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 Post subject: Arameans
PostPosted: 17 Feb 2013 23:49 
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Who were the Arameans and why did Moses say:

Quote:
The priest shall receive the basket from you
and shall set it in front of the altar of the LORD, your God.
Then you shall declare before the Lord, your God,
‘My father was a wandering Aramean
who went down to Egypt with a small household
and lived there as an alien.' ~ Dt 26:4-5

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 Post subject: Re: Arameans
PostPosted: 18 Feb 2013 11:00 
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Was Moses not a Jew?

Or were the Jews Arameans?

Or were the Arameans Jews?

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 Post subject: Re: Arameans
PostPosted: 18 Feb 2013 12:02 
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David,

The quote is likely referring to Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, or to Abraham himself. They were wandering Arameans. Recognition of "the Jews" as a people came later.

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 Post subject: Re: Arameans
PostPosted: 18 Feb 2013 15:02 
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David,

Quote:
Who were the Arameans?


Quote:
The Arameans, or Aramaeans (Aramaic: ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ‎, ארמיא ; ʼaramáyé) were a Northwest Semitic semi-nomadic and pastoralist people who originated in what is now modern Syria (Biblical Aram) during the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Large groups migrated to Mesopotamia where they intermingled with the native Akkadian (Assyrian and Babylonian) population.

The Arameans never had a unified nation; they were divided into small independent kingdoms across parts of the Near East, particularly in what is now modern Syria. After the Bronze Age collapse, their political influence was confined to a number of Syro-Hittite states, which were entirely absorbed into the Neo-Assyrian Empire by the 8th century BC.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arameans

Quote:
Arameans continued to be the majority population in their homeland (most of modern Syria and part of south central Asia Minor) until well after the Arab Islamic conquest of the 7th century AD. A number of Aramaean kingdoms sprang up in the region, the most important being Palmyra and to a lesser degree the Osroene kingdom. There was some synthesis with Arab peoples (and possibly Greeks and Phoenicians also), and the Nabatean civilisation of what is today Jordan and southern Syria had an essentially a mixed Aramean-Arab identity. From the 2nd Century AD they began to adopt Christianity in increasing numbers, and by the 4th Century AD the population was largely Christian. After the Arab Islamic conquest of the region in the 7th Century AD, Arameans gradually became a minority in their homelands, the language was gradually replaced by Arabic, as ever increasing numbers of Arabs, (together with Turkic and Iranic peoples) began to move into the region. Those indigenous peoples who converted to Islam rapidly lost their Aramean identity, intermixed with the Arab rulers and essentially became Arabs. However, a dwindling proportion of the population, now limited to the Anti-Lebanon mountains in Syria, has remained Aramaean, having resisted the process of Arabization and Islamification and retaining Western Aramaic language and, often, their original Christian faith.


Quote:
Was Moses not a Jew?



Was his mother not a Jew?

Quote:
According to the Torah, Jochebed (pron.: /ˈjɒkɨbɛd/; Hebrew: יוֹכֶבֶד / יוֹכָבֶד, Modern Yoḫéved / Yoḫáved Tiberian Yôḵéḇeḏ / Yôḵāḇeḏ ; "Yahweh is glory") was a daughter of Levi[1] and mother of Aaron, Miriam and Moses. She was the wife of Amram, as well as his aunt.[2] No details are given concerning her life. According to Jewish legend, Jochebed is buried in the Tomb of the Matriarchs, in Tiberias.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jochebed

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 Post subject: Re: Arameans
PostPosted: 18 Feb 2013 15:18 
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Location: Enjoying the sight and aroma of blooming lilacs on a marvelous day in May …
Here’s a little bit different take on the Arameans
Quote:
The Arameans are a group of western Semitic, Aramaic-speaking tribes who spread over the Fertile Crescent during the last quarter of the second millennium B.C.E. Eleventh and tenth century royal inscriptions from Assyria and Babylonia indicate Aramean movements through the north of the Middle Euphrates and northern Mesopotamia. In other words, the Arameans might be viewed as the successors of the *Amorites of the late third millennium (Dion in Bibliography). These nomads or semi-nomads spread from the Persian Gulf in the south to the Amanus Mountains in the north, and the anti-Lebanon and northern Transjordan in the west.
Of the various biblical traditions concerning their place of origin, an obscure reference in Amos 9:7 places it in Kir, whose location is uncertain, but may refer to a locale apparently not far from Emar (modern Tell Meskene)

