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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] to jim, isaac on patriarchal names

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  • From: jimstinehart AT aol.com
  • To: bjwvmw AT com-pair.net, nir AT ccet.ufrn.br, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] to jim, isaac on patriarchal names
  • Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2011 11:19:05 -0400 (EDT)


Rev. Bryant J. Williams III:

You wrote: “These are Hebrew names. Get off the Hurrian name kick. All you
have done is given speculation. This is a Biblical Hebrew list NOT a Hurrian
list.”

The main point of this thread is my contention that all 12 names of Jacob’s
12 sons are Hebrew names.

On the other hand, however, why would you think that names of H-XTY would be
Hebrew names? Genesis 15: 18-21 explicitly says that H-XTY are divinely
fated to be displaced by the Hebrews. The XTY people are not Hebrews! The
Bible expressly says that the XTY people will be displaced from Canaan by the
Hebrews.

Two of the names that Nir Cohen listed were names of XTY: (PRWN at Genesis
23: 10, and )YLWN at Genesis 36: 2. It doesn’t make sense that the name of
any XTY person would be a Hebrew name. You are not saying, are you, that
(PRWN, who is explicitly stated at Genesis 23: 10 to be H-XTY, has a Hebrew
name? What sense would that make? In my opinion, XTY is Xu-Ti-Ya, the
most-attested Hurrian name at the Hurrian province of Nuzi, which in Hurrian
means: “Praise Teshup”. XTY/Xuti-ya is a Hurrian-based Patriarchal nickname
that effectively means “Hurrian”.

As support for my theory of the case, consider the KJV phrase “Uriah the
Hittite”. Ev-ri-ya, transliterated by KJV as “Uriah”, at II Samuel 11: 3, is
the best-known individual whom the Bible calls H-XTY. )WR-Y-H/“Uriah” is
widely regarded as being a Hurrian name: “[H]idden behind the Semitic form
of his [Uriah’s] name is the Hurrian title ewri- ‘lord’." Billie Jean
Collins, “The Hittites and Their World” (2008), p. 211. Ev-ri/)W-R means “to
be lord” in Hurrian, and -ya/-Y is a Hurrian theophoric that references the
Hurrian sky-god Teshup. So )WR-Y-H : Evri-ya : “Uriah” means “Teshup Is
Lord”. Evri-ya the Xuti-ya is a Hurrian, and so is E-piri-enne [(PRWN] the
Xuti-ya, with none of those names being Hebrew names. (PRWN means “The
[Hurrian] Lord” in Hurrian.

Genesis 15: 18-21 explicitly tells us that in the Patriarchal Age, there were
a bunch of peoples in Canaan [most of whom, other than the Canaanites and
Amorites, I view as being the Hurrian ruling class of Canaan in the mid-14th
century BCE] whom the Hebrews are divinely fated to displace. Why would you
think that non-Hebrew peoples in Canaan prior to Israel would have Hebrew
names? All names of individuals in the Bible who are said to be
XTY/Xu-Ti-Ya/“Hittites” or Kenites or Kenizzites or Jebusites appear to be
Hurrian names. Joshua’s companion KLB does not have a west Semitic name
meaning “Dog”, but rather as a Kenizzite has a Hurrian name meaning “It
Pleases [Deity]”. The heroine (YL who kills Sisera does not have a west
Semitic name meaning “Male Ibex” [or, per an unattested dialect, “Ibex”], but
rather as a Kenite has a Hurrian name meaning “Grand Lady”. The person from
whom David takes over Jerusalem, rendered by KJV as “Araunah the Jebusite”,
as a Jebusite/Hurrian has a vintage Hurrian name, Er-vi-na, meaning [just
like “Uriah”] “[Teshup] Is Lord”.

In my opinion the Bible is older, and much more historically accurate, than
university scholars realize. But people will never see that as long as they
persist in the 2,000-year-old scholarly tradition of giving west Semitic
re-interpretations/mis-interpretations of vintage non-Semitic Hurrian
Biblical names such as KLB and (YL and (PRWN, which as Hurrian names do
n-o-t mean “Dog”, “Male Ibex”, “Fawn”! To recover the historicity of the
Bible, we must be willing to credit the Bible as knowing whereof it speaks
when it tells us that those people are Kenizzites, Kenites and
Xu-Ti-Ya/“Hittites”, that is, historical Hurrians, who quite naturally have
Hurrian, non-Semitic, non-Hebrew names.

Ironically, the very point of this thread is to insist that, contra the
scholarly view, all 11 names of Jacob’s oldest 11 sons are Hebrew names, that
did not exist prior to the composition of chapters 29 and 30 of Genesis.
That is an issue worthy of discussion, because those 11 sons are portrayed as
being born in eastern Syria [which was the heartland of Hurrian country], and
two of their names, $M(WN and ZBLWN, have names that seem to have
Hurrian-type endings [like (PRWN the XTY]. We can see the Hurrian ambience
of the endings of those names by comparing the Hurrian word for “the heaven”,
xavur-unne, which is rendered by the Hebrew letters XBRWN, which KJV
Semiticizes as “Hebron”. Speaking of Semiticization, shortly after Leah’s
death after returning to beloved Canaan, Jacob dropped the Hurrian-type
ending -WN in his son’s name ZBLWN, so that thereafter in the Patriarchal
narratives [at Genesis 35: 23, Genesis 46: 14 and Genesis 49: 13] we always
see the Semiticized form: ZBWLN. Thus Jacob himself to a certain extent
shared your view: “These are Hebrew names. Get off the Hurrian name kick.”
All of Jacob’s sons in fact have Hebrew names. It’s just that two of those
names, per Leah’s upbringing in eastern Syria, have a Hurrian ambience in
their -WN endings.

The Hebrews [descendants of Jacob/“Israel”] distinguished themselves from the
non-Hebrews, and largely displaced the non-Hebrews in Canaan, including
H-XTY/the Hurrians. But that’s not to say that all the peoples whom the
Hebrews displaced had Hebrew names! Not.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois







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