Brit-Am Now"-240
May 5, 2003
Contents:
1. Aram Paquin: Language similarities
2. Shaun Hansen: Joseph in America
3. Ann Morrison Fisher: ON ANCIENT IRISH HISTORY
1. Aram Paquin: Language similarities
Yair,
a tiny quibble:
You said "Aramaic is similar to Hebrew and someone who knows Hebrew well
can understand Aramaic with little effort."
According to Linguists, when 2 languages are so closely related that they
can be mutually understood with little difficulty, it's more correct to
consider them as 2 dialects of one single (mother) language. As I recall,
Danish & Norwegian fall into this category.
Incidentally, thanks to Dr. Isaac Mozeson's The Word
(http://www.edenics.homestead.com/index.html ) tracing over 20,000 English
words back to their Hebrew roots, I've begun paying attention to the same
phenomenon for French words. I just ran across another example about an
hour ago.
The English word "sin" translates to French as "pÙchÙ". According to one
dictionary, one Hebrew word for "sin" is "pesha`". Interesting.
Aram
2. Shaun Hansen: Joseph in America
From: Shaun Hansen <anzianohansen@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: "Brit-Am Now"-239
The Books of Moses are especially valuable because they contain "types" of
symbols of things to come. One of these types was the selling of Joseph to
Egypt. This occurrence, and his subsequent rise to a position of authority
among the non-Jewish world is a type. Similarly, the Ephraimites that were
scattered into the northern countries eventually filtered into America,
being often regarded as the lowest and humblest of the civilizations they
were rejected from. This bloodline came to America, and through general
adherance to the commandments and principles of God (at least to a degree
greater on average than most nations), modern Joseph, or America, has risen
to a position of influence over all others....
3. Ann Morrison Fisher: ON ANCIENT IRISH HISTORY
[Brit-Am Preliminary Comment: The following extracts concern the legends of
Ireland. These legends have implications also for Britain since many of the
settlers of Scotland, Wales, and Western England came from Ireland. Also
peoples who settled in Ireland usually also had settled in Britain. The
legends are interesting. They should not be taken as literally true but in
some cases (at least) they show evidence of being historically correct to a
degree. Another point: "Phoenician" can also mean Hebrew as we explained in
our book "Lost Israelite Identity" and as Steven Collins has also explained
in his work.]
Ann Morrison Fisher: ON ANCIENT IRISH HISTORY
http://home.att.net/~genfiles/IreBirth/ire_his1.htm
Extracts:
The ancient history of Ireland is cloudy; marvelous records have been
preserved in the old Irish books, but it is difficult to distinguish
history from myth at remote periods. The Book of the Invasions of Ireland
tells of a number of invasions or immigrations,
M. d'Arbois de Jubainville sees seven mythological immigrations:
Partholan to Ireland
Nemed to Ireland
The Firbolg to Ireland
The Tuatha de Danaan to Ireland
Mile, son of Bile, to Spain
The sons of Mile from Spain to Ireland
The Picts from Thracia to Ireland and from Ireland to Britain
P.W. Joyce lists:
The Parthalonians
The Nemedians
The Firbolgs
The Dedannans
The Milesians
He treats all these as historical immigrations. Sullivan also accepts these
five as historical, but Curtayne treats only the Milesians as a clearly
historical invasion. Gerald Hawkins writes of the "great corpus of
handed-down myth and history" that tells of:
The Parthalonians
The Fomorians
The Nemedians
The Fir Bolg
The Tuatha de Danaan
The Milesians
The Dravidians
According to the Book of Invasions, the first invasion was that of Cessair
or Banba...She came from the island of Meroe in the Nile in Egypt..
Although two ships were wrecked, Cassair escaped to land in Ireland with
fifty wo men and three men. The flood came and only one man escaped by
hiding in a cave above Tul Tuinde (Fert Fintain). This Fintan find (the
White) son of Lamech survived for many generations and passed on the
history of Ireland to each new group of invaders...According to the
Chronicum Scotorum, in the year of the world 1599 there came into Hibernia
a daughter of the Greeks called Eriu, Banba, or Cesar, but d'Arbois de
Jubainville calls this legend a late invention.
Next came Partholan and his people from Greece in the year of the world
2520 (2048 B.C.). They are said to have died of a plague. Then came Nemed,
son of Agnoman, from Spain or from Greek Scythia; these people also
suffered from a plague and some returned to Spain or Greece. Nemed was
descended from Fenius Farsa, who, after the fall of the Tower of Babel and
the confusion of the languages, established a school on the Plain of
Shinar, which was in Sumer or in Egypt; there he put together the Gaelic
language. Nemed built the first two royal palaces or raths.
The Fomorians were descendants of Shem or Cain or Canaan, son of Shem; they
were dwarfs or giants...
The Firbolg were descendants of Nemed; they had been enslaved in
Greece...P.W. Joyce says they were led by the five sons of Dela, who
partitioned the island into five parts: Ulster, Leinster, Connaught, and
the two Munsters. According to Jubainville, they were actually three
Peoples: the Fir-Domnann in South Munster, North Munster, and Connaught;
the Galioin in Leinster; and the Fir-bolg in Ulster.
