The recent publication of fragament of Hieroglyphic Luwian inscription from Tell Ahmar (“Louvre fragment”) revealed the hitherto unkown Hittite equivalent for the name of the city Til-barsip: Masuwari—an evidnce which requires to reconsider the long debated relations between Hittites and Aramaeans in the land of Bit-Adini. A Hittite regime in Maswari prospered during the 10th century B. C. There is reason to assume to identify the “king of the land of Aram”, who conquered Pitru and Mutkinu, Assyrian colonies on the banks of the Euphrates during the reign of Ashurrabi II, with Hapatila the first king of Masuwari. In the first half of the coming century the Hittites of Masuwari came under the dominion of the Aramaeans of Bit-Adini whose last king Ahuni took the capital Masuwari (Tell Ahmar) as his own to change the name to Til-barsip, unitl it was finally conquered and renamed as Kar-Shalmaneser by Shalmaneser III of Assyria in 856 B. C.

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Semseddin Sami, a famous journalist and philologist, is recognized as one of the nationalist intellectuals in the modern period of the Ottoman Empire. His activities and ideas are specified by two kinds of national consciousnesses; The one is Albanian identity, the other is Turkish identity.
Originally he was an Albanian, born in Frasheri (now the town in Greece) in 1850, and so he was influenced by the Albanian movements for autonomy under the Ottoman rule.
He started to develop his ideas of nation (kavim) after the Russo-Turkish war and the Berlin Treaty in 1878. By this treaty, the Albanian people's areas under the Ottoman rule were pressured to be divided by the surrounding Balkan states—Serbia, Montenegro and Greece, thereby he found it necessary to save the weakened Ottoman Empire from the foreign intrusions and then intended to awaken the national consciousnesses among the Ottoman peoples. From this point, we can say that his idea is a sort of Ottomanism.
After finishing the high school, he came up to Istanbul and there he continued to undertake the editorial works of various periodicals, including the weekly newspaper Hafta publised in 1881. He gave a great importance to these jounalistic activities in order to enlighten the peoples and then to inform them of the knowledges of the progressive Western civilisation, especially those of modern technology that could save the deceased Ottoman Empire.
In Hafta he maintained that each people (ethnic groupes), having their own languages, could become kavim (nation) within the Empire, and could have the political and cultural equality in the Ottoman nationality. He did not give more superiority to the Ottoman Turkish people (language) than to any other peoples (languages) in the Empire. He thought that the cultural development of each kavim by their own written languages would bring political and social stability to the Ottoman Empire. But unfortunately Sami's Ottomanism was not generally accepted by the intellectual elites of that period.

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We can find in the Old Testament mšrr “singer” and šr “singer” which both derive from the verb šr (*šyr) “to sing”. We can find Mšrr only in Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles. Mšrr occurs several times with the word “Levites”, and denotes a singer which belongs to the temple, especially to the Jersusalem Temple, except in Ezra 2: 65 and Neh. 7: 67, in which case we can't determine the kind of singers. On the other hand šr does not occur in specific materials. From two examples (II Sam. 19: 36; Eccl. 2: 8) which denote the “palace singers” and four examples (I Kings 10: 12; II Chron. 9: 11; II Chron. 35: 25; Ps. 68: 26) where we can't determine the kind of singers, we conclude that šr does not mean the specific type of singer but referes to a singer in general.
Why does the term mšrr occur only in the so-called Chronicler? Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles stress that there was one form in the songs and instrumental music dedicated to Yahweh which were performed in the Jerusalem Temple based on the true faith in Yahweh. The group that proclaimed that the traditional form was very important might use the term mšrr and distinguish it from the other terms which refer to the singers not based on the traditional form from their point of view.

