igio.] The Legend of the "Resurrection Bone." 49 



the existence of such a bone; that was sufficient for the assertion of its 

 existence and for the growth of legends concerning it. The suggestion of 

 the Baal Aruch that the supposed bone was named luz from its resemblance 

 to an almond, would be plausible if the coccyx really showed such a 

 resemblance. But, as I shall endeavour to show, it seems probable that 

 the name has been applied to the bone by a peculiar process of association 

 of ideas of which many examples may be gathered from the rabbinical' 

 writings. It may be remarked, however that the use of the word luz 

 for the bone is not inappropriate, on account of the property possessed 

 by it of reproducing the entire body, just as from the nut the entire tree 

 is reproduced, and attention may also be called to the fact that in addition 

 to the Aramaic word luz, the word shaked, the awaker, is also employed 

 in the Old Testament to denote the almond, the appellation being derived 

 from the tree being the earliest to awaken from the winter's sleep. In 

 this there is also a suggestion of the resurrection idea, and this might 

 have had some effect in rendering the term luz appropriate in the eyes of 

 the Rabbis in its application to the "resurrection bone." This, however, 

 is pure conjecture. 



If the tendency of the Hebrew commentators to associate ideas 

 primarily quite distinct but linked by some common element be borne in 

 mind, the quotation from the Midrash Neelom given above possesses a 

 considerable amount of interest. It will be noticed that in this quotation 

 the point chiefly insisted upon is the deceitfulness of the bone, which is 

 said to be known in the marine cities as Bethuel mendax, Bethuel the 

 deceiver. In Genesis XXV, 20 we read "And Isaac was forty years old 

 when he took Rebekah to wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of 

 Padan-aram, the sister to Laban the Syrian." The word translated as 

 Syrian in our version is in the Hebrew Aramai, and might be better 

 rendered as Aramaean. It has, however, some resemblance to a Semitic 

 ( ?) word aremai, meaning deceiver, and was apparently employed in this 

 sense by the Rabbi Huna. But why should the name of the father of 

 Rebekah be thus conferred upon the "immortal bone?" Here again 

 there has apparently been a confusion of two similar, but altogether 

 distinct words. In Genesis XXVIII, 19 it is stated of Jacob "And he 

 called the name of that place (i. e. the place of his dream) Bethel ; but the 

 name of the city was called Luz at the first." (Cf. also Gen. XXXV, 6: 

 Josh. XVIII, 13; Judges I, 26). It would seem that we have here first 

 a confusion of luz, the name of the bone, with Luz, the name of a place, 

 and then a further confusion of the later name of that place. Bethel, with 

 the name of Bethuel the Aramaean. 



But an explanation of the prominence given to the idea of deceit is 



