Auðumbla a Norse-Hebrew connection?

In Norse mythology we hear of a certain cow, Auðumbla, and her story is found in Gylfaginning in (the first part of) “Younger Edda”, also called “Prose-Edda” by Snorre Sturlason:

en.wikipedia.org...

Then said Gangleri:
"Where dwelt Ymir, or wherein did he find sustenance?"
"Straightway after the rime dripped, there sprang from it the cow called Auðumbla; four streams of milk ran from her udders, and she nourished Ymir."
Then asked Gangleri: "Wherewithal was the cow nourished?"
And Hárr made answer: "She licked the ice-blocks, which were salty; and the first day that she licked the blocks, there came forth from the blocks in the evening a man's hair; the second day, a man's head; the third day the whole man was there. He is named Búri”

Ymir or Yme was the father of all Jotuns/Giants whom Odin and his brothers later killed and made the Earth and the firmament from, while Buri/Bure was the grandfather of Odin and father of all the Gods/Æses. The milk that flowed from the udders of Auðumbla is elsewhere used to describe the Milky Way, and the Milk part in the name rests on these stories. Notice how there are four streams that waters all the earth, a clear reference to Eden and the four rivers.

Now, I have earlier shown how there are quite a few connections between Hebrew and the old Norse language and mythology. For instance the stories of Heimdall is a variant of the Noah-Utnapishtim-flood stories, and also how I have shown how Odin looks like a cognate of Adonai, Hebrew words for Lord. And I will try now to show there is more to these stories than meets the eye, like in the story about Auðumbla. It struck me how Hebrew-like the name was, so I started looking for similar words in the Bible using Strong’s Concordance.

Writing the name with the corresponding Hebrew letters we get a combination ow two possible Hebrew words, AVDM + BLA, perhaps Strong’s 5750 עוד or AVD meaning “return, go about, repeat, do again” as a verb or “a going around, continuance, still, yet, again, beside” as a noun/adv/adj + Strong’s 1104 בלע or BLA “to swallow down, swallow up, engulf” or Strong’s 1086 בלה “to be old” or Strong's 1080 בלא Belah meaning "wear down" or "to tear down". However, Auðum may correspond to Strong’s 123 אדום Edom, which is the wilderness land of Esau southeast of Judah, or even Adam which means Red or Ruddy (as in Edom and Red Ocre) or simply Man, as in Adam the first man.

The Gylfaginning dialogue centres around what happened when the world and the gods and the giants were created which seems to be covered by the possible Hebrew words Auðumbla may correspond to. The story of Auðumbla is focused around what the cow “swallowed” and “who devoured her milk” which is indeed covered by Strong’s 1104. So, what do you guys think?

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

A very interesting thread idea! I'm pretty well versed in Gylfagynning but i'm going to have too go away and look for Heimdall stories before i can tackle that element, but i disagree that four rivers/streams forms a particularly strong/unique link between Hebrew and Norse mythology other than an archetypal use of the cardinal points which of course go back way beyond both cultures to the stone age and are often interpreted as phases of the moon and the seasons etc.

I'm sadly totally foreign to Hebrew however so i cant really touch that at the mo, although it's bloody interesting and i will probably look deeper into it at some point....

The whole milk thing re creation is not unique here by the way - The Upanishads (and no doubt other Hindu scriptures that i have long forgotten) talk of churning the universe from milk using the cosmic mountain.

So besides the linguistics, i simply see the monomyth and universal symbology at play.

ETA: i did not see a thread you made where you showed the similarities between Norse and Hebrew mythology previously, and also where you showed Heimdall is cognate with Utnapishtim/Noah, and Odin with Adonai etc - i cannot see a likely thread title for this in your list, so a link or a summary would help


2nd ETA: ofc you mean Jesus by Adonai, d'uh-ing myself and aware of supposed connections there but personally i dont see those as of much significance. I read a couple of your threads via search and saw the "son of nine mothers" reference to nine generations etc etc... at present i ssee that as a bit of a leap. Stopping to read the link Dolluka provided.......

