Greek Names in the BoM

[volgadon]

I thought I would copy a post I made elsewhere about Greek influences. I'm sure it won't surprise any of you, but it is always nice to have support from NON-Mormon sources.

Found a good reference in Scythopolis - a Greek City in Eretz Israel written by Gideon Fuks and published by Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi in 1983. Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi is the most respectable academic publishing house in Israel.

The book is dated because more has come to light, but it is sufficient for my purposes.

The author states that certain aspects of the Greek way of life were known to the inhabitants of Coele-Syria before Alexander the Great conquered the region in 332 BC. He uses Coele-Syria loosely, to refer to everything from Damascus to Judea, inclusive.

He mentions Yigal Yadin's theory that some of the Arad (a Biblical fortress in the south of Judea which at one point even had a temple) ostracons from the 7th century BC are Greek.

Several ostracons from the same site in the 6th century refers to Chithtites, in all probability Aegean mercenaries employed by King Josiah. At least that is the explanation offered by Yohanan Aharoni.

He also considered the large amount of greek pottery shards in Heshbiyahu (a fort just north of Ashdod/Azotus) indicative of a further mercenary garrison employed by Josiah.

Several sites have revealed Greek pottery from as early as the 9th c. BC. From the 7th c. onwards the amount increases. The author notes that these finds are especially prevalent in the layers from the middle of the 6th c. From about the same time come Greek coins as well.

The eminent archaeologist and scholar William F. Albright concluded that there were several minor Greek settlements along the coast of Syria, Lebanon and Israel. It should be pointed out that the evidence isn't conclusive (rarely is in archaeology).

The author concludes that although it is hard to measure the Greek influence on the region, it certainly was aware of the Greeks and Alexander's conquest did not entail a complete shock.

Greek influence needn't have been widespread, all it would have taken was for someone in Lehi's group (either he, his sons, Ishamel or his sons, Zoram or any of Ishmael's servants if he brought them) or in Mulek's group to be fond of Greek (I use the term loosely) culture. Just one person.

[JangoStango]

Greek influence needn't have been widespread, all it would have taken was for someone in Lehi's group (either he, his sons, Ishamel or his sons, Zoram or any of Ishmael's servants if he brought them) or in Mulek's group to be fond of Greek (I use the term loosely) culture. Just one person.

It would have taken an unbroken line of American Israelites with a fondness for Greek names to get "Timothy" in 3 Nephi. That's 600 years after leaving the Middle East.

[volgadon]

Not an unbroken line, you forget the importance of geneology. Records were kept, so the names could be revived after 600 years.

By then it wouldn't be because it was a Greek name (assuming you knew the origin) but because it was a name of one of your ancestors and you like the sound of it.

[Sevenbak]

Not an unbroken line, you forget the importance of geneology. Records were kept, so the names could be revived after 600 years.

Exactly. No one can read the BOM and accuse these people of not keeping meticulous records.

Nephi and Lehi were named such near the time of Christ, 600 years later, for a reason.

To take an even more applicable example... Coriantumr killed the Chief Judge Pacumeni, according to Helaman. We know who Coriantumr was, the Brother of Jared, as well as one of survivors of that civilization, thousands of years later. Obviously they had records, and obviously the Nephites had those records, as per Mosiah and the 24 plates.

[JangoStango]

Not an unbroken line, you forget the importance of geneology. Records were kept, so the names could be revived after 600 years.

Or even a message in a bottle tossed over the side of a Greek trading vessel:

Dear Timothy,

Should this message reach you, please know that I meant to turn off the cooking fire before I left. I hope you noticed my error before some terrible mishap befell the homestead....

Nephite parents: "Look at this message we found. 'Timothy' sounds like a nice name for our son. Why not?"

If Nephite parents didn't preserve the knowledge of reading Greek, just say the note was written in Hebrew or Egyptian for some imaginative reason.

[Sevenbak]

It's not just Timothy. Lachoneus would seem to be of Greek influence as well.

[Ron Beron]

I thought I would copy a post I made elsewhere about Greek influences. I'm sure it won't surprise any of you, but it is always nice to have support from NON-Mormon sources.

Found a good reference in Scythopolis - a Greek City in Eretz Israel written by Gideon Fuks and published by Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi in 1983. Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi is the most respectable academic publishing house in Israel.

The book is dated because more has come to light, but it is sufficient for my purposes.

The author states that certain aspects of the Greek way of life were known to the inhabitants of Coele-Syria before Alexander the Great conquered the region in 332 BC. He uses Coele-Syria loosely, to refer to everything from Damascus to Judea, inclusive.

He mentions Yigal Yadin's theory that some of the Arad (a Biblical fortress in the south of Judea which at one point even had a temple) ostracons from the 7th century BC are Greek.

Several ostracons from the same site in the 6th century refers to Chithtites, in all probability Aegean mercenaries employed by King Josiah. At least that is the explanation offered by Yohanan Aharoni.

