How The Sacrum Got Its Name....

(Excerpt from The Australian Sahaja Newsletter - 18 March, 1994...)

" Dear everyone,

This is the title of an article published last year in the Journal of the

American Medical Association (JAMA 1987, Vol. 257, pp 2061-3), written by one

Oscar Sugar, PhD, MD, of the Dept. of Neurosurgery, University of Illinois

College of Medicine, Chicago.

Here are the abstract, and a few extracts from the text. Enjoy!

Much love,

(name withheld) "

How The Sacrum Got Its Name...

" The os sacrum (sacred bone) was so named by the Romans as a direct translation

from the older Greek 'hieron osteon'. Explanations of the attribute " sacred " or

" holy " in the past have included misinterpretation of the Greek word 'hieron',

use of the bone in sacrificial rites, the role of the bone in protecting the

genitalia (themselves considered sacred), and the necessity for the intactness

of this bone as a nidus for resurrection at the Day of Judgment. A more

plausible explanation may be that the holiness of the sacral bone was an

attribute borrowed from the ancient Egyptians, who considered this bone sacred

to Osiris, the god of resurrection and of agriculture. "

" Why the bone under the last lumbar vertebra should be called the os sacrum or

holy bone, has been a mystery for centuries. That it is a direct translation

from the Greek 'hieron osteon' merely pushes the inquiry back from the first

Latin use in about 400 AD to the time of Hippocratres (about 400 BC).... (who.)

in describing different large bones in the spine, designated the sacrum as

'hieron' and used 'megalos spondylos' (great vertebra) for the large bone at the

end of the lumbar spine... These words, from his section 45, " On Articulations " ,

are said to be the first recorded use of the words 'hieron osteon' for the

sacral bone. "

" ... The idea that the sacrum is the last bone in the body to disintegrate after

death and, therefore, necessary for resurrection, could qualify it as sacred.

The first Biblical intimation that a single bone might be the bone needed for

resurrection is in

Psalms 34:21: " He watches over all the bones; one of them shall not be

broken... "

(The following anecdote is taken from Jewish lore:)

" (Emperor) Hadrian (may his bones rot and his name be obliterated) asked Rabbi

Joshua ben Hananiah: " Whence will man sprout in the Hereafter? " He replied,

" From the nut of the spinal column. " He said to him: " Prove it to me. " He had

one brought; he placed in in water but it did not dissolve, in fire but it was

not burnt; in a mill but it was not ground. He placed it on an anvil and struck

it with a hammer; the anvil split and the hammer was broken, but it remained

unaffected. He added: " Hence even if the rest of the body disintegrates, this

will remain intact, and it will provide the starting point for its

reintegration. " "

(The Hebrew word for " nut " is " Lux " , which has also been translated as " light " .

In Aramaic usage it refers to the bone at the base of the spinal column.)...

" the Arabs as well as the Jews held that the coccyx (el ajb) was the first bone

to be formed in the human and would persist to the last day when it would be the

seed from which the whole body would be renewed. "

(The Australian Sahaja Newsletter - 18 March, 1994)