SARIAH
| Lehite PN | 1. | Wife of LEHI No. 1, ca. 600 BC (1 Nephi 2:5; 8:14) |
SARIAH appears to be the feminine form of the biblical name Seraiah.[1] SARIAH is probably composed, like the biblical Seraiah, of the common Semitic vocable śr, meaning “commander, official, prince, advisor,” etc., in West Semitic; and the specifically Hebrew theophoric element yāh, a shortened form of the tetragrammaton yhwh (Jehovah). The name could mean, “commander of Jehovah,” or “prince of Jehovah.”
As a feminine personal name SARIAH is attested, albeit in a partial restoration, in the Aramaic papyri of Elephantine, appearing in Papyrus #22.[2] Although the language of the documents is Aramaic, the names are in fact Hebrew. Line 4 of C-22 lists the personal name as śry[h br]t hwš‘ br hrmn, which may be vocalized as Sariah barat Hoshea bar Harman and translated as “Sariah daughter of Hoshea son of Harman.”[3] Further, although Sariah is not attested as a woman’s name in the Old Testament, the name occurs in the form Seraiah nineteen times in reference to nine individuals, all males. Additionally, the name śryhw occurs on biblical period seals.[4] SDR)
Cf. Biblical Sarai and SARAH (also named in the Book of Mormon)
Notes
- ↑ For an excellent initial treatment of Book of Mormon SARIAH see John A. Tvedtnes, John Gee and Matthew Roper, “Book of Mormon Names Attested in Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 9/1 (2000): 43. For examples of Seraiah spelled שריה, see 2 Kings 25:18; Jeremiah 32:12; 40:8; and 1 Chronicles 4:13; and for the spelling שריהו see Jeremiah 36:26. There are examples in Hebrew of the same name being used for a man or a woman, though it is not the norm. For example, Abijah is an Israelite man’s name (e.g., Abiah in 1 Chronicles 6:28 and 7:8) as well as a woman’s name—the name of Hezekiah’s mother (e.g., 2 Chronicles 29:1). In the Anglo-American tradition of naming are the interchangeable man’s and woman’s names Aubrey, Dana, Jordan, Kim, Leslie, Morgan, Robin, Shirley, Stac(e)y, and Tracy.
- ↑ Jeffrey R. Chadwick, “Sariah in the Elephantine Papyri,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 2/2 (1993): 196-200, first brought this attestation to the attention of LDS scholars. See Arthur E. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923), 67. In a later and more exhaustive study, Archives from Elephantine (Berkeley: University of California, 1968), 320, Bezalel Porten agrees with Cowley’s reading and translation. More recently, Bezalel Porten and Jerome A. Lund, Aramaic Documents from Egypt: A Key-Word-in-Context Concordance (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002), 416, label שריה as a Hebrew feminine name, Serayah.
- ↑ Cowley was obliged to reconstruct part of the text, supplying the final h of Sariah and the initial b and r of barat, but the spacing of the letters is reasonable, and the reconstructed text established by Cowley has been accepted as accurate. “The extant final t of barat assures us,” observes Jeffrey Chadwick, “that the person was a daughter, not a son and, after the letters b-r are supplied, there is only room for one additional letter—the final h of Sariah.” See also Chadwick, 197.
- ↑ See Nahman Avigad and Benjamin Sass, Corpus of West Semitic Stamp Seals (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sociences and Humanities, 1997), 122, 134, 163,189, and 237.
Bibliography
- Jeffrey R. Chadwick "The Names Lehi and Sariah—Language and Meaning." Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 9, no. 1 (2000): 32-34.
- Jeffrey R. Chadwick "Sariah in the Elephantine Papyri." Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 2, no. 2 (1993): 196-200.
- Daniel H. Ludlow A Companion to your Study of the Book of Mormon. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1969.
- Camille Fronk Olsen "Desert Epiphany: Sariah and the Women in 1 Nephi." Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 9, no. 2 (2000): 4-15.
- Henry A. Smith “Interesting Clipping.” Church News 35 (September 11, 1965): 6; reprint from "Chiapas Find of Relevance to Document." El Paso Times, July 5, 1965.
