Granting all this, it is generally only accessory features added to the main stem of the story that owe their origin to a mistaken attempt at etymologising. The existence and first origin of an entire story can scarcely be produced by an unsatisfactory etymology. With regard to the Hebrew stories, in which etymologising plays a considerable part, the same rule is, generally speaking, to be observed. There also the story is enriched in details by etymological attempts suggested later. But it is not brought into life in the first instance by this factor. On the contrary, as a connexion must be discovered between the name and the circumstances of its bearer, and the original mythical relation between them has been long lost to memory, features quite foreign to the name itself, but characteristic of the story, are sometimes brought into etymological connexion with the name and fitted on to the story. From this source emanates the striking insufficiency of many of these etymological explanations, e.g. of the interpretation of Abhrâhâm by Abh hâmôn ‘Father of a multitude,’ and Nôach (Noah) by nicham ‘to comfort.’ In the Hebrew Myth of Civilisation, Noah is the most prominent founder of agriculture and inventor of agricultural implements; consequently it is he that procures comfort for men against the curse imposed on the soil. This feature is not etymologically expressed in the name Noah; but the later formation of the story about him invented a false etymology, in order to connect it with the name. The case is the same with the story of the Languages, in which Bâbhel is derived from bâlal ‘to mix.’ The etymology relates quite as frequently to a very subordinate feature in the story, as for instance in the interpretation of most of the names of Jacob’s sons in Gen. XXIX, XXX, or in the derivation of the name Ḳayin (Cain) from ḳânâ ‘to gain.’ Sometimes, lastly, the etymon is given correctly, while its original relation to the person bearing the name is lost with the loss of the mythical consciousness. In such cases there frequently arises a new feature of the story. Thus, for instance, it is quite correctly affirmed that Yiṣchâḳ (Isaac) comes from ṣâchaḳ ‘to laugh:’ but it is no longer understood that the word designates the ‘Laughing one’ (the Sun), and so the laughter of the aged mother to whom the birth of a son is announced beforehand, or the laughter of other people on hearing the announcement, is introduced. In the etymology of the name Yaʿaḳôbh (Jacob) both the etymon and that to which it refers (ʿâḳêbh ‘heel’) are correctly preserved, not however without the introduction of a foreign etymological element (ʿiḳḳêbh ‘to cheat’), which became prominent in the subsequent development of the story. The same phenomenon also appears on the domain of the Arabian stories, a region of Semitism which has still to be explored for mythological questions. I have no doubt that the genealogical tables of the Arabs contain names which will be discovered by sound etymology to be Solar designations. This seems to me, for example, to be the case with Hâshim. The story that he and his twin-brother ʿAbd Shams were born with their foreheads joined together, or with the forehead of one joined to the hand of the other,[[736]] resembles the myths of the birth of Jacob and Esau, and of that of Perez and Zerah.[[737]] It was worked out with an object during the later dynastic rivalry between the Hâshimites and Ummayads (descendants of ʿAbd Shams). But Hâshim is ‘the Breaker,’ thus answering perfectly to Pereṣ (Perez) or Gideʿôn. When the mythical consciousness was lost, a story bearing an obviously apocryphal character was fabricated to give it an etymology. It is this. On occasion of a famine resulting from a bad harvest, Hâshim went to Syria, where he had a quantity of bread baked. This he put into large sacks, loaded his camels with it, and took it to Mekka. There hashama, i.e. he broke up the bread into bits, sent for butchers, and distributed it among the people of Mekka. Therefore, it is said, he was called Hâshim, ‘the Breaker.’[[738]] We have here the very same process in the history of etymology which we had occasion to observe in the etymological explanation of Biblical names. Thus, as is obvious in the above-quoted Hebrew examples, it must be admitted that the later etymological conception frequently forced itself into the foreground so much as to obtain recognition as a portion of the narrative.[[739]] But no entire story, such as that of the Confusion of Tongues at Babel, can be proved to have been formed upon no other basis than an indifferent etymology. So we may with confidence hold to the above-suggested occasion for the origin of this story of the variety of languages. There is good ground for hoping that before very long the recently discovered mythical texts of the Assyrian and Babylonian literature will pour an increasing flood of light on the question discussed in this chapter. The richness of the stores contained in the two latest works of the meritorious scholar George Smith—‘Assyrian Discoveries: an account of exploration and discoveries’ (1876), and ‘The Chaldean Account of Genesis’ (1876)—allow us to entertain the best hopes of this result. It is greatly to be desired that an unprejudiced conception of the matter of Hebrew mythic stories may be promoted by these discoveries. But to attain to the result of true freedom from old errors, it is essential to put away all fears, and to be guided solely and simply by the interests of the Holiest of Holies, namely, scientific truth, in forming a judgment on the priority or simultaneous origin of such stories in different nations.
EXCURSUS
A. (Page [30].)
Agadic Etymologies.
