Aramaic Herald: King Yehimilk-and other issues

The Yehimilk inscription dating to the mid-tenth century B.C.E. was discovered in 1929. It consists of seven lines of text inscribed over the top of a previous pseudo-hieroglypic inscription that was written within registers dividing the lines (Gibson 1982, 17). The language of the inscription is Old Byblian, an early Phoenician dialect used primarily in the city of Byblos. The text is a royal dedicatory inscription by a king of Byblos. Several similar inscriptions also dating to the tenth century B.C.E. have been found at Byblos – Abibaal, Elibaal, and Shiptibaal. The basic pattern throughout these inscriptions is:

The object which PN king of Byblos, son of PN, king of Byblos built/brought for DN. May DN prolong the days of PN and his years over Byblos. (PN = proper name; DN = deity name)

This pattern was not limited to the inscriptions from Byblos but should be seen as a common formula for dedicatory inscriptions in the Canaanite dialects. The formula has even been found in a seventh century BCE inscription from Ekron, a prominent Philistine city (Gitin 1997). Translation:

¹ (This is the) temple which Yehimilk king of Byblos rebuilt. ² He restored all the ruins of ³ these temples. May Ba'al-shamem and Ba'alat ⁴ of Byblos and the assembly of the ⁵ holy gods of Byblos prolong the days of Yehimilk and his years ⁶ over Byblos. For [he is] a legitimate king and a ⁷ good king before the h[oly] gods of Byblos.

The fact that Yehimilk doesn't give us his lineage (i.e., I am Yehimilk, son of Abibaal, son of …) but stresses that he is a good and legitimate king of Byblos suggests that he is a usurper (like Zakkur in an Aramaic inscription that we'll get to later).

References:
Gibson, John C. L. 1982. Textbook of Syrian Semitic inscriptions: Volume III: Phoenician Inscriptions. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Gitin, Seymour, Trude Dothan, and Joseph Naveh. 1997. A royal dedicatory inscription from Ekron. Israel Exploration Journal 47, : 1-16. (This information-with a drawing of the inscription-is on a Hebrew blog.)

It looks obvious to me that the name Yehimilk means "Yahweh is King."

Please watch the following videos. It is good to see good instruction about Christian history coming from the "700 Club."

SEIGE OF VIENNA

http://www.cbn.com/700club/features/churchhistory/siegeofvienna/index.asp

A BALANCED HISTORY OF CONSTANTINE

http://www.cbn.com/media/player/index.aspx?s=/vod/EZ11v2_WS

So many lies and distortions are told about Constantine. Along with this video, I would recommend the book "Defending Constantine."

The Fall of Constantinople

http://www.cbn.com/700club/features/churchhistory/hagiasophia/

Read this ANTISHARIA.COM article about the MYTH THAT THE CHRISTIANS WERE WELL-TREATED IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE,it has about the DEVSHIRME system(500,000-1 million Christian children stolen and forced to become Muslim),plus more; http://www.antisharia.com/2011/03/26/the-myth-of-the-well-treatment-of-christians-by-the-ottoman-muslims/

Vanishing Voices

The July 2012 edition of National Geographic contained an article about "at risk languages." Unfortunately, it says nothing about Aramaic. The article is by Russ Rymer and states, "One language dies every 14 days. By the next century nearly half of the roughly 7,000 languages spoken on Earth will likely disappear, as communities abandon native tongues in favor of English, Mandarin, or Spanish. What is lost when a language goes silent?

I found some facts about Sumerian very fascinating. Sumerian is not related to any language on earth. If not for Akkadian scribes, it would have been very difficult, if not impossible to decipher. However, in the Sumerian language, is evidence of an early language, the language of the people who lived in ancient Iraq before the Sumerians arrived. Languages have always been going extinct. It is probably a natural process of human language. And the way languages evolve, languages will transform into different languages and new languages will be born.

I just think it will be a pity if Aramaic does go extinct.

Islamic radicalism is a serious threat to the survival of Aramaic and the continued survival of a Christian presence in the Middle East.

