Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/739

Rh ARABIA

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ARABIA

MENT MisRAiM. — The cunpiform inscriptions of As-syria have thrown consiilerable light on various geographical localities in North Arabia, having im- portant bearing on the history of the ancient Hebrews ami on the critical study of the OIJ Testament. The importance of these new facts and researches has of late assumed very bewiUiering proportions, the credit for which immistakably belongs to Winck- ler, Homniil, and Cheyne. It is needless to say tliat liDWcNcr ingenious these hypotheses may appear to be they are not as yet entitled to be received without caution and hesitation. Were we to be- lieve, in fact, the elaborate theories of the.se eminent scholars, a great part of the historical events of the OKI Testament .sliould be transferred from Kg\'pt and Chanaan into Arabia; for, according to the latest speculations of these scholars, many of the i)as.sages in the Old Testament which, until recentlv, were supposed to refer to Kgj'pt (in Hebrew .Ui.sratm) and to Ethiopia (in Hebrew, Kuah) do not really apply to them but to two regions of similar names in North .\rabia, called in the .\s.syro-Babylonian inscriptions Musri, or Musrim, and Chush, respec- tively. They hold that partly by means of editorial manipulation ami partly by rea-son of corruption in the text, and in con.senueiice of the failed memory of long-forgotten events and countries, these two archaic North-.\rabian geographical names became transfornietl into names of similar .sound, but better known, belonging to a different geographical area, namely, the Egyptian Misraim and the African Chush, or Ethiopia.

According to tliis theory, .-^gar, Sarai's handmaid (Gen., xvi, 1), was not Misrite or Egj^itian, but Musrite, i. e. from Musri, in northern .Vrabia. Abra- ham (Gen., xii, 10) did not go down into Misraim, or Egj'pt, where he is said to have received from the Pharaoh a gift of men-.servants and handmaids, but into Misrim, or Musri, in northern .\rabia. Joseph, when bought by the Ismaelites, or Madianitcs, i. e. .■Vrabs, was not brought into Eg>'pt (Misraim), but to Musri, or Misrim, in north .\rabia, which was the home of the Madianitcs. In I Kings (A. V., I Sam.), XXX, 13. we should not read "I am a young man of Egj'pt [.Misraim]. slave of an Amalecite", but of Musri in north .\rabia. In III Kings (A. V., 1 K.), iii, 1; xi, 1, Solomon is .said to have married the daughter of an Egj'ptian king, which is ex- tremely improbable; for Misrim in north -Arabia, and not the Egj'ptian Misraim, is the countrj- whose king's daughter Solomon married. In I Kings (A. V.), iv, 30, the wisilom of Solomon is compared to the "wisdom of all the children of the east country [i. c. the .Vrabians] and all the wisdom of Egj'pt". But the last-mentioned country, they .say, is not Egypt but, as the parallelism requires, Madian, or Alusri, whose proverbial wisdom is frequently alluded to in the Old Testament. In III Kings, x, 28 sq., horses are said to have been brought from Egj-pt; but horses were very scarce in Egj-pt, while very numerous and famous in Arabia. The .same emenda- tion can be made in at least a liozen more Old- Testament pas.sages. The most revolutionary re- sult, however, would follow if we applied the same theory to the famous .sojourn of the Hebrews in Egypt; for it is self-evident that if the Lsraelites sojourned not in the Egjiitian Misraim, but in the north .\rabian Musri, and from thence fled into Chanaan, which was nearby, the result to ancient Hebrew history and religion would be of the most revolutionary' character. Similar emendation ha.s been applied with more or less success to the many pas.sages where Chush, or Ethiopia, occurs, such as Gen., ii, 13; x, 6; Num., xii, 1 ; Judges, iii, 10; II Kings (A. v., II Sam.), .wiii. 21; Isa., xx, 3; xlv, 14; Hab., iii, 7; Vs.. Ixxxvi, 4; II Par. (A. V., Chron.), xiv, 9; xxi, 16, etc.

.\nother important geographical name freciuently mentioned in the Old Testament, and in all instances referred, till recently, to .\»syria, is Assur (abl)re\i- ated into Sur). .\ country of .similar name has also been discovered in .Vrabia. In this last view Winckler and Cheyne are warmly supported by Homniel. by whom it was first suggested. Cheyne, furthermore, has pushed the.se identifications to such extremities as to transplant the whole historical and religious life of Israel to the Nejeb, the countrj' of Jerameel. in northern .\rabia. According to him the prophets Elias, Eliseus, Amos, Osee (.\. V., Hosea), Ezechiel (A. v., Ezekiel), Joel, and Abdias (A. \., Obadiah) are all North-.\rabians; and all the rest of the prophets either came from that country or have it constantly in view. Isai:is {A. V., Isaiah), xl-lv, was, according to him, composed in northern Arabia; Ezechiel also suffered imprisonment and prophesied there; and hundreds of personal and geographical proper names in the Old Testament are, according to him, in- tentional or accidental corruptions of Jerameel, .\rabia, and Nejeb. However great our appreciation of Winckler's and Cheyne's ingenuity ami learning may be, and allowing that their theories are not entirely lacking in plausibility, yet they have re- ceived, so far, little support and encouragement from the majority of Biblical scholars and critics. It is true that the new theories, in some of their applica- tions, give highl}' satisfactory results, but in their extreme form they are, to say the least, premature and ultra-radical.

E.\ULY History of Arabia till the Rise of Islam. — To the historian, the earliest history of Arabia is a blank page, little or nothing being his- torically known ami ascertaineil as to the origin, niigrationi, history, and political vicissitudes of the -Arabian nation. Mohammedan traditions concern- ing the early history of the peninsula are mostly legendan,- and highly coIouhmI, although partly ba.sed on Biblical data ami rabbinical traditions. Hardly less unsatisfactorj' are the many references found in Greek and Latin writers. The mention of .Arab tribes, under the various forms of Arabi, Arubu, Aribi, and po.s.sibly Urbi, frequently occurs in the Assyrian inscriptions as early as the ninth centurj' n. c, and their country is spoken of as seldom or never traversed by any conqueror, and as inhabited by wild and independent tribes. We read, e. g., that in 854 n. c. Salmanasar II (A. V., Shalnianezer) met in battle a confederation in which was Gindibu the Arab with one hundred camels. A few years later Theglathphalasar III (A. V., Tiglathpileser) undertook an expedition into Arabia; and in the latter half of the eighth centurj' B. c. we find Assyrian influence extending over the north-west and east of the peninsula. One century later a number of -Arabian tribes of inner Arabia were defeated by -Asarhaddon (A. V., Esarhaddon) at Bazu. -Assur- banipal also repeatedly speaks of his various success- ful exi)editions into and conquests in the lands of .Musri, Magan, Meluhha, and Chush in -Arabia. In the Behistun inscription of the Persian king Darius, Arabia (Arabaya) is mentioned as a subject land. The numerous South-.Arabian inscriptions thus far discovered and deciphered by Hal6vy, Winckler, I). H. Miiller, Hoinmel, Ed. Glaser, and others do not throw much light on the early history of Arabia. But the epi^raphic evidences and the many ruins still extant in various parts of that fx>ninsula un- mistakably show that a highly developed civilization must have existed among the ancient -Arabs at a very early age.

The two most important kingdoms of ancient .Aral>ia are that of the Mineans (the '3D of the Old Testament) and that of the Sabeans. whence the Queen of Saba came to pay her homage of resix>ct and admiration to King Solomon. A third kingdom was