First and most important: for me there is no point to continue discussion with a person that treats the Bible as source of facts. We don't share the same basis, so our discussion would be pointless. For me the Bible is a source of historical material that is sometimes reliable, sometimes not. As any other historical source. It's main concern is religion, and I'm not one to treat religious issues seriously. I'd rather call them superstitions.

So let's focus only on facts, skipping biblical quotes.

As you probably know, the phrase 'malchei araw' could be as well translated as "kings of Arabs" or even "Kings of the desert" (malchei erev) (as noone can be sure that the punctuation is right). And even if it's "Arabs", that's not any proof. Even Romans didn't know, how unbelievably big is the Pensinsula. They divided it on their maps into three parts (Petrea, Deserta, Felix) and have hardly managed to conquer a small part of it. The term 'Arabia' referred usually to only one part, the closest one, Petrea. No thinking man would like to invade the rest of the Pensinsula, where you could find only stones. So "malchei erev" can refer to kings of Petrea, some two or thre more kingdoms, skipping 90% of the rest of Pensisula. The very Pensisula, we should say.

There is an arguement among the Semitologists, what do " 'ivri", " 'aravi" mean in the Bible. As you know, there are numerous theories, none of them is sure.

The law you refer to comes from much, much later times (when the Talmud was written, about V-VI century Christian era). But it has no relation to the issue.

I refer to scientifical research, supported by linguistic, archeological, genetical and other research. You refer to the Bible text. No common base for us, sorry. :)

That's what I said - if you want the phrase to refer to Islam, use the proper word for it. "Astaslama" is not a proper word, "aslama" is, as the first has no relation to Islam (almost) at all. The founder of this action (I forgot her name) doesn't know Arabic and she messed up the words a bit. :D As you know, proper wording is extremely importnat in Jewish tradition, as if you know a proper name of a thing, you got a rule over it. :) Thus you don't call a melech (king) a mal'ach (angel) and reverse, as these are not proper words.

? Portugal and Spain are reduced to their homelands whereas Islam has expanded in every direction. Isn't this a fact? If Portugal and Spain had as a principle to conquer the world they'd have continued in that attempt wouldn't they? Of course, it's a lot less appealing to convince people to "convert" to Portuguese or Spanish citizenship, and that just causes alot of problems, than to convince someone to convert to Islam.

You are saying that a religion is just like an ideology or that ISlam is an ideology? I think you've managed to insult almost every Muslim in the face of the Earth. Besides from Christians, Bhuddists, etc.

You've said you came here to fix bull**** with facts. You're just a bull****ter yourself with some culture but little understanding. Abd_von_Mumit.

I did not quote biblical verses for their religious significance but for their historical references to know peoples at the time. Your point is rhetorical.
First let's deal with your elementary grammar error in Hebrew. Had the verse wanted to state "kings of Arabs" or "kings of the Arabs", it would have stated the word "Arabs" in plural - "Aravim". But it doesn't, so your point is what exactly? That you can drum up inexactitudes to suite your fancy? I don't think so.
So they did or didn't know? Make up your mind.

Also, not conquering the entire penninsula does not mean that refugee migrations did not head beyond the bounds of these major conquering empires. In fact the opposite is most logical.
How does any of this prove your original point, which - to remind you - was: "In these times there was not such a name as "Arab""? And again, I mentioned that I have no disagreement that the penninsula consisted of multiple kingdoms. In fact, that's what the verses I quoted state.
I have no problem with either of them, with much less doubt than you.
No, it is Halacha le'Moshe mi'Sinai, handed down from G-d to Moses at Sinai as the Torah's Oral Law. I suggest you try taking your revisionism elsewhere.
I simply responded to you incorrect claims.
You haven't referenced anything scientific so far. State your sources but this is becoming tedious.
Michelle Malkin.
I still don't see how.

As you should know, the Bible very often refers to a 'nation' by using it's patronimical name, thus 'Aram' can mean Aram as a man name, a land OR the people that dwell in the land, lets call them the *Arams. Same exactly applies to Araw. Also remember that modern Hebrew has gone a long way from it's biblical form and you find forms that cannot be met in today's everyday language. This makes it a bit more complicated issue to be so asured about proper forms. :D Would you say nowadays "Vayyar Elohim ki tov"? :)

Oh, come on and don't try to be offensive. That doesn't help a bit in any discussion. And having an area on ones map doesn't mean that the area is explored. Have you read any book of a Roman historian describing so called Arabia? You should, you'd be sure none of them was there, when he wrote about streets full of gold, precious stones etc. What Romans did know was existance of land somewhere there. Even the name they called it was unproper (Arabia Felix is a flawed translation of "Yaman", similar to flawed translation regarding Moses face 'with horns' ('bekarnaim', if I remember correctly)).

