Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

At 18.07 06/02/00 +0100, Niels Peter Lemche wrote:
>
>... Mario Liverani, "Farsi Habiru", Vicino Oriente 2 (1979)...  I am sure
>that Ian H. with his access to Italian sources can dig it out. 

I'll decline on this at the moment, but Liverani goes into a little depth
on the issue of the Habiru in his introduction to the letters. Here's a
paragraph from p.22:

In the period between the two wars [of the 20th century] came the
clarification that the term Habiru, attested to in the near east for the
full course of the second millenium BCE, did not refer to a precise and
unambiguous ethnic entity (in every region and epoch, the Habiru carried
the names there and then in use). The term indicates instead a social
category, or, if one wants, an existential situation: these are people who
have become estranged (for political, economic or other reasons) from their
social context of origin. In practice these are a mixed complex of exiles,
bandits, insolvent debtors who removed themselves from slavery,
mercenaries, and others. [1] In the mid-fifties, two volumes of essays on
the problem of the Habiru consacrated this state of the matter as generally
accepted. [2] From this point the Hebrews are no longer a certain
identification (as people or ethnos) with the Habiru, and may have been
seen (and for this denominated) by the Canaanites as a particular case of
the Habiru.

[1] B.Landberger: "Habiru und Lulahhu," Kleinasiatische Forschungen I
(1929), pp.321-334; and J.Lewy: "Habiru and Hebrews," HUCA 14 (1939),
pp.587-623.
[2] J.Bottero: "Le probleme des Habiru," Paris 1955; M.Greenberg: "The
Hab/piru," New Haven 1955.

Liverani goes on to outline more recent developments. He notes the results
of sociological analyses which see the birth of Israel not as "a migration
or conquest", but as an "coagulation inside Palestine itself". This he
concludes meshes well with the Amarnian indications of people living on the
margins of society doing the "coagulating". The other development he
mentions regards the semantics of the term habiru as used in the Amarna
letters: "the term Habiru is often used simply to designate the enemy,
whichever they were, with a connotation of scorn and denigration. Thus the
term becomes relative, and, in a political or military adversarial
situation, each is the habiru of the other; but the intention is that the
enemy belongs to that external world of 'outlaws' and 'rebels' to
constituted power, which in the world in those times was represented by
bandits and exiles (who were habiru in the sense denominated by the word)."
p.24.

"Le lettere di el-Amarna," edited by Mario Liverani, Paideia, 1998, vol.1.


Ian

>The habiru in
>many Amarna letters do not constitute a social group; the term is often used
>simply to smear the adversaries of the author of the letter in question in
>the eyes of the Egyptians. The evidence in favor of this interpretation is
>as a matter of fact quite strong. E.g. EA 288:44 (ÌR-Chepa to Farao): Look,
>the subjects of Zimrida of Lakish/the slaves have killed him and had turned
>into Habiru. EA 148:46: (Abi-Milku of Tyre to Farao): The land of the king
>has become habiru. EA 144:25: Zimrida of Sidon to Farao) All the cities that
>the king has put in my hand have become Habiru, etc. etc.
>
>NPL