Mamabudz

had some fun last night working out the word history of our favorite herb: cannabis.

Many folks know that cannabis is referenced in the bible and that is some world religions its use is sacred. I was reading in the Tanakh (the 5 books Genisis Exodus Deut. Leviticus & Numbers) in the original Hebrew and actually tripped over the word.

First time I read it in it's original That was fun.

kaneh-bos'm -- reed or cane like aromatic plants (mistranslated in the Greek Septuagent to calamus which is a marsh plant of little value -- calamus was carried over in mistranslation into the King James version of the Bible)

kaneh is the root word from which we get the English word cane (sugar cane etc.)

bos'm is the plural of the word spice or aromatic. in Hebrew the plural is supplied by the sound of "m" so the singular is bos (or bis).

kaneh-bos or kaneh-bis is singular...doesn't take a lot to hear cannibis.

Exodus 30:23 is where you will find it. in the description of the annointing oil used in the tabernacle.

I love this stuff...

~ I'm having a cookie to celebrate

HappyMan

Interesting, was the plant growing wild in the biblical world? Also along this topic, I ordered a book that examins drug use and religous development. : The Mystery of Manna: The Psychedelic Sacrament of the Bible by Daniel Merkur. I'll let everyone know if it contains anything interesting.

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Shaman

The Terrence McKenna theory that manna is a certian little mushroom (that wee're not going to talk about here) is pretty compelling...
Mama = COOL! Mazeltov!
Heh and then there's Genesis 1:29 which gives us authority to use this plant...

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It seems like we are either sleepwalking through our waking state or wakewalking through our dreams.

Mamabudz

Genisis 1:29 is ..."they shall be yours for food"... while cannabis can be used for food, the first reference to it by name is in Exodus.

Was a specific plant known for its properties and collected or traded for purposes of creating the oil and I'm sure a supply was used for other purposes.

Manna is the sap of a cactus indigeonous tot eh Sinai, where it still grows today. When the cactus is pierced by the ants that live off it, its sap runs out ans in the chill before dawn will harden into a small wafer like substance about the size of a large seed. it very sweet and must be harvested prior to dawn otherwsie the sun melts it and the ants eat it. For more information read: Werner Keller "The Bible As History"

The miracle of manna was not that it comes from an indigeonous plant but rather that there was enough of it to sustain a population of over 2 million!

G_d never breaks his own rules in order to perform a miracle.

tziporah

Hey,

I pulled out my Tanakh to look at Exodus 30:22-23 to check out the reference....the text says (forgive the transliteration- i don't have Hebrew fonts!): "v'atah kach l'cha...kinman be'sem...u'kneh-bosem." The plural isn't used here (the masculine plural ends with "im") ..be'sem/bosem means "fragrant", and the translation is then "and you will take for yourself...fragrant cinammon and fragrant cane." The word fragrant is connected to the word "samim" which means spices. Interestingly, this is the word in modern Hebrew for drugs. I'm all for looking for bud in the Torah, but I don't think the kaneh-bosem is very telling, at least from this passage. I'm going to look in my Biblical concordance and find other contexts in which the word appears to shed a little more light on this...

Peace and Lehitraot

SmokedupSouth

"In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yeilded her fruit every month: and the ;eaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations" -Revelations 22:2

I suppose that if the tree of life is our friend pot, then more power to us.
~peace~

ps~anybody with a Bible program on their computer, or who is a Bible major, look up as many references to the "tree of life" as you can find, it might be interesting.

FOUND SOME
heres the link, what I did was just run a search for "tree of life" in the King James version
Tree od Life verses

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Judge not, and ye shall not be judged; Condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned. Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.

techno_trancer

wow, bud in the bible, sweet, tobad i dont believe in a greater power

Mamabudz

Tziporah...shalom shalom!

Of course I left the Hebrew Tanakh at the in-laws so I'm sitting here with the English racking my brain trying to remeber if it was a "yud" "mem" ending giving the plural possesive(masculine plural?) But now that I'm thinking it through, bosm (besm) would be singular, bosm'im (besm'im) would be plural.

Now my search is for the etymology of the bosm or besm especially as you point out the use of the term s'mim to mean "any drug" as opposed to any spice! Interesting that it is a word specific to the intoxicant effect of the subject, not it's sweet smell.

I found this in my research. Etymologist Sara Benetowa of the Institute of Anthropological Sciences in Warsaw discovered in 1936, the connection between kaneh bosm in the Old Testament as the original Semitic Hebrew origins of the word cannabis. That was in Poland right before WWII -- I'm curious to see if Sara survived the Shoah/Holocasut. Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1980 confirmed this information as correct. The five passages that experienced the "missing" are Exodus 30:23; Song of Solomon 4:14; Isaiah 43:24; Jeremiah 6:20; & Ezekiel 27:19.

At the conclusion of Shabbat on Saturday at sundown an intimate ritual is held in the home dividing the sabbath day from the rest of the week, and in that ceremony a Spice Box is brought out and it's fragrance inhaled to sense the sweetness of the Sabbath and prepare for the coming of a fresh new week. The box is referred to this day as a Besmim Box... and a prayer is said that basically translates to:

Blessed art Thou oh Lord, King of the Universe who has granted us the "full enjoyment" of besmim, Amen

...Papa and I use Kaneh-besmim -- and everything old is new again

For a wonderful reference to this material the following link
is great. Kaneh Bosm

This conversation is so cool

And as we say here in the south ...shavuah tov (Good Week)

~ have a cookie


Hugz
Mama Budz

Xzoomd

u may not post often...but respect is in-line when you do....

Bongzilla

Found these ones interesting - maybe the bible promotes legalization?

...eat every herb of the land (Exodus 10:12).

He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man. ...(Psalm 104:14).