The really logical is to flee from the desert to find a fruitfull land to live, and that is what had been happening there for thousands of years. At least historians say that, you know. Tribes and peoples who lived in the central parts of the Peninsula constantly migrated to North (Syrian Desert, Mesopotamia) and West (Egypt), thus causing many problems and 'unrests'. You can find it it ANY book about ancient history. Have a look at Hitti's "History of the Arabs", Khourani's "History of the Arabs", Bright's "History of Israel", Moscati's "Culture of the Ancient Semitic nations" and so on, and so on.

So I should correct myself. The point is: in these times there was no such a name as 'Arab' to name all the nations/tribes/peoples/whatever that lived in the whole Arabic Peninsula. It's the dawn of Islam that brought the idea of 'one Arabic nation'. Earlier they used to call themselves with a different names, for example "beduins", and almost every city/kingdom/large tribe had it's own identity, feel of being different from the other, who surrounded it.

And, you know, I'd envy you the self-asureness in the matter, if not the fact, that I prefer to stick on knowledge that comes from scientifical research than on beliefs. In modern Hebrew the meaning is simple: 'Aravi' stands for 'Arab', 'Ivri' for 'Hebrew' and that's as simple, as it could ever be. But the origin of these words is not such simple, thus we have very many efforts to find it's original, true meaning in the Bible.

As I stated above, I'll stick on the facts. The fact is that Talmud was written some one and a half thousands years ago, and the issues we try to discuss happened like four thousands years ago. We have no further evidence of existance of these laws before, not mentioning the existance of Moses etc. Thus for me Talmud cannot be any source of information about ethnical origin of the Jews. It's not the matter of revisionism, it's a matter of being religious and believing in what Bible says, and being a sceptic. I'm the latter one, and as I said there is not a base we could share in this discussion. :)

I've named a few books above.

If you are ok with the phrase as it is, enjoy it! Not my problem, really. It's always good to have a smile everytime I spot it in someone's sig! :up:

I'd give it up(in fact I have) this isn't a reasonable discussion any more,hasn't been for quite a while now:down:

The usual cop-out. Toodaloo.

thats disgusting and embarassing.:nope:

Sticks and stones........

"The treaty effectively countered the bulls of Alexander VI and was sanctioned by Pope Julius II in a new bull of 1506." Without the pope's sanction it would be just a treaty between two coutries. WITH that sanction it looks different, isn't it? Throughout the European history in these times it was said and believed that "God gave these lands by pope's mouth to Christian kings of Portugal and Spain". THAT was, what I meant.

Yes, I'm saying any religion is an ideology. "Religion" is (for me) a word to name the kind of ideology that says the source of law, order, good and evil etc. is god. Other ideologies refer to different sources of these values. One believes in god, other in nature and the third in mankind or anything else. If that is offensive or insulting, stating that there is god should be insulting too to those who don't share this belief. But it's not. What was the point? Should I refrain from sayiong I don't believe in God not to insult anyone? Do we want to go so far?

Oh... and that would be offensive, if I took it personally. I have never called anyone a bull***ter on these nor other forums. I strongly believe any discussion should focus on the topic that matters, to be ad rem, not ad personam. And again we don't share the same beliefs. And again I don't find this insulting... :smug:


Hmm... This discussion went far from the original topic. That's also partially my fault. From the pork to the Bible and linguistic issues... I'll try not to continue this. But, you know, at least my original post was on topic (I hope) and I tried to bring some fresh look on discussed issues and correct some thesis posted above, regarding Islam. Sorry to the bored ones.

Not fair. :cry: I've had a laugh every time I have seen it over the months that people have been featuring it in their sig. Now the secret is out. Oh well. It is still amusing to see that people post a sig that they have no idea what it actually says. I guess it kind of sums up the complete ignorance and lack of understanding of the subject matter. Happy days. :sunny:

Excellent series of posts Abd_von_Mumit. :up:

Direct personal attack. How sad. :nope: :nope:

To answer your last question, it is perfectly valid and accurate in modern Hebrew, no less.

I failed to understand the relevance in this case of your point with patronomical names.
But I never said it was.
The verse states "ki Karan panav" - meaning because his face radiated. Otherwise, the Roman history is nice but why are we going off on this tangent?
Yet there it is staring at you in the verses I mentioned.
Yes but it's the Islamic claim that the Arabs are the descendents of Yishmael that we're discussing and my claim that this is simply non-factual, which you actually agreed with.
Tangents. Tangents.
All you did was (re)state the English transliterized sounds of these 2 Hebrew words. So?
"Eiver ha'Nahar" for "Ivri". "Erev" and "Ma'arav" for "Arav".

