Talk:Elam, son of Shem

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the etymology of Elam is neither Hebrew nor Akkadian. It is Elamite. The word was borrowed into proto-Akkadian (as evidenced by the change of ha to e), and must have entered Hebrew from Akkadian. Akkadian is East Semitic, attested from ca. 2000 BC. Hebrew is a Central Semitic language, attested from ca. 800 BC, and even according to Jewish tradition (1400 BC instead of 800 BC) younger than Akkadian by half a millennium. Both Akkadian and Hebrew are equally descended from Proto-Semitic. That's beside the point here, since Elam isn't even Semitic, it's a loanword. dab (&#5839;) 11:11, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The Hebrew bible, incidentially, makes no claim that Hebrew was the "language of God". This point was argued over for centuries, kindly review (and expand!) Confusion of tongues. dab (&#5839;) 14:26, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

rename article
Please consider renaming this article Elam, son of Shem as per Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Bible. Lemmiwinks2 (talk) 20:53, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Finally done. "Biblical Elam" was a bizarre disambiguation, used for no other person named in the Bible. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 15:38, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Scribal Error in the Bible?
I wonder if anyone has considered the possibility that 'Elam' ( אלים  ), of the Bible, was mistranslated as 'Elim' ( אלאם  ). This would certainly seem to make more sense:

'Elim' is said to have been one of the places that the Israelites camped, following their Exodus out of Egypt. It has been suggested that the word 'Elim' has Semetic roots, and it's location was between lands of Semetic speaking peoples.

On the other hand, it has been difficult to establish the genetic relationship between the ancient Elamites and Semites. For example, it has recently been hypothesized that the ancient Elamite language, actually has more in common with the Nostric language, as it does with the Afro-Asiatic (Semetic) language. And anthropologists have long classified the original Elamites as Brachycephalic, unlike the Semites of Southern Arabia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zt79 (talk • contribs) 05:19, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Please read Talk page guidelines. This page is only supposed to be for discussing improvements or sourced material for the article Biblical Elam.  There's already plenty of other places on the internet for engaging in personal pet theories.  Cheers, Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 05:48, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Your clearly not one for creating rational arguments. Elamites being Semites, holds no scientific or historical validity. Although, Elamites certainly had contact with Semetic groups, there is nothing that would suggest they were biologically or anthropologically (and not to mention culturally and linguistically), Semetic peoples. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zt79 (talk • contribs) 04:04, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Excuse me? All I did was point you to Talk page guidelines and you insult me?  *IF* you have any references or reliable sources for the idea that there is a scribal error for "Elim", then they can be properly attributed.  Otherwise, you are engaging in WP:OR (qv). Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 05:44, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

You've also ignored a potent and sensible argument. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.16.113.3 (talk) 22:55, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
 * It could be the most potent and sensible argument in the world, but weikipedia can't do a thing with it unless there is a source suggesting this somewhere, because of several of our firm policies. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 23:16, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Birth order of Shem's sons
Genesis 10.22 lists Shem's sons in the order Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, Aram, but does not state that this is the birth order. The line of descent from Adam to Abraham passes through Shem, Arpachshad, Shela (Gen 11.11-12), and Arpachshad is indeed stated to have been born 2 years after the flood, but to infer a birth order is just that - an inference not an explicit statement. Accordingly I have removed the statements 'oldest son', 'younger brother' and replaced with more general but sustainable expressions.John M Brear (talk) 20:54, 21 June 2012 (UTC)