IMPORTANT VIDEO: BACHMANN AND HUCKABEE ON ISLAMIST TERROR http://video.foxnews.com/v/1843918019001/rep-michele-bachmann-on-embassy-attacks/?playlist_id=87485

The threat we face is the attempts by Islamists to make Sharia law-international law!

Allen West says it the way it is http://video.foxnews.com/v/1837594818001/?intcmp=obinsite

Obama called his own grandfather a "nigger"

"My image of Onyango, faint as it was, had always been of an autocratic man—a cruel man, perhaps. But I had also imagined him an independent man, a man of his people, opposed to white rule… What Granny had told us scrambled that image completely, causing ugly words to flash across my mind. Uncle Tom. Collaborator. House nigger." In one of the most remarkable passages in Barack Obama's "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance," he uses the terms "collaborator," "Uncle Tom," and "House nigger" to describe someone he detests. That someone, it turns out, is his own grandfather! We have a striking phenomenon here: the first African American president using the N-word, and to refer to his own grandfather! Ordinarily this would be occasion for massive comment and analysis, but if there has been any, I am not aware of it. So what could possibly cause the president to describe his own grandfather in this appalling way? The answer, it turns out, provides an important insight into Obama's character. The president is not the healer and unifier that he said he was four years ago. Rather, he views people who disagree with him—including members of his own family—in terms of ideological kinship or betrayal. And by Obama's standard, even his own grandfather is an ideological sellout deserving of insults and abuse.

[Obama hates his grandfather because his grandfather admired the west and thought that Kenyans could advance by applying the principles from Western Civilization. Obama is a radical leftists "anti-colonialist" which is proved in "The Roots of Obama's Rage," "2016 the Movie," and "Obama's America."
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/09/11/why-did-obama-use-n-word-to-describe-his-grandfather/?intcmp=trending#ixzz26jrYAsjx

Women are making porn fashionable by Patrick Wanis

Porn is becoming a new ideal and value for young girls. And women are responsible.

Women are consuming and endorsing porn such as 'Fifty Shades of Grey' -- a book recognized as 'mommy porn.' Poorly written, it is not a how-to-manual and it's not poetic erotica. Pulp/romance novels transformed into a new genre embracing porn as literature - explicitly sexual scenes featuring bondage/discipline, dominance/submission and sadism/masochism. More than 20 million copies have sold in the US (40 million worldwide), and it is yet another example of the way porn is becoming more than socially acceptable amongst women. Moreover, it is becoming an aspirational target for women. Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian became famous and rich for making a sex tape, and they spun off empires of TV shows, fashion lines, perfumes and paid appearances. The message is: one leads to the other. But it is women who made Kardashian famous. And it is women who have become the fans and consumers of everything Kardashian and books such as Fifty Shades of Grey. Using sex for money and fame, women have found a new way to feel powerful and secure without a man or even necessarily a family – Octomom has openly become a porn actress and stripper.

Mothers, too, are now sexualizing their daughters and dressing them up as sexual candy for the world. Lindsay Jackson dressed her 5-year-old, Madisyn 'Maddy' Verst, in a sexy police uniform and a Dolly Parton outfit complete with padded breasts and padded backside for a TV reality show. And Jessica Simpson dressed her 4-month-old girl in bikinis.

Porn could never have become mainstream and socially acceptable without the support and endorsement by women. In human behavior, we call this 'the law of frequency' -- the more often two things are linked, the more powerful that association becomes until they become inseparable. And women and the media have linked consuming porn or behaving like a porn actress with instant money, fame, power, glamour, prestige, respectability and social acceptability. In other words, if you become a porn actress or behave like one, you will triumph with all of these things.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/09/15/how-women-made-porn-fashionable/#ixzz26jwmCPre

With war imminent, Obama refuses to see Netanyahu but has time to party with beyonce, Jay-Z and David Letterman

President Barack Obama's refusal Tuesday Sept. 11 to see Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu because "the president's schedule will not permit that," left Jerusalem thunderstruck – and Washington too. At one stroke, round after round of delicate negotiations on Iran between the White House, Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, the US National Security Council, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta collapsed. They had aimed at an agreement on a starting point for the meeting that had been fixed between the two leaders for Sept. 28 in New York to bridge their differences over an attack on Iran's nuclear program. By calling off the meeting, the US president has put paid to those hopes and publicly humiliated the Israel prime minister, turning the clock back to the nadir of their relations brought about by the comment by Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Aug. 30: "I don't want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it" – meaning attack Iran. By rebuffing Netanyahu, the president demonstrated that the top US soldier was not just talking off the cuff but representing the president's final position on a possible Israel strike to preempt Iran's nuclear program.

