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

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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Sahaduta at Genesis 31: 47
  • Date: Tue, 25 May 2010 17:45:11 EDT


James Christian wrote: “Sorry. What did you say? Could you say that again?”

The word %HDWT) at Genesis 31: 47 does not appear as an Aramaic word with
that initial sin/% spelling in the secular history of the ancient world until
after 200 BCE. Plus, YGR %HDWT) is much longer than its supposedly
equivalent phrase GL(D in Hebrew, though Hebrew and Aramaic are cognate
languages;
the Aramaic word GDR would be a closer Aramaic equivalent to the Hebrew
word GL than is YGR [and YGR may well be the Hebrew word “fear”]; and if
Aramaic, &HDWT) would include the word “the”, unlike GL(D. Given all the
many
problems with an Aramaic analysis of YGR %HDWT), we should do what no
university scholar apparently has ever done: ask if %HDWT) makes sense in
the
language used for proper names at the place where Laban [who is the person
who
says YGR %HDWT) in the Bible] is stated at Genesis 24: 10 to live -- NHRYM.
Biblical NHRYM is an exact, letter for letter match to na-ah-ri-ma by
Abdi-Heba of Jerusalem in Amarna Letter EA 288: 35. NHRYM references
Nahrima/Mitanni, the Late Bronze Age Hurrian state just northeast of the
upper
Euphrates River, where Laban is portrayed as living. The historicity of the
Patriarchal narratives is riding on this linguistic issue, because written
Aramaic
is not attested prior to the 9th century BCE, many centuries after any
historical Patriarchal Age. In 2004, Yigal Levin suggested that %HDWT) may
be “
Hebraized” Aramaic, but why would a Hebrew or Jewish author in the 1st
millennium BCE use a non-attested Aramaic word, while having
letter-for-letter
pinpoint accuracy as to a word, NHRYM, that is not attested in secular
history
after the mid-14th century BCE? If the Patriarchal narratives are an
accurate, Bronze Age composition (my view), then %HDWT) should be analyzed in
the
way I will do on this thread: on the non-Aramaic basis of the language that
historically was used for important proper names at the Late Bronze Age
Hurrian state of NHRYM.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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