He also considered the large amount of greek pottery shards in Heshbiyahu (a fort just north of Ashdod/Azotus) indicative of a further mercenary garrison employed by Josiah.

Several sites have revealed Greek pottery from as early as the 9th c. BC. From the 7th c. onwards the amount increases. The author notes that these finds are especially prevalent in the layers from the middle of the 6th c. From about the same time come Greek coins as well.

The eminent archaeologist and scholar William F. Albright concluded that there were several minor Greek settlements along the coast of Syria, Lebanon and Israel. It should be pointed out that the evidence isn't conclusive (rarely is in archaeology).

The author concludes that although it is hard to measure the Greek influence on the region, it certainly was aware of the Greeks and Alexander's conquest did not entail a complete shock.

Greek influence needn't have been widespread, all it would have taken was for someone in Lehi's group (either he, his sons, Ishamel or his sons, Zoram or any of Ishmael's servants if he brought them) or in Mulek's group to be fond of Greek (I use the term loosely) culture. Just one person.

There is another option. There was continuous contact with the Mediterranean that would allow an influx of ideas and names.

[volgadon]

Or you could acknowledge that my theory is logical and likely, even if you don't agree with it, Jango.

[Sevenbak]

Or you could acknowledge that my theory is logical and likely, even if you don't agree with it, Jango.

The bottle theory?

I'd just assume stick to guys like Nibley and other scholars who point to a Muleikite influence.

Stephen D. Ricks, Ensign, Oct. 1992, 53â??54

Stephen D. Ricks, associate professor of Hebrew and Semitic languages, Brigham Young University.

One of the disciples chosen by the Lord following his appearance among the Nephites was the brother of Nephi. His name was Timothy, a name used by the Greeks and a name found in the New Testament. Although we do not know for certain, there are several plausible explanations for the appearance of this name in the Book of Mormon.

It may be that the name Timothy, as well as other manifestations of Greek influence, was brought to the New World by the Mulekites. The people of Mulek may have made their escape to the New World on a Phoenician ship. (See Ross T. Christensen, ed., Transoceanic Crossings to Ancient America, Provo: The Society for Early Historic Archaeology, n.d., pp. 19â??20.) The Phoenicians, whose port cities included Sidon, Acco, and Tyre, were the greatest seamen of the region. They had regular contacts both with Greek-speaking merchants and traders and with the Israelites. (See, for example, Judg. 1:31; 2 Sam. 5:11; 1 Kgs. 5:1â??12; Matt. 11:21â??22; Mark 3:8.)

One possibility, then, is that on that long voyage, the lore of the Greeksâ??including Greek namesâ??could have been learned and passed on to the Mulekite colony. It may be significant that the names Lachoneus and Timothy, the only two names in the Book of Mormon that seem to be of Greek origin, appear in the Book of Mormon only after the Mulekite contact with the Nephites.

Another possibility, in the case of the name Timothy at least, is that we have a Greek doubletâ??a name in one language that has the same or nearly the same meaning as a name in another language. For example, in the New Testament, the Greek name Petros (Peter) is a doublet of the Aramaic Cephas, both of which mean a â??rock.â? Likewise, the Greek Didymus is a doublet of the Aramaic Thomas, meaning â??twin.â? The name Timothy means â??God-fearerâ? and might be a doublet for a similar-meaning Nephite name. Alternatively, Timothy may simply be a rendering of a like-sounding Nephite name that is otherwise completely unrelated to the Greek.

Perhaps the strongest possibility for the appearance of Timothy in the Book of Mormon is that Greek names were not unknown among the Israelites even before Lehi left Jerusalem. Contacts between the Greeks and the peoples of the eastern Mediterraneanâ??including the Israelitesâ??had already begun centuries before Lehi was born. Professor Cyrus H. Gordon, who has studied early evidence of Greek contacts in the ancient Near East, writes in his book The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilization that trade and other cultural contacts existed between the Greeks and the ancient Near East from the middle of the second millennium b.c. (New York: Norton, 1965, pp. 22â??46; see also Michael Astour, Hellenosemitica, Leiden: Brill, 1967.)

Thus, it should not be surprising that names of Greek origin might be found among the peoples of the ancient Near East, including the Hebrews, since names are easily and widely borrowed among peoples of various cultures. Lehiâ??s tribe, Manasseh, was quite cosmopolitan, so foreign names could well have been in Lehiâ??s genealogy found on the plates of brass. (See 1 Ne. 5:14; Alma 10:3; cf. Hugh Nibley, The Prophetic Book of Mormon, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co. and Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1989, pp. 544â??45.)

The name Timothy, in fact, appears among the desert peoples of the eastern Mediterranean. A Timothy is mentioned as a leader of the Ammonites (a Semitic people who lived immediately to the east of Judea) who opposed Judas Maccabeus, and was on several occasions defeated by him in battles that took place about 165â??163 b.c. (See the Apocryphal books 1 Maccabees 5:6â??11, 34, 37â??44; and 2 Maccabees 8:30, 32; 10:24â??37.)

