[b-hebrew] The Zincirli stele: B vs. P
JimStinehart at aol.com
JimStinehart at aol.com
Tue Nov 18 17:09:34 EST 2008
Yitzhak Sapir wrote: “The paper quotes Pardee to the effect that ‘nabsh’ is
Aramaic. In fact, it is more accurate to say that standard Biblical Hebrew
has ‘nefesh’ and
Zincirli Aramaic has ‘nabsh’. But nb$ in this sense also occurs on one of
the Arad ostraca.”
In this connection (though not directly on topic), we might note that bet/B
and peh/P (which can be pronounced as P or Ph or F) are frequently confused in
going from one ancient language to another, even if they are not usually
confused within Biblical Hebrew itself.
1. “Amur-Ba(la” at Amarna Letter EA 170: 38, with a B, or the shortened
form “Baaluya” at Amarna Letter EA 170: 2, also with a B, is the linguistic
equivalent of “Amrapel” at Genesis 14: 1, with a peh/P:
aleph-mem-resh-peh-lamed/)MRPL. (The name of the god Baal or Ba(lu or Adad or Addu or Hadda is
represented by “dIM” in the text of the Amarna Letters. Apparently that was
pronounced as “B + vowel or guttural sound + L”. There is no ayin in Akkadian
cuneiform, so editor Wm. Moran is implying an ayin in the first form of this
name.) Once one sees that the B and P are interchangeable, one can see that “
Amrapel” may well be the Patriarchal nickname for the historical brother of
Amur-Ba(la, the Amorite leader whose iniquitous selling out to the dreaded Hittites
in northernmost Canaan (the historical “iniquity of the Amorites” at Genesis
15: 16), and whose allying with three other attacking rulers, with such four
attacking rulers totally destroying a coalition of five defending rulers in the
historical “four rulers against the five” referred to at Genesis 14: 9,
potentially threatened the existence of the first Hebrews. The PL (with a P) at
the end of “Amrapel” may well be a reference to the pagan god Baal (with a B).
The linguistic key is to see that B and P can be interchangeable in going
from one ancient language to another, even if such letters are rarely confused
within Biblical Hebrew itself.
2. The Ugaritic word “prgn”, meaning “meadow-sheep”, probably is prg + n,
literally meaning “meadow being”. The prg element of Ugaritic prgn is likely
closely related to PLG/peh-lamed-gimel in Hebrew (where the resh/R in Bronze
Age Ugaritic has softened to lamed/L by the time we get to Iron Age Biblical
Hebrew). The literal meaning of PLG is “a stream dug in the ground”, which is
similar to the concept of a “well-watered meadowland”. But also, and more
importantly here, the pr element of Ugaritic prgn (with the resh/R having
softened to lamed/L, as above) may be closely related as well to (i) )BL at Daniel
8: 3, 6, (ii) )BL at Judges 11: 33, and (iii) YBL at Isaiah 44: 4. All three
of those Hebrew words basically mean “well-watered meadowland”, or “wadi or
stream (surrounded by a meadow)”, which is the likely meaning of the PR element
of the Ugaritic word prgn that means “meadow-sheep”.
The point is that in going from one ancient language to another, B and P are
often in effect interchangeable.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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