Ho hum. :roll:
While this is when the Talmud was compiled, it was all compiled from oral sources, Just as the Mishnah was a few 100 years prior. Try again.
Whoopie for you.
So be it.

Laila tov.

Why don't you point his personal attack on Skybird? Or on anybody else? He has said that he found many pig****terss in here. Who are they?

Have you missed this Konovalov? Or is your blindness voluntary, ideological/religious?

Why only me Konovalov?

As I've shown, you have said that this whole thread has many bull****s and pig****ters. Care to name and point them out? One who makes a bull**** is a bull****ter or is he not? You also called someone pig****ter. So you have thrown two offenses, that somebody made bull**** wich makes the author a bull****ter and pig****ter proper.

I will show that there is nothing personal in my response.

The Catholic Church replaced the vacuum created by the fall of the Roman Empire. With the Roman authority gone, treaties and contracts had no value at all. One Feudal people may consider something valid that the other one does not. To solve this issue Europeans relied on the Church as that was a common denominator to all and the Church gradually assumed the role. It was not by principle but by necessity.

If you are sincere in your intentions you know that Islam is based on the attempt to create a sacred state, by principle, and that's why a Muslim when converting has to sign a paper at the Mosque. A Christian can convert by himself, alone, hidden, inside a hostile enviroment. A Muslim must take part in the public life and be registered in the Islamic notary's public. It is not only a spiritual convertion, but a material declaration.

Thus, you are counter-productive by giving importance to this point. If the importance lies in juridical authorization from the religious authority, then every Muslim registered at a Mosque has acted in the name of Allah and in the name of Islam.

Because you have devalued religion of revelation! You have de-divinized the content of religion. The source is the religion and not God. The source is natural and man-made and not divine. If you do not want to insult anybody then yes you would have to refrain from saying anything at all. Anything you say is a potential insult to somebody, somewhere. My point was to show that while you tell Skybird not to say "Muhammedans" because it is insulting, you, yourself, is also capable of insult. As I am and as anybody is because there is always someone willing to take an insult. You have denied Skybird the right to say "Muhammedans" but does not accept to be told the same. There is one standard for Skybird and another for you. Care to explain why you can say whatever you believe in, "(for me)", but others can't?

And here is the point. Your response to Skybird has brought confusion instead of ellucidating anything at all. And you have made every effort not to understand what Skybird meant.

Later you are going to say that all Empires fall. Could it be that Skybird is refering to a period of decline while you speak of rising and all there really is to it is a confusion to what is being refered as Islam? Islam considered as a religion, Islam considered as an ideology or Islam considered as anything a Muslim authority signs below.

What have you done here? Relativized and generalized. This has made nothing clear. The particular problem of the thread that is being discussed: "Islam", is put aside next to "religion". Now we can't talk about Islam anymore, we have to talk about "religion". The problem being addressed and investigated dissapears and a whole new realm enters the room. No longer is Islam the issue, but the relations of "religion".

Relativized, same as above. Islam is no longer being analyzed, but its relations to "religion" and other "religions".

This paragraph has not brought up any facts at all, by the contrary, it has eliminated all the facts I am going to list:

1. Who - who has blood in his hands, exactly who killed?
2. When - when did this take place? How many times? What's the timeline?
3. How - how did it happened?
4. Why - what are the motivation and justification or even excuses for it?
5. Then what - what are the consequences to the event, what did others said, what did successors say, what happened next.

None of these facts are present and the relativization with other religions only makes their importance nill and thus their dissapearance, solving absolutely nothing and creating more problems and more confusion.

Relativization. At best we can talk about potential danger, not factual. But again, there is no talk, if it's all equal and the same the facts don't really matter.

Relativization. When you say that there is no black or white but only flavours of grey don't you realize this is impossible? If there is only grey how can you tell it's grey, that it's a mixture of black and white? How can you tell it is darker or lighter? Only because there is black and white and only because you are capable of thinking on these terms.

When you relativize everything you take away all the importance of the facts themselves.

Man... "Pig**ts" cannot stand for "pig**ters"... There's a huge difference. Thus it doesn't refer to any person, but to a flawed info provided here (like blaming Islam for Persian slaughter in Jerusalem).

Then I ask you, Konovalov and whoever else to ignore everything related to the pig****/bull**** as it also, thus, has no relation to any object of reality and apologize for the inconvenience and wasted time.

Thank goodness for that then. :)

Dipping bullets in pork to demoralize terrorists.
 

We could wait for this thread to run out of hand from day 1.
Too offensive, too personal and too many stars without stripes recently to consider this a reasonable General Topics Forum discussion any longer.

Clangggg.

Discussion closed.

Abraham

(with moderator cap on)