The name Timothy appears to be Ionian in origin. Ionia is a region of Greek-speaking people with whom the peoples of the ancient Near Eastâ??including the Hebrewsâ??had close contact. (See Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, The World of the Jaredites, There Were Jaredites, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co. and Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1988, p. 33.) Such contact is reflected in the â??Table of Nationsâ? in Genesis 10, where the name Javanâ??a name related to the Greek â??Ioniaâ?â??is mentioned as the son of Japheth, the son of Noah (Gen. 10:2), whose descendants were the Greek-speaking peoples of the Ionian coast. Other cultural contacts between the Javanites (â??Greciansâ? in the King James Version) are reflected in Joel 3:6, Ezek. 27:13, and Zech. 9:12â??13.

In addition to Timothy, the name Lachoneus (see 3 Ne. 1:1; 3 Ne. 6:19) may also be a name of Greek origin, deriving from the Greek Lakonios, meaning â??Laconian,â? referring to a people who lived in the southern part of the Greek mainland and who were among the most experienced merchants in Greece, maintaining colonies throughout the ancient Near East. (See Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, p. 33.) The â??châ? in the name Lachoneus is significant, accurately reflecting the tendency in Hebrew to change a â??câ? or â??kâ? immediately after a vowel into a â??châ? (pronounced as in the name Bach or in the Scottish word loch).

Thus, there are a number of possible reasons for the names Timothy and Lachoneus being in the Book of Mormon. Certainly, they are not there by accident, and their possible Greek connections remind us again of the ethnic and cultural richness of the people brought by the Lord to their land of promise.

[JangoStango]

Or you could acknowledge that my theory is logical and likely, even if you don't agree with it, Jango.

Both of our theories are logical and possible. Both are unlikely. However, taking provenance claims for granted, something like this must have happened no matter how unlikely it seems. I know of at least one apologist who strongly believes some Phoenicians were blown off course and brought these Greek names to America. Is that more or less likely than our proposals?

[volgadon]

Sevenbak, the bottle theory isn't mine, but Jango's.

If you look at what I originally posted, I mentioned the Mulekites. The Phoenician ship is an interesting and logical thought.

[Sevenbak]

:DBoth of our theories are logical and possible. Both are unlikely. However, taking provenance claims for granted, something like this must have happened no matter how unlikely it seems. I know of at least one apologist who strongly believes some Phoenicians were blown off course and brought these Greek names to America. Is that more or less likely than our proposals?

In the above treatise, Nibley theorizes Mulek came through Phoenicia.

Sevenbak, the bottle theory isn't mine, but Jango's.If you look at what I originally posted, I mentioned the Mulekites. The Phoenician ship is an interesting and logical thought.

Sorry, got those mixed up.

[volgadon]

Jango, giving your child a name that belonged to an ancestor is likelier than the bottle theory. It doesn't require a huge stretch of the imagination. Both however are unprovable.

[volgadon]

Nibley doesn't say Phoenicia, Sevenbak, he says Phoenicians. The interesting thing is that most navies in the Near-East were crewed by Phoenicians.

[Sevenbak]

Nibley doesn't say Phoenicia, Sevenbak, he says Phoenicians. The interesting thing is that most navies in the Near-East were crewed by Phoenicians.

It's semantics. That's what I meant. The Phoenicians were the master ship builders/merchants, all over the old world. I imagine a very healthy amount of gold from the only living heir of Israel would have bought a ride to just about anywhere, even an uncharted trip across the ocean, if the price was right. He certainly had not incentive to stay anywhere close to home.

[volgadon]

Well, I feel that semantics in such discussion help rob critics of chances to go AHA.

[Sevenbak]

Well, I feel that semantics in such discussion help rob critics of chances to go AHA.

Nothing robs them of chances for such pleasure.

Here's my speculation of a plausible scenario. Timothy and Lachoneus were Captain and First Officer on a Phoenician vessel, who for either greed or valor, took a great risk to save the prince of Israel and his associates. They landed in the land Northward but couldn't return, so they settled in amongst the Muleikites as life saving hero's to that community.

Now, someone take that and go write a cheap, fictional, priestcraft-invoking romance novel for the shelves of Deseret Book using that scenario.

[JangoStango]

Jango, giving your child a name that belonged to an ancestor is likelier than the bottle theory. It doesn't require a huge stretch of the imagination. Both however are unprovable.

It may seem more likely but only for parents who had Greek ancestors, which is another assumption.

My two sons have unusual names that don't come from ancestors, but were chosen because we just liked the names. One comes from an author who I don't like at all, but I still like the sound of the name next to our last name. The other is Hungarian -- no such ancestors that we know of. You can't measure the likeliness of creativity.

[volgadon]

So the ancestors don't have to be Greek, which is what I said in the very begining.