Name Of Ammon

[Greg66666]

Hi, there. I'm a long-time reader of LDS forums here and abroad but an infrequent poster. Hate the flame wars. But anyway. . .

I was thinking about the name Ammon.

Nibley said Ammon was related to one of the Egyptian gods; also the "secret one" in Egyptian religion

On an unrelated search, I was just perusing through the Bible with an internet Strong's Hebrew Lexicon and found that a similar "sounding" word in Hebrew "ah-mun" meant "faith" or "faithfulness" and seeing how in Alma 18 (Alma 18: 2, 10), when it talked about Ammon, it mentioned very prominently his "faithfulness", I was wondering if there was ANY etymological relationship between the Hebrew and Egyptian words and, if there is not, would it have been possible for the writer/editor of the BOM (i.e, Mormon) to have been engaging in a little editorial wordplay and HE made the connection between the Egyptian word and the Hebrew word to engage in a little bit of "synergy"? I know wordplay among the ancients was common, but in this particular instance could an ancient have made this connection?

And I found it interesting that if you follow the root words of the Hebrew "ah-mun" it leads to some definitions that are almost modern LDS Gospel sermons in themselves (at least in the Strong's Lexicon).

I hope my ramblings make some sense.

I know, I know. Sometimes searching for meanings we look too far; hence the Freud-attributed saying "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." But if anybody much wiser than me wants to comment I would appreciate it. Thanks.

[cjcampbell]

All I know is that the Israelites were carried into captivity by the Ammonites, but their luggage was carried into captivity by the Samsonites.

[Greg66666]

I appreciate the levity.

Perhaps I should put this on the Mormon Apologetics site and David Bokovoy could see it and respond to tell me if I'm full of the wet stuff.

[bjw]

Believe it or not, Ed Dekker tried to use this word once against the Book of Mormon because it sounds similar to one of the Infernal Names in the Satanic Bible. (Ammonites followers of Ammon, etc.)

However, I've seen both Hugh Nibley and Stephen Morgan use it as an example of the ancient origin of the Book of Mormon. I would think that the Hebrew "Ah mun" would be more like it since the Book of Mormon peoples would be familiar with this usage. Also, the fact that the name was applied to an Egyptian deity (which probably landed it on the Infernal Names list) should be a clue that to the ancient world it was something special and powerful. IMHO, this is another good piece of evidence for the Book of Mormon and its ancient origin.