The patriarchal narratives make the Hebrew Patriarchs close kinsmen of the Arameans. Not only is Abraham a brother of the aforementioned Nahor, but Isaac marries a granddaughter of Nahor who is "daughter of Bethuel the Aramean and sister of Laban the Aramean" (Gen. 25:20), and Jacob marries daughters of the same "Laban the Aramean" (cf. Gen. 31:47, where Laban coins an Aramaic equivalent for Gilead (Galed)). On one occasion Jacob himself is described as "a wandering-destitute-Aramean" (Deut. 26:5). This tradition conforms to the later Hebrew names for the ancestral home of the Patriarchs in the Haran district: "Paddan-Aram" (Gen. 25:20; 28:2); the "country of Aram" (Hos. 12:13); and "Aram-Naharaim" (i.e., the Jezirah, the region of the Habor and Euphrates rivers; Gen. 24:10).

The existence of the Arameans in the "patriarchal period," however, is not attested by extra-biblical sources – in any case, not as an element important enough to warrant naming the entire Jezirah area after it. Indeed, in the Egyptian and Akkadian sources of the 15th–12th centuries B.C.E. the area is referred to simply as Naharaim (in many different spellings), but never as Aram-Naharaim. Thus, the latter name and the alleged Aramean affiliations of the "Patriarchs" are anachronisms that came into being at the end of the second millennium as a result of the thorough entrenchment of the Aramean tribes in the Jezirah region at that time. The arguments, particularly the linguistic ones, that the "Patriarchs" were "Proto-Arameans" are without substance. The mention of Aram or Aram-Naharaim as the country of origin of Balaam (Num. 23:7; Deut. 23:5) is, perhaps, also an anachronism.

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 Post subject: Re: Arameans
PostPosted: 18 Feb 2013 16:07 
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Regarding Jews, this term was not used until after the split of the kingdom after the time of David.

See this.

Moses was a Hebrew, and so was his mother, of the nation (people) of Israel, who were really the 12 tribes descended from Jacob (renamed Israel), who went down into Egypt during a great famine in the land where they were wandering about. At the time they went to Egypt, Joseph (the youngest son of Jacob) was favored by Pharaoh.

As I stated before, the term "Jews," short for Judean, was not used to refer to some of the Hebrews until much later. The "Jews" would have been the tribe of Judah and Benjamin, who were not one of the 10 lost tribes of Israel carried off by the Assyrians.

At time of Moses and Deuteronomy, therefore, Jews would not be the proper term to use to refer to the people of Israel.

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 Post subject: Re: Arameans
PostPosted: 18 Feb 2013 16:19 
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Dean,

The question "Who is a Jew?" has been a vexing one for some centuries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew#Who_is_a_Jew.3F

In modern times it is dealt with in the Law of Return.

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 Post subject: Re: Arameans
PostPosted: 18 Feb 2013 16:43 
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Thanks, James. Regardless of where they came from, my point (at least what I was trying to make) was that "Jews" was a term used later in the Bible and in time much later than when Moses was giving his people final instructions before they went into the Promised Land.

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 Post subject: Re: Arameans
PostPosted: 18 Feb 2013 17:03 
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Hi,

The simple answer is that there were not Jews before Abraham. God decided to found a new nation with Abraham as its origin. They came to be known as Hebrews and later Jews.

Robert

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 Post subject: Re: Arameans
PostPosted: 19 Feb 2013 00:40 
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Dean wrote:
See this.

Interesting reading. It also says on that page...
Quote:
Who started the Jehovah's Witness religion?
Jehovah's Witnesses started in the Garden of Eden when God created Adam and then Eve...

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 Post subject: Re: Arameans
PostPosted: 19 Feb 2013 06:58 
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David,

So that invalidates everything that precedes it? Would you like me to find another source? There are a lot of them, including the class on Scripture that I had at a Catholic seminary. But this one seemed to explain the point I was trying to make adequately enough.

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 Post subject: Re: Arameans
PostPosted: 19 Feb 2013 10:03 
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Dean wrote:
So that invalidates everything that precedes it?

Nope.

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