reynolds-the-quran-in-its-historical-context-2

94 Robert G. Hoylandit by hereditary title. And no stranger has the right to be buried in it, and if any ofthe children of Shubaytu mentioned above or their legal heirs seeks to write forthis tomb a deed of gift or any document, he will have no share in this tomb.And this was on the first day of Ab, the third year of King Maliku, King of theNabataeans. 'Abd 'Obodat son ofWahballahi made it" (dnh !ifr' dy 'bd .. . )The Jews of the Hijaz in the Qur 'an 95· &cript/Lang.: Nabataean Aramaic"May Jacob son of Samuel be remembered well" (dkyr y 'qwb br§lllw '! b-!b).Possessors of two plausibly Jewish namesNo.2Place: Mada'in SalihType: Construction, on the base of a sundialDate: c. 1st century CE 11Script/Lang.: Nabataean AramaicBib!.: JS Nab172bis; Noja 1979, IIText: "Manasse son ofNatan, i 2 greetings/farewell" (mns' br ntn sllll)No.3Place: al-Ula (=ancient Dedan)Type: Tomb inscriptionDate: 307 CEScript/Lang.: Nabataean AramaicBib!.: JS Nab386; Cantineau, Nabateen, 2.41; Noja 1979, IV; Gruendler1993, N18 .Text: "This is the stele which Yal;!yii son of Simon has built for his father Simonwho died in the month ofSiwan of the year 201" (dnh nps' dy bn' yby' br Sill 'wn .'!Sill 'wn 'byh dy lllyt b-yrb sywn snt lll'tyn w-'bdy)... 'Place: Tayma·. Type: Tomb inscriptionDate: 203 CEScript/Lang.: Nabataean Aramaic··. ~ibl.: M. al-Najem and M.C.A. Macdonald, 2009 14'f.ext: "This is the memorial of Isaiah Neballata son of Joseph, the headman of.. Tayma, which 'Imram and 'Asmw, his brothers, erected for him in the month ofIyar of the year 98 of the province" ( d' nps 'S 'yh nbl! ' br ywsp r 's tymy dy 'qylll~/hwy [sic] 'mrlll w 'slllw 'bwhy b-yrb 'yr8nt 20+20+20+20+10+5+31-hprky} .. Possessors of one plausibly Jewish nameis perhaps the most uncertain category, since it is possible for names to circu-. outside of their original community. At the beginning of his entry on theinscriptions of Palmyra, Frey observes that "it is important to note that, for.··>along time, there was an excessive propensity to regard as Jews all the Palmyrenes· .who bore the names of Simon, Zebedee and the like ... But these names werevVJlllll.•vu at Palmyra and they were certainly borne by non-Jews." 15 Having said. we do not have any evidence that in northwest Arabia Biblicill Jewish names' had broken outside of the Jewish community, since, as can be seen from the smallnumber of this corpus, they remained extremely rare in this region.No.4Place: Mada'in Sa1ihType: GraffitoDate: c. 3rd to 5th century CE··Script/Lang.: Nabataean AramaicBib!.: Altheim and Stiehl1968, 305-9; Stiehl1970, 87-90; Noja 1979, IIIII Thus J. Healey, "A Nabataean sundial from Mada'in Salih," Syria 66, 1989, 333, though principallybecause this is the floruit for Nabataean settlement at the site, which is or"course not cogent( cf. text no. 6, dated 356 CE).12 The root ntn is common in names from quite different pre-Islamic Arabian backgrounds, andcertainly need not be Jewish, but Manasse is very rare, and the two together make it likely that thisis the name of a Jew. Note that he is probably the owner or commissioner of the sundial rather thanthe designer, astronomer or stonemason.Found \n the course of the Saudi-French survey of Mada'in Salih (on which seeL. Nehme, "Mission archeologique de Mada'in $iilil:t," Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 17,2006, 41-124). The script is late Nabataean (hence the date given of third to fifth century CE).14 This text was recently discovered during building work in the centre of the oasis ofTayma., 15 J.-B. Frey, Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaica11tm II Asie-AjNque, Rome: Pontificio Istituto di.archeologiacristiana, 1952, 67.