Shlomo Sand, The Invention of the Jewish People - Rafapal

REALMS OF SILENCE 193
Himyar's confirmed rival was the Ethiopian kingdom of Aksum across the
Red Sea, which periodically sent forces across the strait to blockade its wealthy
neighbor.
A possible visit by the Himyarites to the Holy Land was suggested by some
tombs in Beit She'arim near Haifa, uncovered in 1936. A Greek inscription
engraved over one of the niches describes the interred as "people of Himyar."
We know they were Jews, because one of them was named "Menah[em], Elder
of the Congregation," and two characteristic Jewish emblems, a candelabra and
a ram's horn, were carved beside the inscription. No one knows how these
Himyarite tombs, dated probably to the third century CE, came to be in Beit
She'arim. 2
The Arian Christian historian Philostorgius wrote that in the middle of the
fourth century, Constantius II, emperor of the eastern Roman Empire, sent a
mission to the Himyarites to convert them to Christianity. The mission was resisted
by the local Jews, but in the end the Himyarite king accepted Christianity, says
Philostorgius, and even built two churches in his kingdom. The story has not been
verified. However, it was at about that time that the Ethiopian kingdom became
Christian, and it is possible that there was a struggle between the contending
religions in Himyar at that time. Possibly one of the kings converted to Christianity,
but if so, the victory was short-lived.
There is much archaeological and epigraphic evidence, some of it newly
discovered, that indicates with near certainty that toward the end of the
fourth century CE the Himyar kingdom abandoned paganism and adopted
monotheism, but it was not Christianity that it chose. In 378 CE, Malik Karib
Yuhamin built structures on which were discovered such inscriptions as "By
the might of their Lord, Lord of Heavens." There are also inscriptions reading
"Lord of the Heavens and the Earth" and "Rahmanan" (the Merciful). The
latter is a characteristic Jewish term; it appears in the Talmud in its Aramaic
form, Rahmana, and was only later, in the early seventh century, adopted by
the Muslims as one of the names of Allah. Christians in the Arab world also
used the term, but they invariably added "the Son and the Holy Spirit."
If researchers disagreed about the character of this pioneering monotheism,
the issue was more or less resolved when another inscription was
discovered in the city of Beit al-Ashwal, dedicated to the son of Malik Karib
Yuhamin. It says, in Hebrew, "written by Yehudah, the well-remembered, amen
shalom, amen," and, in Himyari, "by the power and grace of his lord, who
2 On the discovery of the tombs in Bait-She'arirn, see the extensive work of Haim
Ze'ev Hirschberg, Israel in Arabia: The History of the Jews In Hedjaz and Himyar, Tel Aviv:
Byalik, 1946 (in Hebrew), 53-7.