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Sara Benetowa, later known as Sula Benet (23 September 1903 – 12 November 1982), was a Polish anthropologist of the 20th century who studied Polish and Judaic customs and traditions.
Benet argued that in many ancient languages, including Hebrew, the root "kan" had a double meaning, both hemp and reed, and that an error originated within the oldest Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, in the third century B.C., where the terms "kaneh" and "kaneh-bosem" had been translated as "sweet kalamos". In the many Bible translations that followed, including Martin Luther's, this translation was repeated. Benet further claimed that the Scythians, who were described by Herodotus as ritual hemp users in the fifth century B.C., were at least one millennium older than has been previously assumed.
Sulah Benet's claim has found little support in the academic community among lexicographers and botanists. The standard reference lexicons of Biblical Hebrew, and reference works on Hebrew Bible plants by scholars such as University of Jerusalem botanist Michael Zohary mention Benet's suggestion, while others argue the word refers to an either different species of hemp or a different plant entirely. Olof Celsius (Hierobotanicon) has suggested sweet flag (Acorus calamus), which grows in Egypt, Judaea, and Syria, containing in its stalk a soft white pith with an agreeable aromatic smell, and forming an ingredient of the richest perfumes. Royle identified the "sweet cane" (A.V.) of Scripture (Is. 43:24; Je. 6:20) with the Andropogon calamus, a plant extensively cultivated in India, from which an oil, deemed to be the famous spikenard of antiquity, is extracted. According to Boissier (Flora Orientalis), "kaneh" was the common marsh reed, Arundo donax Carl Linnaeus. Some biblical scholars and botanists believe that the qaneh is probably sugarcane. The Tel Arad temple finding of Cannabis reported by CNN on May 28th 2020 confirms her theory now archeologically.
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