There might be a connection. Pro Norse got also influenced with finnish and Sami language ( Sami people in Lappland ) for example finnish language itself is said to have 600 words close to hebrew language. The first study was made by swedish Enevaldus Svenonius in 17th century.
PDF Stanford Edu
University Helsinki

Intresting read..

originally posted by: skalla
a reply to: Utnapisjtim

ETA: i did not see a thread you made where you showed the similarities between Norse and Hebrew mythology previously, and also where you showed Heimdall is cognate with Utnapishtim/Noah, and Odin with Adonai etc - i cannot see a likely thread title for this in your list, so a link or a summary would help

Come to think of it, I don't think I have actually done the Heimdall exercise in a thread of it's own, give me a day or so, and I'll put a thread together. The reason I chose my name here on ATS is because I first tried Heimdall, but it was taken, and I ended up with his Sumerian alter ego, Utnapisjtim.

2nd ETA: ofc you mean Jesus by Adonai, d'uh-ing myself and aware of supposed connections there but personally i dont see those as of much significance. I read a couple of your threads via search and saw the "son of nine mothers" reference to nine generations etc etc... at present i ssee that as a bit of a leap. Stopping to read the link Dolluka provided.......

Well, Adonai is used by orthodox Jews instead of the Tetragrammaton or JHVH. It could be used for Jesus too I suppose, since his name is a cognate of JHVH. Adon and Odin have many things in common also apart from being names of gods and sounding rather similar. I'll dig up my old notes and see if I can make a thread about that too.

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

Great thread, I'm intrigued. In another thread, loads of links between Hebrew and Gaelic have been noticed along with other similarities between the Hebrew priests and the northern druids. There's a good book on The Affinity between the Hebrew language and Gaelic which might interest you.

There seem to be a lot of common motifs in myths, particularly amongst 'sea people', so I wouldn't be surprised at all.

a reply to: dollukka

Interesting, I'll give the links a try later. According to the Orkneyinga-saga, the father of the king who gave Norway and North it's name (king Nor, brother of king Gor and their sister Goe), was a Jotun from Finland whose name was Torre. I have always wondered if the word "Jotun" (often translated Giant or similar) is to be understood as Jews, modern Norwegian 'Jøde' and German "Jude". There seems to be an oxymoronic wordplay in the name of the giants, centred around letter Jod, the smallest letter in Hebrew, corresponding to the Greek letter Iota. And of course it's the obvious connection between Jew and Judah. Anyway, it's a long shot, but it keeps bugging me, in fact it was the first connection I ever made between Norse and Hebrew.

a reply to: beansidhe

I'll see if I remember the book you mention the next time I'm at Amazon spending my food budget on books, sounds very interesting indeed.

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

Feast away, because the link will take you straight to the online book - save you some cash!

a reply to: beansidhe

To OP and Dollukka as well i guess.... i've read through Dollukka's links, and seen just the date of yours so far Beansidhe (and yes, i've been judgemental on that basis, sorry). It's worth me noting at this point that i have studied Scots and Irish Gaelic and the less related Welsh too though that was nearly over 15 years ago and i'm less than fluent, though i read them passably.

However i have real issues with linguistic studies from the 1800's (and earlier, re Dollukka's links) as their methodology is often very very poor and the motivation behind such works is often nationalistic and religious. Typically there are attempts to relate a people to a tribe of Israel, or the Trojans etc etc and are also often heavily rooted in the romantic movement where facts were often thrown out of the window in pursuit of pseudohistory.

The Svenonius work, in modern times seems weak, using a very small number of compared terms and and the matches are pretty questionable too, with no concern for the etymological root of those words... it would be interesting to see the opinion of modern linguists, and in a short search with limited time i could not do this.

I actually had to stop to read more of Beansidhe's link. The "discovery" of proto Indo-European renders it obsolete (eta: obvs Semitic languages are not included in PIE though loan words and diffusion bridges the gap imo) - many of the links in the work are very tenuous.

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

If you read the Sagas you will have noticed that in the genealogy at the start there is always a giant or half troll. It is just not a proper story without a mythical ancestor.

