Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2022 April 17

= April 17 =

Legends,steles etc from Ammon,Damascus,Edom,Moab on Lotlike, Abramlike figures
I have heard claims that Abraham as a bible figure didn't get going until the return of Jewish exiles to Canaan areas from Babylon gave rise to land and theology conflicts with Jews who hadn't been exiled. Since the stories in the bible frequently say that the nearby peoples were descended from Lot or Esau, couldn't theories about Abraham be checked if legends and cuneiform from places like Edom etc had stories with names similar to Patriarchs, or at least similarities in the events in the stories? Has anything like this been found or searched for in areas adjoining Israel? Thanks Rich (talk) 09:33, 17 April 2022 (UTC)


 * The surviving literature of Ammon, according to our article, is an inscription on a bottle and another on a wall of a temple. Edom is only known from the Bible and brief mentions in Egyptian and Babylonian texts. The survival of lengthy narrative texts from the ancient world is extremely unusual - our ancient literature article lists the ones we know about. Alansplodge (talk) 11:06, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
 * thanks i'll read that article, and i should focus on Damascus and Moab and Nabatu. Rich (talk) 01:57, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Richard_L._Peterson -- Your question is a little confused. Cuneiform logosyllabic writing systems were used by speakers of East Semitic in Mesopotamia and some speakers of non-Semitic languages in adjacent areas (Hittites etc). (Not counting non-logosyllabic systems which used wedge shapes, such as Ugaritic and Old Persian.) There was no cuneiform in Ammon. Few Biblical figures are mentioned in attested inscriptions dating from the Biblical period and almost all of them were kings. There are only very brief surviving texts from most of the Canaanite cultures surrounding the ancient Israelites, such as the Moabite Stone, the Balaam inscription etc, and they provide a very limited ability to cross-check what's in the Bible. The books of the Pentateuch were certainly edited towards the end of the pre-exilic kingdom of Judah (gathering in a number of sources). However, the idea that they were significantly altered after the return from Babylonian exile trends toward "Biblical Minimalism" territory... AnonMoos (talk) 03:02, 18 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Indeed it tends towards biblical minimalism, which I don't really have an opinion on and i'm not qualified to have an opinion, although i wouldn't hesitate to share an opinion on it if i did have one. But i do think doing some archaeology in neighboring regions like Ammon might help give a possible nay on biblical minimalism, along with a possible yea on Abraham himself. Thanks for your information. Rich (talk) 06:21, 18 April 2022 (UTC)


