How do you reply?
Whenever some one says "Amen" I usually reply "And women!" How do you reply to this poor excuse of an ending of a prayer?
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It's a traditional coda to a prayer although originally meant to be a response of agreement (it's derived ultimately from Greek and means "truth" or "certainty" so it's just an ancient way of saying "word!" or "true, dat!"
I see that this etymology differs from the one cited by @DavidLaDeau which goes back another couple of levels to the Egyptian via the Hebrew; it appears to be sort of studiously ignored in some references, particularly the Egyptian part, which might be a little speculative for all I know. But if true, that does peg the irony meter.
mordant
Level 8
Sep 28, 2018
0
"Amen" just means, "I agree."
It's an ancient word, from Hebrew, Arabic, and early Afroasiatic languages, incorporated into Greek.
birdingnut
Level 8
Sep 28, 2018
0
I usually chuckle. It is true in Hebrew it does mean "So be it," the interesting thing is that the origin of the Hebrew word is thought to come from the Egyptian "Amon." Or also spelled Amun. Amun was a combined with the deity Ra. These were from the upper and lower kingdoms of Egypt.
When the Egyptians ended their prayers they Honored Amon with his name. This became Amen with the Hebrews, Thus the Hebrews actually ended their prayers honoring the Egyptian God. No kidding. So when Christians end their prayers with Amen they are actually Honoring an Egyptian God. I am not kidding here.
So I just chuckle.
DavidLaDeau
Level 8
Sep 28, 2018
0
Not so:
"Popular among some theosophists proponents of Afrocentric theories of history and adherents of esoteric Christianity is the conjecture that amen is a derivative of the name of the Egyptian god Amun (which is sometimes also spelled Amen).
Some adherents of Eastern religions believe that amen shares roots with the Hindu Sanskrit word, Aum. Such external etymologies are not included in standard etymological reference works. The Hebrew word, as noted above, starts with aleph, while the Egyptian name begins with a yodh."
@Bierbasstard, @birdingnut Could it be that Jews and Christian scholors simply reject the idea that their religion is not real and based on others that pre-dated them?
@DavidLaDeau ?? No mention of religion-my reply was solely based on majority consensus based on etymological factors..the "aleph," and "yodh" in the ancient forms of the words.
@birdingnut It seems that your grasp on etymology surpasses mine. As I understand it The God Amon predates the hebrew and could be the orgins of the hebrew....*bows with deference
@DavidLaDeau I dunno if the Egyptian language/religion contributed to that exact word or not. Don't really care.
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