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

Pls give it a go
NOR was a granson of King Fornjotr of Kvenland.. search the familytree of King Fornjotr. Looking forward what you might find.
if you need any links where to start send me a site message.. i look what i have bookmarked !

a reply to: skalla

I guess what we are looking for is the lost tribes of Israel. There is a lot of words around the world which comes from hebrew, but there is a bit difference in how words are being pronounced.
for example
tabach, tabach; occidere (‘to kill’) = tappa pronouncing is excactly the same like in many other words
Naara ( female a woman ) in finnish naaras ( nainen )
Finnish letters are always pronounced same not like in germanic languages where pronouncing changes with used letters.

maybe we might even find Sampo connection lol

a reply to: skalla

Yes mine is from 18-something or other too, and if I remember he was a Gaelic speaker who noticed the similarities when reading the Hebrew bible. He could well have had an agenda or two, it's true! But still, many of the words are similar when you say them out loud. Whether or not this would be meaningful to a modern linguist, I don't know - I find it interesting and possible when you think of the waves of folk who came to Britain, that Hebrew words and stories came too.

a reply to: beansidhe

Yeps, a study of the closest/most rational matches would be interesting too and then their origins could be discovered. You probably know that in Gaelic new terms (eg relating to modern technology) are simply the English term with a Gaelic feel rather than something using a relevant Gaelic root - like Television being Telebhisean, or Computer being Coimpuitair for example, rather than taking a Gaelic root meaning relating to counting, sorting etc

I did know a Cornish nationalist who was part of the movement to re-enliven the technically deal Cornish tongue. They made "authentic" words for modern items - Aeroplane was "Sky-Horse" which to just too awesome for words.

a reply to: Utnapisjtim
You added a 'b' where there is none, so that makes your translation with the words 'belah' and 'bla' useless... in old norse it is written Auðhumla, Swedish Ödhumla.

Second, Odin is the Norse-ification of the germanic words Woden/Wotan, and it means fury according to Adam of Bremen. Doesnt have to do with the word for lord.

If you look at the differences between Hebrew and Norse, you will find far greater a disparity than similarity. If they were connected, then what the hell happened with the vowels? The Hebrews had no vowels, and yet had more letters than even the later runic alphabet! Both languages had sounds that dont exist in the other!

The whole idea that europeans and north americans are descended from 'lost tribes of israel' was started by white supremacists who wanted to make a connection between white people and 'God's chosen'. They make ridiculous stretches to accomplish it.

originally posted by: Ridhya
a reply to: Utnapisjtim
You added a 'b' where there is none, so that makes your translation with the words 'belah' and 'bla' useless... in old norse it is written Auðhumla, Swedish Ödhumla.

Norse, Auð(h)umbla, modern Norwegian Audhumbla.

a reply to: Utnapisjtim
My textbook, from the University of Oslo, in front of me right now, says Auðhumla. The original texts I read, also no b. But regardless, the simple fact that it was removable means that it was not even pronounced. Thus, the pronounced 'belah' and 'bla' are not possible translations.

a reply to: Ridhya

There are obviously more than one way to spell it. Audhumla or Ødhumbla even Ådhumla, are similar and alternate representations. Some include the b others don't, and there are many alternate vocalisations, this is actually another similarity with Hebrew, as well as runes are quite similar to early Hebrew scripts (modern Hebrew uses the Aramaic square script). Do a search for Futhark on the net and you will find a bunch of different ways of interpreting the runes.

Wikipedia Norwegian Bokmål: no.wikipedia.org...
Wikipedia Norwegian Nynorsk: nn.wikipedia.org...
Store Norske Leksikon: snl.no...
Store Danske Encyklopædi: www.denstoredanske.dk...

Can't seem to find a good explanation or which spelling is more correct

a reply to: skalla

Yes, they might have had a divergent root (look at me pretending to know what I'm talking about!) - I was imagining that these words were heard and recreated phonetically. It would be a fascinating study, that's for sure.
Sky-horse is gorgeous! Telebhisean has no romance at all - we should have gone with 'looking-box' or some such thing!