(no subject)

[lethargic_man]

The word תּוֹרָה Torah, is normally translated "Law". I prefer "Instruction": it derives from the same root as מוֹרֶה moreh, teacher. However, the root's original sense was one of giving direction; it's also the word used for casting something, and for shooting arrows; for example 1 Samuel 20:20 (Jonathan to David): וַאֲנִי שְׁלֹשֶׁת הַחִצִּים צִדָּה אוֹרֶה "I will shoot (oreh) three arrows to the side."

It occurred to me the other day that when Abraham sends his son Ishmael away, the text records that he grew up in the desert and became an archer. Might the text be saying in a subtle way here that the children of Ishmael—the (way pre-Islam) Arabs—are also heirs to the religious heritage of Abraham as much as the children of Isaac, who was traditionally viewed as scholarly.

Sadly, no: the use of Torah in the sense of the Jewish Law as encapsulated in the Pentateuch is anachronistic at the time the Torah was both set and written (whether you consider it as written when it was set or not).

Still, it makes a nice midrash (for which anachronism is, of course, par for the course).

Comments

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Not apropos of anything very much, papersky mentioned the other day that a woodcut of Abraham casting out Hagar and Ishmael would make a good illustration for some of the "how not to do it" stuff that comes up regularly in discussions of poly, and I now find myself with the urge to obtain a userpic of Abraham casting out Hagar the Horrible. Though fortunately it's not a very strong urge.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

*snort*

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Well, that and the fact that the root ירה doesn't appear in the passage about Yishmael. He becomes a רובה קשת, a bowman, not a יורה חצים, a shooter of arrows. If the text intended to hint at a link between Yitzchak's תורה and Yishmael's יורה, it would have used that word.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

True, and I was aware of this when I wrote the above (if not when I had the original idea), but bowmen generally are involved in shooting arrows...