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

104 Robert G. Hoyland·Date: uncertainScript/Lang.: Hebrew/?Bibl. JS Heb2; Noja 1979, XXVI; Hopkins 2007/8Text: "God be blessed/Bless God" (brk 'lhym)One might read the verbal element in this text as either a passive participle ("blessed")or an imperative ("bless!"). Hopkins has also suggested that we read it as a noun("blessing"), to which would belong the aliph of the following wo~d, representingHebrew/ Aramaic brk' (and not Arabic brkh); the letter after that, the'/', would then.···be understood as the preposition "for" and the remaining part of the text as a personal .name (Hym). The graffito would therefore be of the same structure as no. 20 above.Texts containing allegedly Jewish expressionsIt is striking that we have only two northwest Arabian texts in this category and hi.both cases the reading is extremely tenuous. This is in marked contrast to theepigraphic record of south Arabia, where we have a number of texts that use suchovertly Jewish expressions as "lord of the Jews," "tribe oflsrael'~ and even a fullprayer: "may bless and be blessed the name of Ral;iman who is in heaven, Israeland their god, the lord of the Jews, who has helped his servant.'mNo.30Place: al-UlaType: Tomb inscriptionDate: fourth century CE? 38Script/Lang.: Nabataean AramaicBibl.: CIS 2.333; Euting 1885, 71; Noja 1979, V; Gruendler 1993, N17Text: "This is the tomb which 'Abday son ofTayma built for PN who [died?] onthe twenty-seventh ofS[ebat?] ... two hundred years ten/twenty .. .'' (dnh nps 'dybn' 'bdy br tym' '! . .. dy . .. 's1yn w-sb 'h s[bt?] . .. m'tyn d-snyn 'sr . .. ).37 See C. Robin, "l;limyar et lsra~l" for the texts. One could possibly put forward a couple more ·contenders in this category, but not with any degree of certainty; e.g. Winnet and Reed ARNA, 145(no. 17, a Nabataean Aramaic text from the region ofal-Jawf, apparently dated to year 120 [of the emof Arabia= 225/6 CE]), calls for one "Sulaym son of'A~TdU the priest" to be remembered, and onemight wonder whether "priest" (kim) here could refer to a Levite, but tl1e word is commonly used inpagan texts of this region to signifY some sort of divin~r (see Hoyland, Arabia, 159, for examples).38 This date is based on the assumption that the 210/220 is part of the date and refers to the era ofArabia (beginning in I 05/106 CE); certainly this would suit the script, which, as Laila Nehme hasrecently confirmed to me, "looks late and a date in the fourth century would not be surprising"(personal communication, 5/12/06); Cantineau, Nabateen, 1.22, no. 6, says "this text is dated to20l·ofthe eparchy, 306 of our era". ·The Jews of the Hijaz in the Qur 'an 105a 1979, 294 n. 31, reports the following personal communication from Abbeon the subject of this text: "Monsieur Milik, regarding CIS 2.333, spedthatat the end (lines 9 and 1 0) one should probably read ... slm f'rtlbh mskbh,. .. brings to mind the Jewish phrase 'in peace and happiness (may be) hisrepose.' He has not published his reading.'' Except for the slm, this does not seem. aparticular1y plausible reading, but unfortunately we have no photograph of thisif: insc:rip•tion, so we cannot be sure.Place: Tayma'Type: commemorative in some way (note the clear line division, i.e. not agraffito). • Date: uncertain· Script/Lang.: Nabataean Aramaic/Jewish Aramaic (?) 39Bibl.: Altheim and Stitihl1968, 310; Noja 1979, VI... bn ... bn bb[r '] ... ytptb y ... klhw . .. w 'n ...is difficult to make any sense ofthis, but Altheim and Stiehl point to the use ofinstead of br twice as "speaking for a Jewish origin," and they say that line 3plausibly be restored as bn bbr ', indicating a Jewish l)aber. This point is takenby Noja 1979, p. 296, who comments: "as very faint evidence of it belonging'" ·•uu