Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Lewis Reich" <lewreich AT javanet.com>]

On 21 Feb 00, at 22:26, Peter Kirk wrote:

> This may be true, but I am concerned about your first example. The
> English "harem" is derived via Turkish from the Arabic "haram", which
> is also a Muslim religious concept. A colleague of mine recently did a
> comparative study of the Hebrew XEREM and the word "haram" as borrowed
> from Arabic into another language under Muslim influence. My colleague
> found some quite significant differences between the concepts, e.g.
> that the Arabic "haram" is to be rejected because it is unclean,
> whereas the Hebrew XEREM is to be destroyed because it is holy. So
> pork is "haram" (forbidden by religious laws) to the Muslim, but I
> don't think XEREM would ever be used of anything like pork in the
> Hebrew Bible. 

I agree, but what do you think of Deut. 7:25, where it's talking about 
something more odious than forbidden food, viz., idols, herem is 
used?  The idols aren't to be regarded as holy, in fact the word 
to'evah is used.

Lewis Reich