Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Kirk" <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
To: "Uri Hurwitz" <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>
Cc: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 01, 2004 8:13 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Tammuz, image of (Ezek 8:14)


> On 30/04/2004 09:07, Uri Hurwitz wrote:
>
> >Walter, did you know that "Tamuz" is thge name of one of the months of
the Jewish calendar? In fact, all other names are also Akkadian. Interesting
that  ancient Yahweh worshippers , possibly post-exilic, didn't mind
adopting a name of  a pagan deity fo their month!
> >
> >
>
> Interestingly enough, it is the name of one of the modern Turkish
> months, July I think, proving that Muslims also don't mind this. Several
> of the Turkish month names are taken from the Jewish calendar.
>
>
>
> --
> Peter Kirk

Actually, I would guess that Turkish adopted it from Arabic. As far as I
know, the "northern" part of the Arabic-speaking world (such as Syria) uses
these "Babylonian" names as the names of the equivalent solar months (Tammuz
= July; Tishrin = October); presumably they were adopted from Aramaic. The
"southern" Arabs (such as Egypt) use the European names. But unlike the
Jewish calendar, in which Tishri, Marheshvan etc. are lunar months used
mainly for the ritual calendar, in the Muslim world, these are "secular"
solar months, separate form the "religious" Muslim lunar calendar.

By the way, I was once in a yeshiva (an Orthodox talmudic seminary) in which
the main sanctuary had big stained-glass windows, one of which had a
"calendar" theme. For some reason, Tammuz was right on top. I asked the
Rabbi if he didn't think it ironic that a Babylonian god had top place in
his synagogue - I never did get an answer!


Yigal