In another direction also the Agâdâ is wont to supply the omissions of the Scripture. In passages where the Bible itself gives no reason for the choice or origin of a name, the Agâdâ quite independently gives its own etymological reason: this peculiarity occurs excessively often (e.g. in the etymology of the name Miriam in the Midrâsh to the Song of Songs, II. 12, that of the names of the two mid wives Shiphrah and Puah, who in addition are identified with Jochebed and Miriam, in the Talmûd Bab. tr. Sôṭâ, fol. 11. b, etc.).[[740]] Here I will bring forward out of a great number of instances one which affords an opportunity of exhibiting an interesting coincidence between the Jewish and the Mohammedan Agâdâ, and affords a proof how extensive and how far-reaching into the smallest detail are the loans taken by the Mohammedan from the Rabbinical theologians, and on the other hand how independently and how completely in an Arabian spirit these borrowed treasures were worked up.
In Gen. XLVI. 21, Benjamin’s sons are enumerated without any etymological observations. The Agâdâ supplies the deficiency, and puts every one of the names of Joseph’s nephews into connexion with Benjamin’s melancholy remembrance of his lost brother. The interpretations in question are contained in the Talmûd and Midrâsh; and they are found in a different, but probably the most original form in the Targûm Jerus. on the passage; and it is sufficient to refer to this. According to this, Benjamin named his ten sons ʿal perishûthâ de-Yôsêph achôhî ‘for the separation from his brother Joseph:’ thus Belaʿ, ‘because Joseph was devoured-away (i.e. torn away) from him,’ de-ithbelaʿ minnêh: Bekher, ‘because Joseph was his mother’s first-born,’ bukhrâ de-immêh: Ashbêl, ‘from the captivity into which Joseph fell,’ de-halakh be-shibhyâthâ: Gêrâ, ‘because Joseph had to live as a stranger in a foreign land,’ de-ithgar be-arʿâ nukhrâʾâ: Naʿamân, ‘because Joseph was charming and dear to him,’ da-hawâ nâʿîm we-yaḳḳîr: Êchî, ‘because he was his brother (achôhî):’ Rôsh, because he was the most excellent in his father’s house: Muppîm, because he was sold to the land Môph (Egypt): Chuppîm, because Benjamin had exactly reached the age of eighteen years, that of maturity for marriage (chuppâh) in men:[[741]] Ard, from yârad ‘to go down,’ because Joseph had to go down to Egypt.
The Arabic pendant to this Agâdâ I found in a book Zahr al-kimâm fî ḳiṣṣat Yûsuf ʿaleyhi al-salâm, by the learned Mâlikite ʿOmar b. Ibrâhîm al-Ausî al-Anṣârî. It is the same book as Ḥâjî Chalfâ quotes (V. 381, no. 11386) by the name Majâlis ḳiṣṣat Yûsuf,[[742]] although the commencement given by him does not agree with the initial words of our Codex (No. 7 of the Supplement, in the Leipzig University Library). The book is divided into seventeen majâlis, or sessions—an arrangement not uncommon in Arabic works of a hortatory character or touching on religious knowledge. Each mejlis contains a portion of the life of Joseph, always introduced by a verse of the Ḳorân, and abundantly mixed with poems and other episodes and intermezzos. It is an instructive source for the legend of Joseph among the Mohammedans. It would take us too far from the subject if I were to give a full characterisation of the book. I will therefore only mention that it betrays a close relation to the Jewish legend, and that the author generally gives frequent occasion for the conjecture that the Bible and the Jewish tradition were not strange to him or to the sources from which he drew. But everything appears here curiously altered. For example, the cry of Isaac when deceived, ‘The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau’ (Gen. XXVII. 22), is there given (fol. 5 recto) thus: al-lams lams ʿAysau w-al-rîḥ rîḥ Yaʿḳûb ‘the touch is the touch of Esau, but the smell is the smell of Jacob’ (see Gen. XXVII. 27). The passage with which we have to do here occurs fol. 149 recto.
The scene is the brothers’ dinner in Joseph’s house. Each sits beside his full brother; Benjamin alone has none, and begins to weep bitterly. Then Joseph approaches him, and after a long dialogue makes himself known to Benjamin as his full brother, and talks with him. Afterwards Joseph asks him, ‘Youth, hast thou a wife?’ ‘Yes,’ replies Benjamin. ‘And children?’ ‘I have three sons.’ ‘What name gavest thou to the eldest?’ ‘Ḏîb (Wolf).’ ‘And why didst thou choose this name?’ ‘Because my brothers were of opinion that a wolf had devoured my brother, and I wished to have a memento of the catastrophe.’ ‘And what didst thou call the second?’ ‘I named him Dam (Blood).’ ‘And wherefore?’ ‘Because my brothers brought a coat dipped in blood, and I wished to preserve the memory of it.’ ‘And what is thy third son’s name?’ ‘Yûsuf, that my brother’s name may not be forgotten.’
But even names whose etymology occurs in the Bible itself are provided by the Agâdâ with new etymological explanations: so e.g. Yiṣchâḳ, is explained by yâṣâ or yêṣê chôḳ ‘A statute has gone or will go forth.’[[743]]