Obama critics assail Letterman gig

By David Jackson, USA TODAY

Conservatives have a new mantra: President Obama would rather meet with David Letterman than Benjamin Netanyahu. Or, he'd rather meet with Jay-Z and Beyonce. Obama tapes a Letterman gig later today in New York City, and then attends a fundraiser hosted by music stars Jay-Z and Beyonce. This will be Obama's seventh appearance with Letterman, his second since becoming president.

Conservative critics contrast today's schedule with the fact that, as of now, the president does not have a face-to-face meeting with Netanyahu when the Israeli prime minister is in New York next week for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly. "President Obama needs to get his priorities straight, said Rep.Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. "What he needs to do is cancel his planned interview with David Letterman, cancel his meeting with Beyonce, cancel his meeting with Jay Z, and instead agree to meet with the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, because, you see, America and Israel have a commonality of interests."

Media Matters in collusion with Justice Department

http://video.foxnews.com/v/1848034825001/

Top ten for Obama

GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: So a recording has surfaced offending a religion, causing its fervent followers to go mad. I speak of the tape of Mitt's comments about entitlement which insults its god -- Obama -- and his followers in the media. It's called a hate fact -- a truth libs hate to hear. The fallout? Ashley Judd and Eva Longoria finally found their outrage, which went missing while free expression was under attack just days ago. Meanwhile, some are ticked that Obama is doing yet another late-night infomercial, i.e., David Letterman, as the globe implodes. I disagree. It's way safer to have Obama visit a bitter, old crank than actually working.

Consider 10 things Obama could do instead of Letterman.

One, apologize to someone -- anyone -- for a perceived slight against their fanatical beliefs.
Two, pass another stimulus, which can cost trillion and only stimulates unemployment and Alec Baldwin.
Another auto bailout -- a huge success according to people who rides bikes to work.
Ram through a health care bill that nobody wants, nobody reads or even understands.
Tax the rich, which will not reduce our crushing deficit, but will crush jobs.
Punish another state for trying to enforce federal laws on immigration that the federal government won't enforce.
Undermine efforts to reduce our dependence on lunatic regimes by blocking drilling at home.
Block the Keystone pipeline.
Use class warfare to stir up envy.
Ask Valerie Jarrett for permission to smoke.

Wow! None of that is funny at all. But maybe Letterman can spin failure to the comedy gold. Considering what Obama has done the last four years, if doing Letterman keeps him busy it's good for America. Maybe we can get the networks to turn all of our programming over to Obama. Wait, they already have.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/1847909611001/gutfelds-top-10-list-for-obama/?playlist_id=87485

Time to stop state monitoring of sermons

More than 1,000 pastors are planning to challenge the IRS next month by deliberately preaching politics ahead of the presidential election despite a federal ban on endorsements from the pulpit. The defiant move, they hope, will prompt the IRS to enforce a 1954 tax code amendment that prohibits tax-exempt organizations, such as churches, from making political endorsements. Alliance Defending Freedom, which is holding the October summit, said it wants the IRS to press the matter so it can be decided in court. The group believes the law violates the First Amendment by "muzzling" preachers. The purpose is to make sure that the pastor -- and not the IRS -- decides what is said from the pulpit," Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the group, told FoxNews.com. "It is a head-on constitutional challenge." Stanley said pastors attending the Oct. 7 "Pulpit Freedom Sunday" will "preach sermons that will talk about the candidates running for office" and then "make a specific recommendation." "We're hoping the IRS will respond by doing what they have threatened," he said. "We have to wait for it to be applied to a particular church or pastor so that we can challenge it in court. We don't think it's going to take long for a judge to strike this down as unconstitutional." An amendment was made to the IRS tax code in 1954, stating that tax-exempt organizations are "absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office." "Violation of this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise tax," the IRS says in its online guide for churches and religious organizations seeking tax exemption. Stanley and others, like San Diego pastor Jim Garlow, say the IRS regularly threatens churches that they will lose their tax-exempt status if they preach politics. But Stanley and Garlow claim the government never acts on the threat because it wants to avoid a court battle. "It is blatantly unconstitutional," said Stanley. "They just prefer to put out these vague statements and regulations and enforce it through a system of intimidation … Pastors are afraid to address anything political from the pulpit." "The IRS will send out notices from time to time and say you crossed the line," added Garlow, a senior pastor of Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego. "But when it's time to go to court, they close the case."