 * If Abraham was not a legendary revered ancestor in Ammonite cultural traditions, then they wouldn't have written anything at all about him. Even if Abraham was part of Ammonite traditions, very little Ammonite writing has survived, and none of it is about Abraham.  The occasions when the Bible can be usefully or meaningfully cross-checked against contemporaneous extra-biblical sources are few and far between -- for example, the Israelite king Omri is a rather minor figure in the Bible, but ancient inscriptions reveal that he made a relatively strong impression in the Syria region, where the northern kingdom of Israel was known as the "House of Omri" (i.e. area ruled over by the dynasty of Omri) for a time.  There's no similar information about Abraham, and I'm not sure what has led you to expect that there would be... AnonMoos (talk) 16:48, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes if Abraham wasn't a figure in Ammonite traditins, they would not have written about him. But if he had been a figure, they might have written about him. That's why i said finding any such writings in Ammon Damascus, Moab or Edom would give a nay to biblical minimalism, but didn't say it could give a yea to biblical minimalism. But finding writings about him or Lot would support a yea on Abraham. But there are many claims in the Bible concerning the origins of nearby peoples as being descended from Lot or Esau, and sthusrelated, possibly, to Abraham. Ifrecords of such stories were found in nearby regions that were not in Israel, that would point against biblical minimalism. Now, the amount of archaeological digging in Israel is probably much bigger than in the other regions I have mentioned, so it is possible that those records just haven't been found yet.Rich (talk) 05:20, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Anything found with written text on it old enough that it might have dated back to the days of the biblical Abraham, is studied thoroughly and such studies are published. If a population register had been dug up in Harran with an entry, "Arrived: Terah with his sons Abram and Nahor and daughter Sarai, from Ur", biblical literalists would have made sure we'd know all about it. --Lambiam 06:23, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Lambiam, you seem to think everything has been dug up.Rich (talk) 01:15, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm only saying that it is rather obvious that as of today no archaeological finds support a relation of any historic figure to the biblical Abraham, such as might be ascribed to records of similarly named persons. The question was if anything like this had been found and the answer is no. --Lambiam 09:55, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * That is true, but I did ask if stuff like that was being searched for, not necessarily found yet...to me, it seems to me a possible way, for archaeologists who aren't biblical minimalists, to look for support for their views in the archaeology of neighboring regions.Rich (talk) 20:15, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Richard, if we don't know it exists, how do we know to look for it? If it's an unknown unknown, we don't even know where to look or what to look for if we get there.  Might there have been records of Abraham which have since been lost to history?  For any broad enough definition of "might", sure, why not.  But that doesn't mean that we should expect such records; written records of any kind that would have been contemporaneous with Abraham are scant anyways; even trickier is that we don't even know with reliability what century he was supposed to have lived in; late 3rd millennium/early 2nd millennium BCE is probably the best we can say.  The earliest extant writings to mention Abraham date from the 6th century BCE, meaning that at best we're dealing with writings from about 1500 years after he would have lived.  It's a pretty big expectation that we would find anything about him from when he was alive.  We don't even know with reliability where he was from, what language was spoken there, what writing system would have been used, etc.  I mean, all we know is that he was from Ur of the Chaldees, but where that city was is all speculative, depending on the source you get wildly different locations (where the people would have spoken and written very different languages), as far apart as Edessa or Nasiriyah or Armenia or any of a number of other places.  -- Jayron 32 13:31, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Ok Rich (talk) 20:15, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
 * But I imagine that in the regions of Damascus, and ancient Ammon, for example, there are sites, perhaps tells, where unknown unknowns might be highly concentrated.Rich (talk) 20:20, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
 * (As well as known unknowns). Rich (talk) 03:43, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Richard, in passages where the place names are similar to the characters' names, they were simply named for the places, or in a sense the characters were the places in name and metaphor--just like Romulus. Temerarius (talk) 18:20, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorry Temerarius, I don't understand what you mean. What passages have place names similar to the characters' names? Are the passages part of biblical stories or other stories?Rich (talk) 01:15, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * It is common in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible to associate place names with historical/mythical figures. For example, the Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel were both named for the Patriarchs Judah and Israel respectively.  Edom is (through some linguistic contortions) related to Esau.  Ammon was named after Ben-Ammi, son of Lot.  Aram was named after Aram, son of Shem.  And so on.  Whether the connection is forward-looking (the land and the peoples so named descended from the person in question) or backwards looking (the founding myth of the place was retconned to include the name of the place as a founder), is probably unknown here, but the practice was common, and not limited to the ancient Levant (c.f. Romulus/Rome).  -- Jayron 32 11:14, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Interesting. Rich (talk) 20:16, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
 * The Amarna letters from the 1300's BCE include correspondence between Egypt and various other places including Damascus and many locations in Canaan. You might also be interested in Biblical archaeology and Biblical archaeology school. This approach has been historically dominant, for better or for worse, to the extent that pretty much anything that has been found or could be found in the Middle East has been interpreted in terms of the Bible. --Amble (talk) 21:33, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks Rich (talk) 03:45, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Sabra and Shatila refugee camp or camps?
Our article states that the massacre occurred in both Sabra, a neighbourhood of Beirut, and the Shatila refugee camp, but use of the phrase "the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps" is widespread, and crops up once in our article. Is it incorrect? The caption to the top picture in our article is also unclear. Ericoides (talk) 12:39, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Shatila is a formal Palestinian refugee camp, per UNRWA. The adjescent neighbourhood of Sabra, isn't a formal UNRWA camp. Here you see the two areas https://www.antiwarsongs.org/img/upl/MAP-Beirut_SabraShatila.jpg . Here ( http://reseau-terra.eu/article800.html ) you have a description of the phenomenon of Sabra. Basically the 12 official camps could not cope with population growth, and eventually adjascent neighbourhoods (like in Sabra) became de facto informal Palestinian camps. --Soman (talk) 12:59, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Arabic Wikipedia has an article on Sabra at https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%B5%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7_(%D8%AD%D9%8A) --Soman (talk) 13:12, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Soman. Ericoides (talk) 15:38, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

National Women's Day (India)
Greetings,

I came across a ref on Google books giving information of inauguration of National Women's Day and International Women's Year by then India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on Feb. 16, 1975.

Later months and years since then were politically tumultuous for Indira Gandhi, besides later UN accepted 8th March as International Women's Day; are there any instances of later year celebrations of National Women's Day in India separate than that of 8th March, the  International Women's Day,  by any of Congress or non Congress Government or private women organizations in India?


 * Oh Oh, actually I had searched for National Women's Day Pakistan and I had reached 1975 Magazine Book ref. I searched specially for India then I realized Feb 13 is annual date of National Women's Day of India. In that case my question is since which year 13th Feb has been accepted as National Women's Day of India? and 13th Feb was initiated by whom or which institution?

Thanks

&#32;Bookku, &#39;Encyclopedias &#61; expanding information &#38; knowledge&#39; (talk) 16:10, 17 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi Bookku, was not able to answer your two questions but found this in Wikipedia: Sarojini_Naidu says “Naidu's birthday, 13 February, is celebrated as Women's Day to recognise powerful voices of women in India's history” with a citation to an offline book. So Sarojini Naidu might be a good addition to your search terms. Everything else I’m finding is confusing Women’s Day and Women’s Year, like this source where the headline says something different from the body copy: Socialist India Vol X No 12, February 22, 1975, p 33.70.67.193.176 (talk) 20:43, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
 * The same event is actually reported on twice in the issue of Socialist India of February 22, 1975. The link above leads to the second report, on page 33. The first report starts on the cover page and then continues on page 7. Indira Gandhi is quoted as declaring, “We have chosen this day, which is the first day of spring, for the “Women’s Day” because spring is the time of renewal.”&thinsp; I have not found any mention of Women's Day being celebrated on February 16 in any year after 1975, and also not of a reassignment of the date to February 13. --Lambiam 05:31, 19 April 2022 (UTC)