Arabia and the Bible

Rival said:

The text says he prayed whilst inside the fish.

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Rival said:

The text says he prayed whilst inside the fish.

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Redemptionsong said:

Jonah 2:1,2. 'Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish's belly,
And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.' [KJV]

Jonah 2:2,3. 'Jonah prayed to the LORD his Gog from the belly of the fish. He said:
In my trouble I called to the LORD,
And He answered me;
From the belly of Sheol I cried out,
And You heard my voice.' [JPS]

'Hell' and 'sheol' are the same, and as it says in Numbers 16:33 of Korah's people 'They went down alive into Sheol, with all that belonged to them; the earth closed over them and they vanished from the midst of the congregation.'

In 31 cases (out of a possible 65), the KJV renders 'sheol' as 'hell', the place of disembodied souls. The 'grave' is a rendering that better captures the intended meaning, especially since it appears as the destination of both righteous and unrighteous souls.

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Rival said:

Yes, I saw your first answer. I'm just not invested enough to care, really. I'm trying not to think about Abrahamic stuff.

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Redemptionsong said:

Were you not a Noahide?

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Rival said:

I was, yes.

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Redemptionsong said:

Has life improved?

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Redemptionsong said:

According to Muslim writings, Muhammad waged war with Jewish tribes whilst based in Medina. Why were Jewish tribes located in this area of Arabia?

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Harel13 said:

According to Tanach, they were exiled there, or to a neighboring area and later moved there.

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Redemptionsong said:

I believe Arabia holds many secrets that could illuminate our understanding of both the Bible and Qur'an.

What do you know about the myths and legends of early Arabia?

Which tribes and peoples occupied the Arabian Peninsula?

Do place names give hints as to the earliest settled occupants?

Was Mount Sinai in Arabia?

'Yemen was the name of the southern portion of Arabia, but the Greeks called it Happy Arabia, on account of the fertility. Saba was the name of a city there of great importance in early times. In that region Joktan, the mythical great-grandson of Noah's son Shem, became father of a people living in rich and populous cities of commercial importance. A thousand years before Christ, the rich king King Solomon was reigning at Jerusalem, and wondrous were the stories told about him, - stories that travellers slowly carried along the shores of the Red Sea, so tradition asserts, until they got quite down to the Indian Ocean, where they reached the ears of Balkis, the queen of Saba*. [*The capital of Yemen, the seat of the Himyaritic dynasty to which the queen of Saba is said to have belonged, was Mareb, two days' journey northeast of a city called Sana, and great numbers of finely cut stones, inscriptions, coins, and jewels still give evidence that a city of importance once stood there. Balkis is represented to have been descended from one Afrikis, who according to tradition, gathered the remnants of the Amalekites after Joshua overthrew that people, and led them to the other side of the Red Sea, where they multiplied and were known from their barbarous dialect as Berbers.'] Her people were Sabeans; they stood on their rich wadies and on their lonely sands, and gazed up to heaven in wonder, as the stars, the sun, and the moon shone down upon them, and they thought that such brights lights must be gods. Then they bowed their heads and worshipped the host of heaven.' [The Saracens, Arthur Gilman]

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Redemptionsong said:

Is there any evidence in Jewish writings, or even folklore, to Mount Sinai being located in Arabia?

Elijah journeyed to Mount Sinai, and l imagine others must have followed in his footsteps. It surprises me that a mountain of such significance should not have become a site of recurrent pilgrimages.

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Redemptionsong said:

According to Muslim writings, Muhammad waged war with Jewish tribes whilst based in Medina. Why were Jewish tribes located in this area of Arabia?

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Redemptionsong said:

Is there any evidence in Jewish writings, or even folklore, to Mount Sinai being located in Arabia?

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2ndpillar said:

Well, the Quran said that Solomon and Abraham lived during their life time, in the non existent trading town called Mecca. As for Sana and Jerusalem, as well as Petra, they were the cities of the initial holy of holies and subsequent Kaabas. Mohammad, according to Islamic traditions, had the Kaaba of Sana destroyed, which was probably set up after the Jews fled from Jerusalem in 70 AD. Yemen was a center of the spice trade, which was tied in with the Orient and with Africa. Petra was deserted due military pressure from Damascus, and had their Kaaba moved in the 70th year of the Muslim calendar, to Mecca. Most of the authors and underlying stories in the Quran, and in the traditions, originated in the area of Persia, not Arabia. There are no stone writings or coins in the Arabia peninsula that mentioned Mohammad or Islam until the late 7th century, and then the coins mention MHMD (mohammad or Mahmed), which simply means the "praised one", and as many of the stories in the Quran were about Jewish prophets and monotheistic Christians, it was probably referring to Yeshua, who was referred to in the Quran as a prophet of God, or Arab Christian leaders/kings, as some of the same coins contained a cross symbol. While Ethiopia and Yemen both claim the Queen of Sheba, the Quran said that Solomon used a djinn to transport the queen of Sheba (Bilqis) to Jerusalem in a blink of an eye. At that time, Yemen and Ethiopia were under single rulership, and the djinn transportation story of the Quran undermines Yemen's case. 3000 years of Ethiopian rule depends on the rulers being the ancestors of the queen of Sheba, and the Ethiopian story was one whereas the Queen of Sheba traveled to Jerusalem and stayed several months. A more likely story. As for DNA, Yemen contains a large concentration of the Aaron DNA, which is the priesthood of the Jewish nation, and which probably fled to Sana in 70 AD at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, and set up a holy of holies/Kaaba, which was according to Islam tradition, later destroyed by the so called Mohammed. Arabia maybe the place to look for answers, but to date, there seems to be a lack of positive results. The earliest fragments of the Quran are traced to Sana, but predates when some angel Gabriel gave the Quran to Mohammad, and the only historical Gabriel, is the monk (St Gabriel) , from the supposed Mount Sinai Saint Katherines monastery. The Islamic traditions have Mohammed, at the age of 12, meeting a monk near Mount Sinai, who told Mohammad he was going to be a "prophet". That would be back ground for the Quran story, but shows how far off the track and location it is.

