Ten Tribes Studies (11 December 2015, 29 Kislev, 5776)
Contents:
1. Tevet Month of Dan
2. Mark Williams: Major Blooper On Page 404 of The Tribes
3. Weekly Torah Portion: "MiKaetz" - "AT THE END"
Genesis chs. 41 to 44
(a) Hebrew Traces in Scottish and Irish Surnames
(b) The Egyptian heritage of the progeny of Joseph
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1. Tevet Month of Dan
December 12th and December 13th are the First Days of the Hebrew month of Tevet (sometimes spelt "Tebeth").
This is the month of Dan according to the most accepted opinions (HaGra and Ha-Arizal).
Other opinions (Midrash Peliah and Rabad) say Gad.
Source: "Sefer Shivtei Yisroel" by Fishel Mael.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2. Mark Williams: Major Blooper On Page 404 of The Tribes
Shalom Yair
First two sentences read
"A similar phenomenon may be noticed with the Conversos or Marranos of
Spain. These were Jews who had been forced to convert to Judaism"
Well, that's a novelty for Catholic Europe.
You'll probably want to fix that for the fifth edition
===============================
Brit-Am Reply:
If after reading 404 and more pages someone as astute and attentive as Mark Wlliams only found one such error to speak of we may well breath a sigh of relief.
ps.
What did you think of the book in general?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
3. Weekly Torah Portion:
"MiKaetz" - "AT THE END"
Genesis chs. 41 to 44
(a) Hebrew Traces in Scottish and Irish Surnames
(b) The Egyptian heritage of the progeny of Joseph
http://britam.org/Genesis/Gen41to44Mikaet.html
Extracts:
(a) Hebrew Traces in Scottish and Irish Surnames
Genesis 41:
42 Then Pharaoh took his signet ring off his hand and put it on Joseph's hand; and he clothed him in garments of fine linen and put a gold chain around his neck. 43 And he had him ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried out before him, 'Bow the knee!' [Hebrew: Avreich!] So he set him over all the land of Egypt.
The expression "BOW THE KNEE" translated from the Hebrew "Avreich" which could be derived from a word-root meaning "bow the knee" BUTÂ it may also be a title and so the word is explained. Rabbinical Commentators took the term as a title connoting an "Av-rach" (father-ruler) and related to the Aramaic "rica" meaning ruler connected to the Germanic "reich" or rulership.
In Hebrew the letter "beit" is pronounced as either "b" or "v" depending on the sentence structure, i.e. the sounds are interchangeable.
"Ab" or "Av" means "father".
In the Egyptian expression "avrach" however the "av" (ab) prefix means "his father being" i.e. "his father being the ruler".
The title "Avrach therefore means "Son of the King". Joseph had become the deputy monarch or viceroy of the Kingdom.
In Semitic dialects the "b" sound may be replaced by "p" and vice-versa e.g. in Arabic "Shakespeare" is pronounced as "Shakesbeare". We thus have the Hebrew "Av" becoming "Ap" in Welsh.
Similarly in Welsh we find the expression "ap" also being pronounced as "ab". "Ap" actually means "father" but in names it is used in the sense of "have as father" i.e. "son of".
Welsh surnames
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_surnames
# Evan son of Thomas would be known as Evan (ap) Thomas; Evan's son, John would be John (ap) Evan; #
This was also rendered as "map" corresponding to the Hebrew "Me [from]-Ab [father]" i.e. "father".
In Linguistics Welsh is known as "P-Celtic" whereas Gaelic (of scotland and Ireland) is "C-Celtic". This is because for some reason
amongst the C-Celts words once pronounced as "p" became "c".
This "Map" meaning "son of" is rendered as "Mac".
This gives us the prefixes "Mac-" and "Mc-" frequently found in Scottish and Irish surnames.
(b) The Egyptian heritage of the progeny of Joseph
[Genesis 41:70] AND UNTO JOSEPH WERE BORN TWO SONS BEFORE THE YEARS OF FAMINE CAME, WHICH ASENATH THE DAUGHTER OF POTIPHERAH PRIEST OF ON BARE UNTO HIM.
His wife was an Egyptian. Nowadays we no longer use the old methods of racial classification but these methods are still considered pertinent to a degree. The problem with them is that environmental effects over a long period of time influence them. At all events according to the old methods people of British origin are 70% of Mediterranean type and 70% Nordic. The earliest skull shapes of Britain in its earliest civilized period were said to be identical with Egyptian ones.
The Egyptian culture was a very advanced one. There is a tendency to downplay it possibly due to unconscious prejudices.
Martin Bernal wrote a very important work Black Athens. In it he demonstrates the importance of Ancient Egypt and ancient Semitic civilization (i.e. Hebrew?) on Greek civilization. He shows how sheer racial prejudice caused objective scholars to ignore the evidence that Ancient Greece took much of its civilization from Egypt and the Middle East. Replies have been made to the claims of Bernal and perhaps he did exaggerate but it is hard to escape the impression that he had made a valid point. Bernal was only saying what the Greeks themselves admitted.