Tuesday, August 15, 2006

shor

In this week's Parasha (Re'eh) we see the shor שור - ox listed among the kosher animals. In Aramaic shor becomes תור tor (also note Ugaritic thor, Akkadian shuru, Arabic thowr). According to many scholars (Klein, Steinberg, Horowitz and Philologos) - the Greeks borrowed from the Semitic tor/shor for their taurus, also meaning "ox". From here we get the term toreador - bullfighter.

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