Paris Mohammed cartoons

A French magazine's decision to publish cartoons depicting a naked Prophet Mohammad triggered a new wave of fears at embassies in Europe, even as anger at the west continued to sweep through the Muslim world. France announced Wednesday it will close 20 embassies in Arab and Muslim nations after the weekly Charlie Hebdo published the controversial cartoons. The images threaten to further inflame Muslim protesters and terror groups, who have demonstrated against the U.S. at embassies around the world since an anti-Islam film went viral last week.The French Foreign Ministry issued a travel warning Wednesday urging French citizens in the Muslim world to exercise "the greatest vigilance," avoiding public gatherings and "sensitive buildings" such as those representing the West or religious sites. At the same time, the country -- which has western Europe's largest Muslim population -- plunged into new debate over the limits to free speech in a modern democracy. France's prime minister said freedom of expression is guaranteed, but cautioned that it "should be exercised with responsibility and respect."Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius warned that Charlie Hebdo could be throwing "oil on the fire," but said it's up to courts to decide whether the magazine went too far. The cartoons could extend a wave of violence linked to a trailer for an amateurish film called the "Innocence of Muslims," which portrays the prophet as a fraud, a womanizer and a child molester, has killed at least 30 people in seven countries.The U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans, were also killed in a strike on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi -- though it remains unclear whether the violence was a coordinated attack by terrorists. On Wednesday, several hundred lawyers protesting the movie forced their way into an area in Pakistan's capital that houses the U.S. Embassy and other foreign missions. The United States temporarily closed its consulate in an Indonesian city because of similar demonstrations, and hundreds protested the film in Sri Lanka's capital and burned effigies of President Obama. The magazine's crude cartoons played off the film and ridiculed the violent reaction to it. Riot police took up positions outside the offices of the magazine, which was firebombed last year after it released an edition that mocked radical Islam. Charlie Hebdo's chief editor, who goes by the name of Charb and has been under police protection for a year, defended the cartoons."Muhammad isn't sacred to me," he said in an interview at the weekly's offices, on the northeast edge of Paris amid a cluster of housing projects. "I don't blame Muslims for not laughing at our drawings. I live under French law; I don't live under Quranic law." Government authorities and Muslim leaders urged calm. "This is a disgraceful and hateful, useless and stupid provocation," Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Grand Paris Mosque, told The Associated Press. "We are not Pavlov's animals to react at each insult." A small-circulation weekly, Charlie Hebdo often draws attention for ridiculing sensitivity around the Prophet Muhammad, and an investigation into the firebombing of its offices last year is still open. The magazine posted a statement online saying its website had been hacked. Abdallah Zekri, president of the Paris-based Anti-Islamophobia Observatory, said his group is considering filing a lawsuit against the magazine. "People want to create trouble in France," he said. "Charlie Hebdo wants to make money on the backs of Muslims." Meanwhile, seven Egyptian Coptic Christians living abroad, including Nakoula Bassely Nakoula, who made the "Innocence of Muslims" film, and Florida Pastor Terry Jones, will be tried, presumably in absentia, by a criminal court for insulting Islam over the trailer, Egypt's public prosecutor said Tuesday. The prosecutor said that convictions could be punishable by the death penalty, and called for the eight individuals to handed over to Egypt.

The proper response to Muslims threatening us for exercising our freedom of speech –is to continue exercising them.

Aramaic Herald

Thursday, September 20, 2012

King Yehimilk-and other issues

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