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In what follows we will discuss the usage of hymnic fragments in three passages in the Book of Amos (iv 13; v 8; ix 5-6). What is common to all these three passages is that they presuppose the existence of some defective (ix 1) or indistinct (iv 4b. 5a; v 7.9) texts which most probably had been ascribed to the tradition of Amos. In Amos v 7-9 a hymn is inserted deftly between verses 7 and 9, thus making the thread consistent. In Amos ix 1-6 the redactional intervention is not limited to the interpolation of a hymnic fragment only (verse 6) but is extended, too, to the composition of verses (1.) 2-5. Most probably, this is also the case in iv 4-13: Amos' criticism of the cultic abuse (verses 4b. 5a) is recast into that of the existence of sanctuaries, and the true recognition of God thus recomposed is combined with the redactor's conception of Yahweh's discipline of Israel (verses 6-11) and His eventual decision of judgement against her (verse 13). There is no obstacle to seeing the same redactional hand in these three passages. If our observation on ix 2-6 have force, this redactional deposit strongly points to an affinity with a Jeremianic tradition, particularly in respect to resentment directed against those who escaped to Egypt (Jer xli 16-xliii 7).

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The Book of Chronicles has three aspects: the interpretation of Samuel-Kings, the history of Israel, and the Chronicler's own theology. To define its literary genre, it is essential to clarify how they relate to one another. Exegetical literature may deal with historical events or theological issues, but it must be in the end constrained by the sacred text. Historiography may reflect exegesis of the text or the author's theological view, but it must finally be controled by historical events. Theological literature may make use of exegesis or historical report, but it is free from both in expressing the author's theology. In this article we discuss the first point: whether Chronicles is dependent on the text of Samuel-Kings, and if it is exegetical literature.
Firstly, we will deal with 1Chr 18-20, where large portions of Samuel material (David's treatment of Mephibosheth, his sin with Bath Sheba, and rebellions against him by Abshalom and Sheba) are omitted. It is often explained that, though the Chronicler basically follows the text of Samuel-Kings, he attempts to conceal unfavourable parts of David. However, the Chronicler does include such accounts elsewhere (1Chr 13, 21), and their absence can be better understood by his own thematic presentation of Saul-David and David-Solomon relationship. Moreover, in 1Chr 18-20, David's victories are consciously collected from various parts of Samuel in order to constitute a literary unit. It is placed immediately after the Davidic Promise (1Chr 17) to show the beginning of its fulfillment and God's blessing upon David.
Secondly, we will discuss additional materials in the reign of Jehoshaphat (2Chr 17-20). They cannot be regarded as theological interpretation or expansion of Kings' text, because they are totally unrelated to it and the Chronicler's evaluation of Jehoshaphat is opposite. Rather these additions form the Chronicler's own retributional pattern, and the Chronicler's control over the material is evident.
These analyses lead to a conclusion that Chronicles is essentially independent from the text of Samuel-Kings. Although the Chronicler uses the interpretation of the sacred text, he does so only as far as it is relevant to his theme. Therefore, Chronicles should not be seen as exegetical literature.

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Ibn Taimiya condemns the metaphor theory in some of his works like “al-Haqiqa wa al-majaz” and the Kitab al-iman, and he defends the ahl al-hadith's position that they should refrain from metaphorical interpretation of the Qur'an and the Sunna.
First he shows that the metaphor theory which devides the meaning into the literal (haqiqa) and the metaphorical (majaz) is not found in the sayings of the salaf and appears only after the 3rd Islamic century. Then he theoretically refutes the metaphor theory adopted by the theologians, who define the literal meaning as follows: (1) The word has a literal meaning when it is used in the meaning in which it was originally coined; and (2) the literal meaning is what the word means without context.
The linguistic notion that a word makes sense without its context originates from the same mentality as that of the philosophical notion that the universal without concrete dimensions has a substantial existence. The latter notion forms a metaphysics Ibn Taimiya severely criticizes.
Ibn Taimiya criticizes the metaphor theory on the level of its philosophical foundation, through which he discloses the fictitiousness of the metaphor theory. Thus he gives a theoretical ground to the hermeneutical position of the ahl al-hadith.

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