I don't have time now to look at all of your attachments, but consider the following:
In the Talmud there's a story in which the Romans were looking for the Jewish Nasi (prince, kind of like a governing intermediary between the Jews and the Romans and also head of the Sanhedrin). The Roman soldier entered the study hall where all the sages were and called out: "He who owns the nose, rise!"
Some people take this to mean that Rabban Gamaliel, the prince of the time, had a big nose. But then, as I heard a certain rabbi explain, you take a look at the Latin and realize what was going on. Nose in Latin is Nasus. The lowly Roman soldier heard he was supposed to find the Nasi and thought that he was supposed to find someone with a nose. This story was then translated literally in the Talmudic text.
My point is that Jerusalem could have easily started out with a Hebrew-rooted name, which was then mistaken by Sumerians and Akkadians to have different meanings simply because the name sounds like words in their own languages.
Ha! That's funny. Good point.
Oh well, people make mistakes, we still
septum for who they are
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Now with something like the texts commonly referred to as " The Gilgamesh Epic ", we'll find some rather interesting things that most folks miss, so I will point them out
In all the texts we have of this story, there is only one that is told from the 1st person narrative ( The person telling the story is telling it with himself as the main character in the story - " I " )
This version in 1st person is also the most complete copy of the text we have, and it is the copy that most academics tend to turn to, in particular, A.R. George's translation
Andrew R. George - Wikipedia
The person who wrote down the story was the priest of the moon god - his name was : Sîn-lēqi-unninni, he is telling the Gilgamesh story with
himself as Gilgamesh
What makes his copy rather unique is it's beginning incipit (
incipit comes from Latin and means " it begins " )
In it, he states he is : " Sha naqba īmuru " ( " He who saw the deep " or " The one who saw the Abyss " )
Andrew George's belief is that it refers to the specific knowledge that Gilgamesh brought back from his meeting with Uta-Napishti (Utnapishtim): he gains knowledge of the realm of Ea, whose cosmic realm is seen as the fountain of wisdom
The word is
nagbu, ( You'll commonly find these words spelled differently in English when discussing it, this is apparently due to scholarly disagreements about phonetic pronunciation and variants in other texts, so I wouldn't let it trip you up ) , and there appear to be two main translations to consider, one suggests that the word refers to the "
totality ( of all things ), which would make it synonymous with the cuneiform used for " garden " and the number " 3600 " ( Used for priestly astronomy calculations, we can discuss it on the thread about the pitfalls of Biblical literalism if you like )
Sumerian: šar [3600] "
totality, world; (to be) numerous; 3600" Akk. kiššatu; mâdu
The other suggested meaning is that is referring to the " deep " or the " abyss ", which actually referred to a type of hidden knowledge, considered sacred
The term
nagbu had a range of meanings, from "spring" and "fountain" and "underground water"- commonly encountered in poetic texts, as " totality "
As the source of " water ", it's often used as an epithet of the gods, especially the god whose "place" is the
abzu ... Ea, " lord of the deep waters "
Imo, the origin of the Hebrew words can be found in "
nagbu "
נביא nabiy' {naw-bee'} - prophet, prophecy, them that prophesy, spokesman, speaker, false prophet
Per the Strong's concordance, from:
נבא naba' {naw-baw'} a primitive root; - prophesy , prophesying , prophet, to prophesy , under influence of divine spirit, of false prophets
" īmuru " in the incipit " Sha naqba īmuru " is also found as " Sha naqba amaru "
As per the previous attachment, we can see this is not just referring to a " flood " as in " bubbulu, " ( new moon ) we can see it's also listed as being used as yet another type of divine title
https://www.religiousforums.com/dat...08/47352_fe829056b0b50cd12ea15a8ecf78ef8d.png
However, " amaru " also has the meanings of :
- to see, to look at
- to come across, to find
- to find out, to discover, to notice
- to witness, to inspect, to keep an eye on
Sumerian: u dug [ADMIRE] (92x: Old Babylonian) wr. u6 dug4 "to admire; to regard, observe" Akkadian: amāru; barû
I would definitely say that certain " wisdom " or " secret knowledge " was associated with " water/s " and the " gods " and divine rule, just based on a cursory look at different cuneiform languages of the day, but when I get to the Egyptian, this will become rather concrete
Sin-leqi-unninni ( Gilgamesh ) also included in his copy of the Gilgamesh text, the standard synodic month average, as was used in his other astronomy texts, which helps cement the fact that the epic is actually an astronomy text, because without that very specific synodic month average he included, you cannot predict the timing of the " flood " ( New moon or an eclipse ) to begin with
Otherwise there's zero point to including something that requires a bit of calculation, ( An average ) and was central to Mesopotamian astronomy texts for thousands of years
Here's an example of the astronomy texts found in his library, attached below. These texts were passed from priest to priest through the years, all of them descendants of Sin-Leqi-Unninni ( showing how one specific lineage and it's literature was closely maintained through time )
As you can see, the first listed refers to the timing of a " flood " ( new moon )
