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Source:Tvedtnes:Gee:Roper:Book of Mormon Names Attested in Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions:JBMS 9:1:Alma as an ancient name
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The name Alma appears on a Jewish document of the early second century AD
Parent page: Book of Mormon/Anthropology/Language/Names
The name Alma appears on a Jewish document of the early second century AD
John A. Tvedtnes, John Gee, and Matthew Roper,
Two of these names have been discussed in previous issues of the Journal. Jeffrey Chadwick demonstrated that Sariah, known in the Book of Mormon as the name of Lehi's wife, appears on one of the papyri written by members of a Jewish community in Elephantine, Egypt, in the fifth century BC and discovered at the turn of the twentieth century, and on several seals and clay bullae (for the meaning of this and other technical terms, see the glossary on page 44) found in Israel that date from the time of Lehi.[1] Paul Hoskisson, following up on previous notes from Hugh Nibley,[2] showed that the name Alma appears on a Jewish document of the early second century AD, also found in Israel.[3] Terrence Szink provided evidence that the name Alma is even older, being attested on clay tablets found at the northwestern Syrian site of Ebla and dating to the second half of the third millennium BC4 A number of other biblical names have been found at Ebla, which is in the region that some scholars consider to be the homeland of the Hebrews.[4]
Notes
- ↑ Jeffrey R. Chadwick, “Sariah in the Elephantine Papyri,” JBMS 2/2 (1993): 196–200. The name is known from three seals: Nahman Avigad, “New Names on Hebrew Seals,” Eretz-Israel 12 (1975): 69, pl. 14:11; Nahman Avigad, “The Seal of Seraiah (Son of) Neriah,” Eretz-Israel 14 (1978), 86f; Nahman Avigad and Benjamin Sass, Corpus of West Semitic Stamp Seals (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1997), 91; and two bullae: Nahman Avigad, Hebrew Bullae from the Time of Jeremiah (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1986), 46–47, 103–4. A variant spelling, Sryh, is attested on a seal from the eighth or seventh century B.C., probably found in Syria, M. de Vogüé, “Intailles î légendes sémitiques,” Revue Archéologique 17 (1868): 447f. Note that all the names attested in this article can also be found in G. I. Davies, Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions: Corpus and Concordance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
- ↑ Hugh W. Nibley, The Prophetic Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1989), 281–82. The original notice of the discovery was in Yigael Yadin, Bar Kokhba (New York: Random House, 1971), 176.
- ↑ Paul Y. Hoskisson, “Alma as a Hebrew Name,” JBMS 7/1 (1998): 72–73. See also the discussion in David K. Geilman, “5/6Hev 44 Bar Kokhba,” in Ancient Scrolls from the Dead Sea, ed. M. Gerald Bradford (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1997), 39. Cited in John A. Tvedtnes, John Gee, Matthew Roper, "Book of Mormon Names Attested in Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 9/1 (2000): 40–51.
- ↑ John A. Tvedtnes, John Gee, Matthew Roper, "Book of Mormon Names Attested in Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 9/1 (2000): 40–51.