Unit 13 Semitic culture

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 491.

Semitic is the term, which actually refers to the ethnic groups who have historically spoken Semitic languages. According to the Biblical classification, the Arabs, Babylonians, Assyrians, Arameans, and Hebrews were regarded as Semites, or the descendants of great patriarch Shem.

On linguistic ground the Semites are usually divided into two groups: the northern and the southern Semites. The life of them has developed in a desert country dotted with occasional oases. The cultivation of the date-palm was a prominent feature of their economy. The family was loosely organized; descent was reckoned through the mother; and the most influential divinity was a goddess of fertility, the marks of whose cult are deeply embedded in the civilization of all the Semites.

The Arabs preserved unchanged more features of primitive Semitic culture; the conditions of life have always been too hard to permit the development of any high state of civilization. But under the influence of Mohammed in the seventh century of the current era, Arabia became for a time a great world-power.

The oldest Semitic civilization ever developed was the Babylonian which was made by the Semites from Arabia who had mingled with the Sumerians. Assyria was a Semitic state that emerged in the middle of the 19^th century B.C. By 1100 it was the strongest power in western Asia which fell only in 606.

Another wave of Semitic emigration from Arabia is represented by the Chaldeans. By the 8^th century one of their number had seized the throne of Babylon for a time, and in 625 the Chaldean or Neo-Babylonian empire was established.

The Arameans never formed one united independent state. They were scattered along the western border of Babylonia. The Phoenicians and Canaanites were one race and spoke one language. The Phoenicians were great sailors. They carried Semitic influences to Greece and Egypt. It is commonly supposed that they originated the alphabet. Perhaps this is not true; but they were probably the distributors of it. The Hebrews were in origin an offshoot of the Arameans; but they adopted the Canaanitish language. Their old history is connected with the country of Israel. Their great contribution to the world's civilization has been a religious one. Three of the most influential of the world's religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism are their contributions.