The ancient Egyptian name in Holy books.

    • There is no agreed upon etymology for either. For the Biblical Haman, the proposed Iranian etymology, for both Haman and his father (from haoma) sounds probable but it's just a speculation. For the Quranic one, if we reject the conflation of the two stories by Muhammad, we may be left with practically nothing.
     
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    Dho ra'aan said:
    What's the etymology of haman that mentioned in esther book and quranic Pharoah story.?
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    Haman may be connected to Egyptian ḥ-m, “majesty”.

    However, the Talmud says that “Haman was an object of idol worship, as he claimed to be a god” (Sanhedrin 61b). And Josephus states that “the foreigners and Persians worshipped him” (Antiquities of the Jews 11.6.5).

    Ham/Hammu could refer to a solar deity (Egyptian Amun/Amun-Ra) and Haman to a priest or worshipper of Ham. Cf. biblical names like Hamutal (ḥam-tal), Hamiohel, Hamiadan and, of course, Hammurabi.

    See also חַמּוּאֵ֥ל, Hamuel (1 Chronicles 4:26) and חמת, Hamat (< Hammat), “City of the Sun-God”(?) (Amos 6:2).
     
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    Hammurabi (Hammu-ra-pi) seems to have been an Amorite whose religion featured the Sun as an important deity (Marduk, Shamash).

    Ḥam/ḥammu, related to the word for “hot”, could have been a name or epithet of the deity which occurs in a number of names in the region, such as, Ḥami’ohel (*“Ḥam (is) shelter”), Ḥami’adan (*“Ḥam is joy/gives abundantly”), Ḥamu’el (*“Ḥam is God”), etc.


    Julius Lewy, "The Old West Semitic Sun-God Ḥammu," Hebrew Union College Annual 18:429-488.

    Jeffrey H. Tigay, You shall have no other Gods: Israelite Religion in the Light of Hebrew Inscriptions, p. 76

    Nahman Avigad, "New Names on Hebrew Seals", EI 12:66-71.
     
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