Re: Herod the Elder
Yes this is correct. I too believe that the name "Mose" was not an Israelite name and was imported from Egyptian. The tradition of the person ascociated with the name Moses is a romanticized one that may have been written down after the end of the second exile (i.e. from Babylon) which the returning Jewish people could have retained in their stories that became corrupted with addition of Assyrian and Babylonian myths during the exile. So the rewritten book took the form of "Tauraah", as opposed to the original Charter/Law, you might have guessed it, "Toor". This may also explain why the mention of personalities (prophets) in the Quran is so generalized and scarce. Details do not and will never matter and are only meant to propagate confusion (which btw is the main theme of al-Baqrah). The underlying message is more important than the stories; or so dictates my understanding.
The name of our Egyptian mother respected Hajarah mother of Ismaiil is going to be another interesting one I guess. I kinda find it interesting that Allah (SWT) used terms that the people were familiar with but not entirely so. It created new meanings for them when revealed in the Qur'an.
I think the Sanskrit "Pardais" (as in Dais, Pardais) has captured this very well.
Small world :)
I hope more people come with input on these subjects...
Yes, I like this too. Nice observation. Coming back to the conversation the habit of Herod seems to be very similar to that of Firaun in that children (young boys) were lambs to the slaughter prior to the coming of a messenger that was in the books of yore. I find it interesting that they had the know how that such things would come about at given times. It appears that they were more sensitive to changes in their environment than we are today.