Zoramites in Southern Arabia

In 1981 the following inscription was published. It comes from the Wadi el-Sirr, some 40 kilometers north of Sanaa, Yemen. It dates to the middle Sabean Period, somewhere between 300 BC and the time of Christ.

Abrathid, of Zoram, daughter of the sons of Thagram, founded and completed the tower Yaf'am (exalted) and the cemetery Rabakh (place of rest) with the help of her husband, Azbar and his sons from the sons of Zoram.

(Peter Stein, Lehrbuch der sabaischen Sprache [Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2012], 2:130.)

The inscription is informative on a number of points, but here I would like to highlight four:

1. The inscription, as well as the whole building project, was commissioned by a woman. While pre-Islamic Arabic does not have the reputation of granting many rights or much status to women, this inscription shows that it was possible for a woman to commission and direct construction works. In the inscription, Abrathid has a higher status than her husband, Azbar. Although she is assisted by her husband and her sons, she takes pride of place in the inscription while they are mere afterthoughts.
   


2. The inter-tribal marriage is highlighted. Abrathid comes from the Thagram tribe and has married into the Zoram tribe.


3. The cemetery is located in the general region where the Book of Mormon places the burial of Ishmael. This may simply be coincidence, as burials tend to take place in the vicinity of the death, wherever that may be.


4. There is a tribe named after an individual named Zoram, and Azbar and Abrathid are Zoramites. This is probably not the same Zoram as is mentioned in the Book of Mormon, but the name is the same and it occurs in the area where Zoram traveled on the wilderness journey. The name does not appear in Harding's index as the inscription was originally published about ten years later.
   

Inscriptions like this one indicate that information relevant to the Book of Mormon may still be found in ancient Arabia.

Right on Target: Gidgiddoni

Art by James H. Fullmer

There are generally two approaches to Book of Mormon names. One of them searches for plausible etymologies for Book of Mormon names; the other looks at whether the name is actually attested. If it is attested it does not matter much whether or not we can figure out an etymology for the name (that is, whether we can determine what the name originally meant). Both of these approaches are useful and have their merits.

The Book of Mormon name Gidgiddoni can now be added to the list of names that are attested.

Gidgiddoni, it will be remembered, was "great commander of all the armies of the Nephites" (3 Nephi 3:18) during the reign of Lachoneus. He is first mentioned during events of "the sixteenth year from the coming of Christ" (3 Nephi 3:1), and is last mentioned ten years later (3 Nephi 6:6).

The name Gidgiddoni, with its reduplication and doubled consonant, is unusual for a Hebrew name. We now know that it is not. It is a well attested name in Neo-Assyrian records. It comes from the same Assyrian empire that is discussed so extensively in the works of Isaiah. The name is mentioned many times in Assyrian records, covering a number of individuals. It is spelled a number of ways:

• Gíd-gi-da-nu (SAA 1: 152:6) 


• Gíd-gi-da-a-n[i] (SAA 1: 152 r 9) 


• [Gíd-g]i-da-a-[ni] (SAA 1: 152 r 6) 


• [Gí]d-gi-da-a-[ni] (SAA 1: 39 :4) 


• Gíd-gi-da-a-nu (SAA 6: 31 r 23) 


• Gíd-gíd-da-nu (SAA 11: 123 ii 13) 


• Gíd-gíd-da-[nu] (SAA 12: 51 r 12)

The variety of cuneiform spellings demonstrates the following points about the Assyrian name.

1. The second d is doubled. (see Gíd-gíd-da-nu).


2. The a is long. (see Gíd-gi-da-a-nu). This is important because Assyrian (Akkadian) long a goes to an o in Hebrew. Cuneiform does not have an o sound and uses a variety of strategies to reproduce it.


3. The form of the name borrowed into Hebrew is the oblique case. Hebrew does not have case endings but does have names ending in -i.

The form of the name borrowed into Hebrew must have been taken from the oblique case, which may have been the form of the name they heard most often. Hebrew often changes foreign names when it adopts them (think Marduk-apil-iddina becoming Merodach-Baladan).

The following individuals bearing the name are known from Neo-Assyrian records:

1. An individual working in Dur-Sharrukin during the reign of Sargon II.


2. A man from Kalhu listed in as a member of the chariotry during the reign of Sargon II.


3. A tailor to the governor of Kalhu during the reign of Sargon II.


4. A temple carpenter from Assur during the reign of Esarhaddon.


5. A man from Assur during the reign of Assurbanipal.


6. A man mentioned during the reign of Assur-etel-ilani.

(The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire [Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1999], 1.2:422-23.)

The simplest explanation is that an Assyrian individual with the name Gidgiddanu was mentioned in the brass plates. This was then the source of the name for this particular military leader several centuries later.

Interestingly, the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project was not able to determine an etymology or meaning for this name.

Thus the number of attested non-biblical names in the Book of Mormon has just increased by one.

The Name Alma (Howlers # 15)

Alma is supposed to be a prophet of God and of Jewish ancestry in the Book of Mormon. In Hebrew Alma means a betrothed virgin maiden–hardly a fitting name for a man.

        Walter Martin, The Maze of Mormonism (1978), 327.

It reminds us of the “Boy Named Sue.”

