Biblical Hebrew Forum

["George Athas" <gathas AT mail.usyd.edu.au>]

Hi Peter! Thanks for your observations. I have some countering comments, 
though.

> "Bethel" may be a single concept, but in Hebrew orthography it is two
> words, usually joined by maqqef, of which the first is a construct
> ("Beth" not "Bayith"). So it's not a very good example for your
> comparison!

That's the problem -- "in Hebrew Orthography". We are not dealing here with 
Hebrew
Orthography of the Bible; we are dealing with Aramaic orthography from the 
9th-8th century
BCE.

With regards to toponyms, the case is mixed. You can have "Beth-X" type names 
transcribed
as either two words or as one word. Compare Ostracon B from Tell Qasile where 
"Beth-Horon"
is written as a single lexeme. A construct expression "House of David", 
though, is
undeniably two lexemes each with its own meaning that happen to be in a 
construct
relationship. For toponyms, this 'free standing individuality' of the 
elements is no
longer as important as it is for a pure construct expression. Thus, when we 
see the word
_bytdwd_ in the Tel Dan Inscription and realise the author's orthography, it 
is far more
likely that the word is a toponym (which can be transcribed as a single word) 
than a pure
construct expression (which in the Tel Dan Inscription can only be 
transcribed as two
words).

> Later you wrote: "The Bible, which dates much later than the Tel Dan
> Inscription, writes "House of David" as _byt dwd_ -- two words, not a
> single word like _bytdwd_. If there were two words in the Tel Dan
> Inscription, then we probably would have had "House of David"." Not
> strictly true: in some cases (e.g. 1 Kings 12:20) Beyt Dawid is
> written with a maqqef, in other cases as two separate words. So the
> situation is the same as with Bethel. In both cases the writing
> depends on phonology, not on semantics. Of course we don't know much
> about the criteria on which the Tel Dan inscription writers divided
> words, but perhaps they also used phonology rather than semantics as
> the criterion, and I guess they didn't have that convenient device
> maqqef in their orthography.

It's a pity the orthography is so inconsistent. But then, that's the way 
Biblical Hebrew
orthography is. The expression _byt-dwd_ in the Bible (with a maqqef) occurs 
4 times out
of the 13 times that the expression appears with or without maqqef. Two of 
these instances
are actually written with a plene spelling as _byt-dwyd_ and occur in Zech 
12. However,
even here, the expression appears in 12:10 without a maqqef. It seems like 
the expression
was considered as two separate words which just had to be pronounced with a 
single accent
on the final syllable. But that's exactly what a construct expression is -- 
two separate
words read together.

When you examine the orthography of the Tel Dan Inscription, you will find 
that construct
expressions are always separated by word dividers. It seems that since the 
scribe had no
such thing as a maqqef, he used word dividers instead. As such, biblical 
orthography has
no real bearing here. The word _bytdwd_ must not be a construct expression - 
it must be a
single word, even though etymologically it might derive from a construct 
expression. It's
exactly the same case as a personal name. You can break it down into its 
various
components, but in the end, you need to treat it as a single lexeme rather 
than a
construct expression.

> Also, can you justify your statement that the relevant parts of the
> date to much later than the Tel Dan inscription? There is a danger of
> circular argument here as this discussion of the inscription came out
> of a discussion of the evidence for such a statement. I accept of
> course that the Masoretic pointing with maqqef is much later than the
> inscription.

I don't think I need to delve into much detail about the dating of biblical 
texts.
Although precise dates are elusive, most biblical texts point to a 
post-exilic era,
whether it be Babylonian, Persian, or Hellenistic, or whatever. You also need 
to factor in
the possibility of editing down through the ages, too. As such, it can be 
misleading to
let documents which date *at least* 250 years later and which are written in 
Hebrew
influence our understanding of the Tel Dan Inscription which is Old Aramaic. 
We can
certainly make comparisons and valuable observations, but we must not take 
our point of
departure from the biblical texts; we must take it from the inscription 
itself.

> You have treated the Tel Dan inscription "on its own merits firstly".
> When will you compare it "with other texts, like the Assyrian annals"?

Comparison with Assyrian annals actually goes quite a long way towards 
suggesting that
_bytdwd_ is not a political or dynastic title. Knauf, de Pury, & Römer have 
shown that
never in Assyrian annals does the expression "King of the House of PN" occur. 
Rather, this
thought is conveyed by the expression "son of PN," as in "Jehu son of Omri" 
-- that is,
Jehu king of Bit-Humri. This means that if we are going to view _bytdwd_ as a 
construct
expression, "House of David", then the preceding word in the Tel Dan 
Inscription cannot be
_mlk_ ("king of"). If the preceding word is, however, _mlk_, then _bytdwd_ 
must be a
simple toponym. In the context in which _bytdwd_ appears, it is most likely 
that the
preceding kaph is indeed part of the word _mlk_. As such, it is far more 
likely that
_bytdwd_ is a toponym than a construct expression or dynastic title.

This is by no means a comprehensive answer. I'm in the process of preparing a 
paper which
should appear in SJOT some time next year which is a little more thorough.

Best regards for the New Year!
George Athas
 Dept of Semitic Studies,
 University of Sydney
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Tel Dan Inscription Website
http://members.xoom.com/gathas/teldan.htm
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< gathas@ mail.usyd.edu.au >