Bab-El

[Leslie Farmer]

In a message dated 6/3/03 9:15:07 AM, dennisjoffe at BEZEQINT.NET writes:

"Bab-EL" is actually an Arabic expression for

"The Gates of Lord".

But, since the Hebrew and Arabic do have common Semitic etymona - the
expression is not entirely senseles in Hebrew:
"El" is a common word for "God".

>
> That goes for Hebrew.   But Arabic must have changed a lot since I studied
> it--in spoken Arabic, and literary as far as I know, "bab-el" would mean "the
> door/gate of."   You need a noun such as Allah, Rab, Baal (for one
> prechristian God, as in the temple of Baalbek in Lebanon) or an adjective used as an
> attribute of God (al-majeed, the Glorious, ar-Rahman, the Forgiving, etc. ) to
> complete the expression.   Otherwise it just hangs there in the void, so to
> speak, screaming to be completed.
>
Leslie
>

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