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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Etymology of "Galilee"
  • Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:34:16 EDT


Pere Porta is right that GLL in part means “rolling”. But GLL is never
applied to the rolling hill country of southern Canaan. No, GLL is almost
always
found in a northern greater Canaan context. Same with GL.

Isaac Fried has given us many nice GL words. Now let’s see what we can do
with those GL words.

1. From the 1st millennium BCE to the present, the Sea of Galilee in
northern Canaan has been surrounded by three vast tracts of land, all three
of whose
names begin with GLL or GL: Galilee/GLL to the west, Golan/the Golan
Height/GL to the northeast, and Gilead/GL to the southeast. Northern greater
Canaan
is GLL/GL country.

2. Before the southern Hebrews came into being, in the mid-14th century BCE,
this was GRR/GR country. That’s GRR/Gerar at Genesis 20: 1, and GR/Gar/Garu
in the Amarna Letters. GRR is but an earlier version of GLL.

3. And before there were any Hebrews at all, in the mid-15th century BCE,
conquering Egyptian pharaoh Thutmosis III picked up, from the west
Semitic-speaking northern Canaanite locals, the word KRR, which applies to
this very same
territory (or some part thereof) in the general vicinity of the Sea of
Galilee.
In the days of the “Napoleon of Egypt”, this part of northern greater
Canaan was KRR country.

4. So from the mid-15th century BCE to the present, greater northern Canaan,
in the general vicinity of the Sea of Galilee, has either been KRR country,
or GRR/GR country, or GLL/GL country.

Who said things aren’t eternal in the Holy Land?

5. The new news I am trying to bring to the b-Hebrew list is that
GLL/Galilee did not come out of thin air, though it is conventionally
described as being
a primary root meaning “rolling”. Here is where GLL originally came from.
Northern greater Canaan, before the Hebrews, was KRR, and then became GRR,
and
only then later became GLL. The “missing link” between KRR on the Thutmosis
III list, and GLL/Galilee, is GRR/Gerar. To my mind, it all makes perfect
sense: linguistically, historically, and textually.

6. According to the “Baker Encyclopedia of Bible Places” (1995) at pp. 137
and 142, each of “Gerar”/GRR and “Galilee”/GLL has the exact same underlying
meaning: “circle”. That further supports my claimed link between GRR/Gerar
and GLL/Galilee.

Though the northern and northwest border of Galilee fluctuated over time,
originally it started at Laish/Dan at the foot of Mt. Hermon, and went west
all
the way straight across to Sur/“Tyre” on the coast (along Isaiah’s “way of
the sea” at Isaiah 9: 1). Thus originally Galilee/GLL (like GRR/Gerar before
it) included what we would today call southernmost Lebanon. Today’s narrow
boundaries of Galilee are basically a product of Roman times. But if one
adds in
Golan and Gilead, the GLL/GL country is still a large swath of land in
northern
greater Canaan.

7. As I see it, greater northern Canaan started out as KRR country, then was
GRR/GR country in the Late Bronze Age in the time of the first Hebrews, and
has ended up now for the last several millennia as being GLL/GL country.
That’
s the linguistic story, and it’s also telling us the historical story of the
first Hebrews, straight out of the Patriarchal narratives.

If one knows the linguistic origin of the word “Galilee”/GLL (namely GRR/“
Gerar”), one knows when, and where, the first Hebrews came from.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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