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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Sahaduta at Genesis 31: 47

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  • From: "Joel C. Salomon" <joelcsalomon AT gmail.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Sahaduta at Genesis 31: 47
  • Date: Mon, 24 May 2010 14:11:46 -0400

On 05/24/2010 08:49 AM, JimStinehart AT aol.com wrote:
> I would like to start a new thread on YGR %HDWT) …
> The traditional analysis of YGR %HDWT) at Genesis 31: 47 is that it’s an
> Aramaic phrase consisting of two Aramaic words. But is it? If scholars
> are
> right about that, the historicity of the Patriarchal narratives is lost.
> There’s no attested written Aramaic prior to the 9th century BCE, many
> centuries after any historical Patriarchal Age.

Does this lack of written Aramaic indicate that it was not a spoken
language?

> Whether Genesis 31: 47 is fictional or not, and regardless of its
> composition date, if YGR %HDWT) is Aramaic, as scholars insist, then why
> isn’t YGR
> %HDWT) either (a) the exact equivalent of GL(D, and/or (b) an attested
> Aramaic
> phrase for Gilead? Why is it neither? Shouldn’t we then wonder whether it’
> s even Aramaic at all?

(a) In English alone, how many different ways can you name a heap of
stones to indicate that it stands witness? How many ways in French, or
German? Would you expect that the particular form chosen by a speaker
of one language would correspond e-x-a-c-t-l-y to the form chosen by a
different person speaking a different (if cognate) language?

(b) Notice that your proposed e-x-a-c-t translation of גלעד/GL(D into
Aramaic is also not “an attested Aramaic phrase for Gilead”.

—Joel Salomon




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