        John L Smith, “That Man Alma,” Utah Evangel (April 1986), 2


Hugh Nibley was the first to observe that the name Alma appears in a land deed dating to the time of the Bar Kochba Rebellion in in Judea, 132-135 A.D. (Hugh Nibley, The Prophetic Book of Mormon, 1988, 281-82). The document is part of a larger collection of letters discovered in a cave near the Dead Sea in 1961 by Israelit archaeologist Yigael Yadin. The deed mentions an individual named "Alma son of Yehudah." (Yigael Yadin, Bar Kochba: The Rediscovery of the Legendary Hero of the Last Jewish Revolt Against Imperial Rome. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1971, 176).

The document written on a long sheet of papyrus translated by Yadin reads:

On the twenty-eighth of Marheshvan, the third year of Shimeon bar Kosiba, President of Israel; at En-gedi. Of their own free will, on this day, do Eleazar son of Eleazar son of Hitta and Eleazer son of Shmuel, both of En-gedi, and Tehina son of Shimeon and Alma son of Yehudah, both of Luhith in the coastal district of `Agaltain, now residents of En-gedi, wish to divide up amongst themselves the places that they have leased from Yehonathan son of Mhnym the administrator of Shimeon ben Kosiba, President of Israel, at En-gedi (Bolded emphasis added).

The name appears for a second time in the same document as follows:

All is done and agreed on condition that the above four people will pay the dies of the lease of these places which they leased from Yehonathan son of Mhnym, as follows: Eleazar son of Eleazar Hitta and Eliezer son of Shmuel both will pay half of the money [the previous agreed amount] less sixteen dinars, which are four Sela'im only; while Tehina son of Shimeon and Alma son of Yehudah will pay half of the above money plus sixteen dinars, which are four Sela'im (Bolded emphasis added).

The name also is now attested cuneiform tablets found at the archaeological site of Ebla in Syria from the late third millennium B.C. For more information on the name Alma and its likely etymology, researchers will benefit from the Willes Center's Book of Mormon Onomasticon Project.

Names and Meaning: Zoram as a Case Study

Neal Rappleye posted the following at Studio et Quoque Fide (reposted with permission):

Book of Mormon Onomasticon Project Launched Online

The Book of Mormon Onomasticon project, which has long been in the works, has finally been launched online. Although it is still under development, there is plenty of great information and research available already on every single name in the Book of Mormon. Many of the entries provide convenient summaries of the research that has gone into a Book of Mormon name. Some brief time browsing the entries will quickly make it apparent which names have received the most attention from scholars and which names need more work. In any event, it is a great new tool for Book of Mormon study.

Understanding the meaning of a name can shed light on the meaning of scripture, especially since scriptural names can be metonymic. That is, names more relevant to the actions or role of a person in a narrative may be substituted for that actual person’s name. Even in cases where a metonymic name is not in play, authors aware of the meaning of the name may have used it in some way to enhance the narrative. Such word plays on proper nouns are common in ancient Near Eastern literature.

Zoram: From “Servant of Laban” to “Rock of Nephi”

Consider the name Zoram. I chose this name because it has received very little attention from scholars. It was one of the first I looked up in the Book of Mormon Onomasticon (BMO) because, as the only name in the 1 Nephi narrative that has not been attested in ancient sources, I was interested in seeing what they had come up with. Hugh Nibley had suggested it meant something like “refreshing rain,” and William J. Hamblin has followed suit (from the Hebrew zerem). The BMO, however, suggests either Ṣûrām, “their rock,” or the hypothetical construct *Ṣûrʿām, “rock of the people.” I like this suggestion much better than the “rain” idea from Nibley and Hamblin because when I think about that meaning in light of the role Zoram plays in the narrative, it becomes more interesting.

Zoram is first introduced into the narrative simply as the “servant of Laban” (1 Nephi 4:20, 31, 33). It is not until he taking an oath wherein he is promised his freedom that his called by his name (1 Nephi 4:35). This might be significant. I suggest that this is a deliberate literary move made by Nephi, meant to convey his transition from bondage to freedom. At first he is known only as someone else’s, “the servant of Laban,” but after taking an oath which grants him his status as a free man, he becomes known by his own name, “Zoram.” In the narrative, it is almost as if he becomes Zoram upon taking the oath, like receiving a new name. If the name, as the BMO suggests, has the element “rock” in it, then the imagery of a now strong and mighty person, no longer a slave or servant could be conveyed by the choice to call him no longer the “servant” but by his name, Zoram. Since rock imagery can convey the idea of steadfastness, faithfulness, or reliability, it may be meant to convey his faithful commitment to the oath he was making. The meaning “their rock” might even be expressive of his relationship to his oath-givers. While he was granted status as a “free man” it was on the condition that he join their group, that he “go down into the wilderness with us” (1 Nephi 4:33). Thus in that sense, he was to become “their rock,” or their faithful and loyal companion. As Lehi is about to pass away, he speaks to Zoram and we find out that indeed, Zoram had become a “true friend” to Nephi, and Lehi is confident that he will be so “forever” (2 Nephi 1:30). Again, the imagery here is that of a rock – someone who is firm, faithful, and true forever. Zoram is the “rock of Nephi”, his ever loyal comrade.

Final Thoughts

These are, of course, only my fairly amateur ruminations and may not be connected to reality at all. But whether or not Ṣûrām/*Ṣûrʿām is really the underlying Hebrew of Zoram, thinking about the possible meaning of this name has given me a whole new way of reading his story in the Book of Mormon in light “rock” imagery that provides insights on freedom, strength, friendship, and loyalty. Right or wrong, it was worthwhile. And that is from just one name. Imagine what else can be gleaned as we seek out possible meanings of other names in the Book of Mormon. So go check out the Book of Mormon Onomsticon and see what treasures of hidden knowledge (see D&C 89:19) await you!