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Redemptionsong said:

I don't understand your first sentence. Can you elaborate?

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2ndpillar said:

The Quran places Abraham, who lived around 1900 BC, and Solomon, as living in Mecca. Both spent time in the Jerusalem area, such as the temple mount, and neither spent time in the desert area of Mecca. The Quran describes the "holy place" (assumed as being Mecca) as a place of canals and fruit orchards. The only Kaaba (cube) that Solomon had contact with was the holy of holies at the rear of the temple at Jerusalem, which he had built. Despite what the Quran says, Adam didn't put the black stone into the Kaaba at Mecca, nor was Mecca a center of trade, nor did Adam and Eve live there. The Quran is filled with stories stemming from Jewish, Polytheist Christians, and Persian Zoroaster writings. You will find no independent 7th century historical information verifying a Mohammad of the Mecca area, nor a trading center at Mecca. Mecca was not on any map until around the 100th year of the Islamic calendar, 30 years after the probable move of the Kaaba from Petra to Mecca, in the year 70 of the Arabic calendar. If you look at the history of Islam, about the only entry in the year 70 of the Islamic calendar, is about the delivery of many pack animals to Petra. Pack animals were needed to move the inhabitants from Petra to Mecca, before the army of Damascus returned from burying their leader in Damascus. The early prayer walls of Islam pointed towards Petra, not Mecca.

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Harel13 said:

I'm sure there are at least some, because there are also religious Jewish scholars today that believe it's somewhere around Arabia. I haven't looked into the subject much.

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Redemptionsong said:

I also doubt the prophetic powers of Muhammad, but not his existence. If he did work in trade along the coasts of western Arabia, and up towards Damascus, he would, no doubt, have come into contact with both Jews and Christians. He would also have been acquainted with Petra.

According to Sir William Muir, Muhammad's early revelations contain a very high regard for the Torah, and indicate that he was heavily influenced by stories from the Torah.

It's noticeable that the Qur'an contains no genealogies, which would help establish lines of descent.

Can you provide evidence that the early prayer walls of mosques pointed towards Petra?

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2ndpillar said:

Google pre 720 AD mosques in northern Africa and Spain, or India and China. The original foundation walls will point in a southern direction in the case of Africa and Spain, in a direction parallel to the direction from Damascus to a spot between Petra and Mecca, as they were built during the power struggle between the northern Umayyads and the southern Abbasids. In the case of China and India, the original foundation walls pointed to the vicinity of Petra or Jerusalem. The Umayyads were eventually written out of the Islamic traditions, from which they originated. As for the Quran, the verse with regard to Mohammad (praised one), and Isa Ibn Maryam/Yeshua/Jesus, the reference is to Yeshua the praised one, the servant of God, and not to some guy named Mohammad. As for the Dome of the rock original wall writings, the message was to the "praised one", Isa ibn Maryam, and was a voice against the Trinity doctrine, as the Messianic Jews of the time, were Arians in nature. The builder of the Dome of the rock, the Umayyad Caliph Abd al Malik, message was with regard to Isa Ibn Maryam, and he was the "praised one" (Mohammid/MHMD), and was anti Trinity, and not about some unknown guy called Mohammad. The coins minted by Abd used the word MHMD and they contained a cross. Abd at the time of the dome building most likely a Messianic Jew, who had anti Trinity leanings. The Byzantines were the Trinity bunch, and there was friction between the two parties. As for the personage and background of Mohammad as a leader, that would come from the king of Hira, Iyas Ibn Qabisah al Ta'i , who was referred to as Mohammad of the Ta'i, who was placed as governor of Hira to control the nomad Arabs, the Ta'i, and who made a compact with the Jews with regards to fighting the Persians. The initial pact was to fight the Byzantines, but the Jews saw the strength of the Byzantine army at the gates and made peace with them.
The Quran called Isa Ibn Maryam a prophet, and the book of the Jews being from God. Of course the Sana Quran predates Mohammad's supposed revelations, and was most likely written in a Aramaic/Syriac script, from which came the Arabic language, and there were no dots or vowels in the script. With dots and vowels, of which the current canonized Quran would be in a Kufa dialect, the original consonantal words can have as many as 32 different meanings. Using the original consonant script, one can transform the Quran into a purely Messianic Jewish text, except some of the text also represents stories from Zoroasterism, and Jewish traditions.
The Chinese have a 651 AD document sent to them by an Arab about the battle of Dhi Qar, which was about a meeting about a camel herder (such as Mohammad), and a ghost (such as an angel), and it took place in a cave in Iraq, not Arabia (cave called hira), and gave means to a camel herder to win the battle with special armor and green face coverings. The Chinese were told to destroy the report, but kept it anyway.

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