Mood:
quizzicalTopic: "Canaan Conspiracy"(6)
Frodo lumps conspiracy theorists with people who slurp soup from a saucer. It is anathema for the Hobbit to offer assumptions about that which motivates the actions of others. What follows, in Hobbit format, is a set of facts, any part of which may be therefore criticized as inadequately documented for a public discourse. Frodo merely suggests herein to those who, like the Hobbit, wonder why so much brutality is committed in the name of faith.
In 1985, Mr. Kamal Salibi, a citizen of Lebanon, authored a book entitled "The Bible Came From Arabia." Salibi's credibility as a scholar, enhanced by his knowledge of the language known as "Old Hebrew," was as a challenger to the translations of Saint Jerome. Jerome had devoted thirty of his years to the translation into Latin of the Old Testament, which is known to History as the Vulgate, and was first published in the Fourth Century before, as we might say, Christ. It is important to note that the oldest surviving "Old Hebrew" presentation of the Old Testament, known as the Aleppo Codex, dates back another 400 years
"Old Hebrew" basically disappeared from common usage about a century before Jerome's herculean task commenced. Jerome's effort was even further hindered by the fact that "Old Hebrew," not unlike modern-day Mandarin Chinese for example, may have different meanings dependent on tone and not spelling. Many of Jerome's assessments of a written word, absent any tonal presentation, have been routinely challenged for centuries.
Salibi's theorem, and the subject of at least four more books, was that there were significant potential variances in the location of towns and geographic locations cited by Jerome in his translation effort
So?
Abraham was told by God that the land of Canaan would belong to him and then to Isaac as his heir. The Book of Genesis in the Old Testament references the land passed through Isaac to the Jewish peoples, for all time. It is the land upon which the modern state of Israel exists. Salibi argues that the translation does not properly identify the land. He adds that there is "not one shred of physical evidence" to document the events described in the Old Testament in the territory identified as Israel. He counter-argues that there is substantial similarity in descriptive language to give credence to the true location as the present border of land upon the Red Sea.
One of the locations described by Salibi is the present-day town known as Asir, which is referenced in the original "Old Hebrew" as part of the land of Canaan. Asir is located near the Red Sea in the modern-day country of Saudi Arabia.
Salibi states that the Saudis have steadfastly refused all eforts at archeological study of Asir and the surrounding villages. In fact, many of the areas have subsequently been bulldozed. Given the dimensional inferences and alternative translations available to this scholar of "Old Hebrew," he asserts that the true land dimensions of the Israeli State would not only include Asir, but the nearby town named Mecca.
Wouldn't that be a hoot?
