LURAM
| Lehite PN | 1. | NEPHITE soldier, 4th c. AD (Moroni 9:2) |
Etymology
John Tvedtnes, John Gee, and Matthew Roper were among the first Book of Mormon researchers to point out that the Book of Mormon PN LURAM, the name of a Nephite soldier who perished in the final battles between the Lamanites and Nephites, may be connected to the name ’dnlrm (transliterated by the editors of a study of West Semitic cylinder seals as “Adanluram”) found on a seal and in graffiti at Hama (ancient Hamath in Syria).[1] LURAM may be from the Hebrew root ram “to be exalted”[2] and the particle lu, with an asseverative or precative sense, “oh that; indeed, certainly,”[3] producing the meaning of a hypocoristicon, “may he [God, the Lord] be exalted; he is truly exalted.”
It is less likely that the Sumerian LÚ, “man,” would be combined with the Akkadian ram, “exalted,” thus “exalted man,” since most proper names are generally not produced from a combination of languages. Also less likely is a derivation from Akkadian lurmû “pomegranate (tree).”[4]
See RAMEUMPTOM, RAMAH, RAMATH.
See also Luram / Laram Variants
Variants
Deseret Alphabet: 𐐢𐐆𐐅𐐡𐐊𐐣 (lɪuːrʌm)
Notes
- ↑ Tvedtnes, Gee and Roper, in “Book of Mormon Names Attested in Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions,” JBMS 9/1 (2000):49, citing N. Avigad, Corpus of West Semitic Stamp Seals, revised and completed by Benjamin Sass (Jeruslem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1997), p. 285, no. 760.
- ↑ HALOT, p. 1202; cf. also the biblical PN Ram = Hebrew rām “Exalted” (Ruth 4:19; 1 Chronicles 2:9; Job 32:2, Matthew 1:3), as also in the last part of Abram “Exalted-Father”.
- ↑ HALOT, p. 521; cf. Zipora Cochavi-Rainey, The Akkadian Dialect of Egyptian Scribe in the 14th and 13th Centuries BCE (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2011), 94, 104-5, 136, 200, for a discussion of the Akkadian asseverative/precative particle lu.
- ↑ CAD, “L,” 9:255.