The Tuatha de Danaan, the People of the God Danu or Dana, also descendants
of Nemed, came from Greece via Denmark, which bears their name; they fought
the Fir Bolg (although sometimes they seem to have been fighting Fomorians)
in the two battles of Mag Tuired and won. Apparently the defeat was not
immediate, however, for The Book of Invasions mentions men who were
offspring of mixed marriages of Fir Bolgs and Danaans.
The conquering race was the Milesians out of Spain; they are also called
the Gaedil or the Scots. They are called Milesians after Mil or Mel, whose
ancestry was traced back to Gaedel Glas, Fenius Farsa, and Rifath Scot, the
father of the Scots. The Gaedil were said to be Greeks of Scythia,
descendants of Gomer son of Iapheth (or Japheth) son of Noah. They had
journeyed far from Scythia and finally went to Egypt by invitation from the
Pharoah, whose daughter Scota was given to Mil in marriage. They left Egypt
at the same time the Hebrews left and had some relations with them. But the
Hebrews traveled by land, and the Gaedil took ship and sailed away. In
their wanderings they traveled many lands...Finally they settled for a time
in Spain, where Ith son of Breogan son of Mil saw Ireland first from the
top of Breogan's Tower. He sailed with warriors to Ireland; ...When the
Danaans killed Ith, his body was returned to Spain, and the Sons of Mil
came en masse, including Scota the daughter of Pharoah of Egypt. They
conquered the Danaans and were still ruling in Ireland at the time of the
conversion of the people to Christianity by St. Patrick.
There are then a number of invading peoples mentioned in traditional Irish
history, all of whom came from the south, most opf whom are said to have
come from Greece or Greek Scythia via Spain. With the exception of the
people of Cessair, all are said to have been related peoples; according to
The Book of Invasions, all the peoples who came before the Gaedil were
descendants of Magog son of Iafeth son of Noah, while the Gaedil were the
progeny of Gomer son of Iafeth. It is also stated, however, that the
Milesians and Danaans spoke the same language and were alike descendants of
Rifath Scot of Scythia.
The earliest archeological evidence supports this tradition of invaders
from Spain. The earliest relics of man in Ireland, according to Macalister,
show the double immigration of Asturians from Spain and Campignians from
the continent...
Again, the stone age in Ireland was seemingly of very short duration. The
metal culture must have reached that country considerably earlier than it
reached Great Britain. All the archaeological evidence points to the
conclusion that Ireland is an island of the Atlantic, Great Britain is an
island of the North Sea; and that though so close together, they do not
therefore form one archipelago. Culture came into Ireland from the
southwest, from Spain across the Bay of Biscay. The old connection between
Ireland and Spain was maintained for many centuries.
This population persisted to c. 350 B.C., during which time the great stone
monuments were built, the stone circles and dolmens in the Neolithic period
and the larger and more impressive monuments in the Bronze Age.
To the Celts of Gaul, and through them to the Greeks, the ancient
inhabitants of Britain and Ireland appear to have been known by the common
name of Pretani. The two islands, Albion and Iverna, are called in Greek
the Pretanic Islands. In Latin and first, so far as is known, by Julius
Caesar, the name Brittani (becoming later Britanni and Brittones) is
substituted for Pretani and used distinctively of the people of the larger
island, to which the name Brittania (Britannia) was given. Pretani,
represented in early Irish by Cruithin, was the name of the people who in
later times are known as Picti, Picts. Hence it may be inferred that during
the bronze age the Picts were the chief people of Ireland as well as of
Britain, and this inference is amply confirmed by ancient Irish traditions.
At about 350 B.C. the great Celtic explosion, which originated somewhere
near the heads of the Danube and Rhine and spread across Europe, reached
Ireland and brought the Iron Age. The earlier Hallstadt Iron Age culture
did not invade Ireland; the coming of the Celts is equated with the coming
of the La Tene Iron Age culture...
The Celtic languages are divided into two groups: P-Celts and Q-Celts.
Where one uses a P, the other uses a Q or hard C; for instance, "pen,"
meaning head or chief, as in Pendragon, becomes in Ireland "cenn." It was
P-Celts who gave the Greeks the name "Pretani" for the people of the
British Isles; for the later Irish Q-Celts the word was "Cruithin."
Robert Graves has attempted to correlate the archeological evidence with
the traditions of The Book of Invasions. The Brugh na Boyne, now called New
Grange, is a rath or fortress traditionally occupied by the Dagda and then
by his son Oengus or Angus of the Tuatha de Danaan.
New Grange is a flat-topped round barrow, about a quarter of a mile in
circumference and fifty feet high. But it is built of heaped stones, some
50,000 tons of them, not of earth, and was originally covered with white
quartz pebbles:... Ten enormous stone herms, weighing eight or ten tons
apiece, stand in a semi-circle around the southern base of the barrow, and
one formerly stood at the summit. It is not known how many more have been
removed from the semi-circle but the gaps suggest an original set of
twelve. A hedge of about a hundred long flat stones, set edge to edge,
rings the base around. Deep inside the barrow is a pre-Celtic
passage-burial cave built with great slabs of stone, several of them
measuring as much as seven feet by four.
