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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: lehmann AT uni-mainz.de, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Sahaduta at Genesis 31: 47
  • Date: Wed, 26 May 2010 09:01:42 EDT


Dr. Reinhard G. Lehmann wrote: “[T]here is something that separates
Jaqov and Laban forever: Language...and Religion!” I agree with that, but
the
specific question on this thread is whether Laban is portrayed in the text,
anachronistically, as using a language, Aramaic, that is not attested as
existing (at least in written form) until the 9th century BCE, many centuries
after any historical Patriarchal Age. In contesting the
traditional/scholarly analysis of Laban’s words YGR %HDWT) at Genesis 31: 47
as being
Aramaic, I myself start with the fact that Genesis 24: 10 tells us that
Laban’s
homeland is NHRYM, a word referring to the Hurrian state of Nahrima/Mitanni
in northeast Syria, being a word which, outside of the Bible, is attested
exclusively in the mid-14th century BCE. (As I noted previously, the phrase
“fields of Arameans”, or “Paddan-Aram”, is also attested in the 14th
century BCE.) If Laban has adopted the Hurrian culture of NHRYM, then we
might well expect Laban to swear by the all-important Hurrian sky-god,
Tessup.
But important names at NHRYM [in particular, the names of most rulers of
NHRYM] historically were, oddly enough, usually Indo-Aryan names based on
Sanskrit words, though often having Hurrian characteristics. So the Hurrian
word “Tessup” should not be expected. No, we should rather expect to see
the Sanskrit word on which the Hurrian concept of Tessup was based.



%HDWT) at Genesis 31: 47 may be $H-DW-T), based on Sanskrit as filtered
through the Hurrians. In Sanskrit, svaH [where I am using a capital H to
represent a soft heth, which is usually a small underdotted h] means “sky”
[and
svaH can also have related meanings such as “sun”]. In Hurrian, the
sibilant needs to be shin/$ [with Hurrian having no samekh/S and no sin/%].
The V
is W, but W is a semi-vowel in Hurrian, and Hebrew defective spelling only
represents true consonants. So the Sanskrit V can be dropped in Biblical
Hebrew as if it were a Hurrian W, which is a vowel. Dropping that letter
also
allows this word to remain a single syllable, per the Sanskrit. The soft
heth at the end in Sanskrit could be represented in Hebrew as he/H, instead
of heth/X, because it’s not a regular heth, and neither Hurrian nor Hebrew
had a soft heth [unlike many other ancient languages].

The above analysis is largely confirmed linguistically at p. 132 of the
Fournet/Bomhard Hurrian website. We start with the key fact that the “Te”
element in Tessup is “dei” or “doi” or “di” in Hurrian common words, meaning
“to shine, to be bright”. Now note that 3 Sanskrit rough equivalents of
Hurrian dei/doi/di all have a V and end with a soft heth, and in all 3 cases,
both the V and the soft heth drop out in Hurrian completely, leaving only a
vowel-type sound. Deva-(H = “deity, god”. Diva-(H = “heaven, sky, day”.
Divya-(H = “divine, heavenly, supernatural”. The pattern seems to be
that in a Sanskrit word meaning “sky” or “deity”, where the first letter in
Sanskrit is d or s, and the rest of the word features first a v and then a
soft heth, both the v and the soft heth can be expected to drop out in
Hurrian, leaving only a vowel-type ending of the word. So in representing
this
Hurrian phenomenon in Biblical Hebrew regarding the Sanskrit word svaH, the
first Sanskrit letter s becomes shin/$, since that was the Hurrian sibilant,
and there should be neither a V/vav/W nor a regular heth/X, since both drop
out in Hurrian regarding this Sanskrit word. Rather, there should only be an
ending vowel-type sound, such as a final he/H in Biblical Hebrew. Thus this
Sanskrit word svaH, filtered through the Hurrians, could well be
represented in Biblical Hebrew as $-H.

As to the word “sky”, we must note that the most important Hurrian god was
Tessup, god of the sky. So by using the Sanskrit word for “sky” as
witness, indirectly the Hurrian god Tessup, god of the sky, was thereby
referenced. We are beginning to see that YGR $H-DW-T) is the type of proper
name that
would be used by a person like Laban from NHRYM in the Late Bronze Age.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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