Biblical Hebrew Forum

[gs02wmr AT panther.Gsu.EDU]

On Wed, 14 Jul 1999, Ruthy & Baruch wrote:
> Shalom again!

va alakhem shalom, friend!..

> I thought I'd add to my clarification on "mitaslem", that although the word
> itself cannot be BH, the usage of the hitpa'el form for religious
> conversion does have its roots in Tanach. Esther 8:17 reads in Hebrew:
> "ve-rabbim me-'ame ha-aretz *mityahadim*", which means (to those who accept
> the MT version here) some sort of conversion to Judaism (as I have no
> translated Bible at home, I don't know how most of you read this verse).
> 
> Therefore we have "mityahed" as converting to Judaism (as opposed to the
> later "mitgayer", from "ger", which is the common term in modern Hebrew);
> "mitaslem" to Islam; and "mitnatzer" to Christianity.  The last two, of
> course, are based on the form of the Biblical first.

Thanks very much for your translation and explanations. Very
Informative! So 'mitaslem,' per se, is not found in the Tanakh, since
Islam is not mentioned, but the hitpa'el for conversion certainly is.
Okay...I think I gotcha.

So from what I gather here, the prefix 'Mit'(Mem Tav) means 'one who has
converted' and the suffix could be the religion or philosophy. Am I right?
It sounds a lot like Arabic, where the prefix 'MU'(Meem) indicates "One
who is" and the suffix ending describes a quality or characteristic to
which the individual personifies. 

Shalom!