Rahman) for God, and how the Aramaic phrase Rachamanaa is found in the Jewish Talmud.

4) Nowhere in Strong’s or in the BDB/Gesenius lexicons do we find any correlation of RIMMON with the Arabic word ar-rahman or its root word rahma. The Hebrew equivalent for rahma is the word rachuwm. Both rahma (Ar.) and rachuwm (Heb.) share the same R-H-M cognate.

Conclusion

It is evident that the missionary “Patriot Tim” clearly resorts to nonsensical and shoddy scholarship in order to discredit Islam, no matter how silly the ‘theories’ that he repeats. We suggest that “Patriot Tim” should stick to his current daytime occupation instead of trying to pass himself off as some sort of etymologist-cum-archeologist and parroting verbatim from monolingual polemicists like Morey.

And only God knows best.

References

[1] William Gesenius, Hebrew and English Lexicon, (Crocker & Brewster, 1865), p. 982; c.f. J. M. Cowan (ed.), Hans Wehr’s Arabic-English Dictionary, p. 360

[2] William Gesenius, Op. Cit., p. 982

[3] James Strong, The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, under the word “RIMMON”

[4] Under , The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew-English Lexicon, p. 942

[5] William Gesenius, Op. Cit.

[6] Frederic W. Bush, “HadadRimmon”, The Anchor Bible Dictionary, (Doubleday 1992), Vol. 3, p. 13

[7] J. M. Cowan (ed.), Hans Wehr’s Arabic-English Dictionary, p. 332

[8] Ibid.

[9] Wittgenstein, Philophische Untersuchungen, pt. I, sect. 43

[10] Yosef Yo’el Rivlin, Alkur’an / tirgem me-`Arvit, Devir, Tel Aviv (1936-1945)

[11] Philip K. Hitti, History of the Arabs, The Macmillan Press, Ltd (1970), p. 105

[12] Ibid.

[13] James Strong, op. cit, under the word “rachuwm”, p. 131