Silius Italicus in the first century noted a tradition that the Balearic
Isles off Spain were first made a kingdom by Danaans. According to the
Greeks, Danaus was a son of Agenor (Canaan) who came from Libya via Egypt
and Syria. And Berard mentions a tradition that the Minoan civilization was
founded "by Minos, son of Europa the Phoenician, and Kadmos of Tyre and
Danaos the Egyptian, who imported the alphabet, written laws, the horse,
the war-chariot, and the fifty-oar vessel."
The Irish Milesians similarly claimed to have visited Crete and to have
gone thence to Syria, and thence by way of Carenia in Asia Minor to
Gaetulia in North Africa, Baelduno or Baelo, a port near Cadiz, and
Breagdun or Brigantium (now Compostella), in Northwestern Spain. Among
their ancestors were Gadel...., Cecrops of Athens; and "Scota daughter of
the king of Egypt." .... Scota, who has been confused in Irish legend with
the ancestor of the Cottians, is apparently Scotia ("The Dark One"), a well
known Greek title of the Sea-goddess of Cyprus.
We have a problem with the Celts, for although tradition says that the
Milesians or Gaedil or Scots (and therefore Celts) arrived in 1267 B.C.,
the archeologists say that the Celts did not arrive before c. 350 B.C....
James Joyce, known primarily as an author, was educated in Dublin and was
especially interested in the history of its people. In "Ireland, Island of
Saints and Sages" he refers to its ancient history:
The Irish language, although of the Indo-European family, differs from
English almost as much as the language spoken in Rome differs from that
spoken in Teheran. It has an alphabet of special characters, and a history
almost three thousand years old....
This language is oriental in origin, and has been identified by many
philologists with the ancient language of the Phoenicians, the originators
of trade and navigation, according to historians. This adventurous people,
who had a monopoly of the sea, established in Ireland a civilization that
had decayed and almost disappeared before the first Greek historian took
his pen in hand. It jealously preserved the secrets of its knowledge, and
the first mention of the island of Ireland in foreign literature is found
in a Greek poem of the fifth century before Christ, where the historian
repeats the Phoenician tradition. The language that the Latin writer of
comedy, Plautus, put in the mouth of Phoenicians in his comedy Poenulus is
almost the same language that the Irish peasants speak today, according to
the critic Vallancey. The religion and civilization of this ancient people,
later known by the name of Druidism, were Egyptian. The Druid priests had
their temples in the open, and worshipped the sun and moon in groves of oak
trees. In the crude state of knowledge of those times, the Irish priests
were considered very learned, and when Plutarch mentions Ireland, he says
that it was the dwelling place of holy men. Festus Avienus in the fourth
century was the first to give Ireland the title of Insula Sacra; and later,
after having undergone the invasions of the Spanish and the Gaelic tribes,
it was converted to Christianity by St.Patrick and his followers, and again
earned the title of "Holy Isle"....
Although Joyce speaks here of a history of almost three thousand years, he
also says that this civilization existed long before the Greek historians
who wrote history. He appears to be saying that the Bronze Age civilization
of Ireland that built the great raths (and perhaps the Neolithic also) was
Phoenician in origin and language, Egyptian in religion and culture. Victor
Berard, a strong influence on Joyce, makes the Phoenicians very ancient
indeed:
The Phoenicians then played the leading part in this Mediterranean of
pre-Hellenic times; these Semites of Tyre and Sidon and Byblos, the vassals
or allies, the merchants or sea-carriers of Egypt and Chaldea, had founded
their trading stations and colonies on every coast in the Aegean. Their
influence dates back three, perhaps four thousand years before Christ; in
the second millenium, from 1600 to about 1200 B.C., it was supreme.
Phoenicia as we know it was much Egyptianized, although its people and
language were Northwest Semitic; it was closely related to the Minoan
civilization of Crete. Berard points to Cretan and Phoenician ties with Egypt:
Discoveries in Crete show that the relations between these Isles and Egypt
date back to a timeless past.... In fact, it appears that - thirteen
centuries before the Ptolemies, twenty-two centuries before the Khalifs,
and thirty-two centuries before Mahatmet-Ali's temporarily successful
attempt - that the Pharoahs seized the island of Minos and added it to
their Empire. And their Phoenician vassals and tributaries acted in the
island as their political and commercial agents.... So before the
Mediterranean of the Achaeans, there was a Phoenician Mediterranean.
Joyce seems to be speaking, then, of a Phoenician origin; perhaps he
thought in terms of a Phoenician colonization, followed by later immigrants
from the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations, who would have been closely
allied.
The Druids have been called the priests of the Celts, and indeed they were
also the preservers (in their memories) of the history, science, religion,
law, and literature of their people. They were also poets; a Druid had to
be able to extemporaneously compose a poem on any subject in any stated
form and meter.
Authorities agree that there was a religion in the British Isles before the
Celts came and that the Celts incorporated elements of that religion. They
do not agree on what or how much they took from their predecessors. But it
was not the Celts who built the temple-observatory of Stonehenge or the
Brugh na Boyne.
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