Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jonathan D. Safren" <yonsaf AT beitberl.beitberl.ac.il>]

The long second vowel a in hab/piru would not disappear in Hebrew, but
the
question is if the naqdanim or Masoretes correctly reproduced the
ancient
Hebrew pronunciation of the word 'ibry.
Jonathan D. safren

-----Original Message-----
From: Niels Peter Lemche [mailto:npl AT teol.ku.dk]
Sent: Saturday, February 19, 2000 1:16 PM
To: Biblical Hebrew
Subject: Hab/piru-hebrews


A while ago, while another thread was running on B-Hebrew, it was
argued,
based on an article published in the 1950s by R. Borger, that any
linguistic
relationship between hab/piru and Hebrews must be excluded in advance
because pf the presence of a long second vowel (I believe that it was
the
second), that would never disappear in a transmission from Akkadian to
Hebrew (it is accepted by some but, e.g. rejected by Bott?ro in RLA IV).

This is serious matters and would, seems it, put and end to a discussion

that has lasted  for more than a hundred years and wasted much ink and
paper.

The Akkadian reading of Hapi/biru is somewhat part of the discussion,
some
scholars maintaining that it is habiru, other that it is hapiru. In RLA
IV,
14 ff. Jean Bott?ro is of the opinion that based on Middle Assyrian
evidence, the only possible way to transcripe the word is habiru. Be
that
what it is, and the matter has never been totally settled, we can return
to
hab/piru and ask: Which vowel is long? Some scholars transcribe it with
a
long first vowel, some with a long second, and some with a long third
vowel,
amongh whom we may cound Oswald Loretz in his major monograph devoted to
the
question (Habiru--Hebr?er; BZAW, 160; Berlin 1984). The Akkadian seems
never
to write the second syllable with more than a simple BI or P?, sometimes
BIR
or P?R, never e.g. pi-i-ir, or bi-i-ir. It is all a bit confusing so I
would
like to send out the signal, and will crosspost it also to ANE in order
to
invite comments.

As Loretz is not really interested in an easy identification between the

Hab/piru and the biblical Hebrews, I ask people to forget the historical

issues and only address the linguistic ones.

NPL




--
Jonathan D. Safren
Dept. of Biblical Studies
Beit Berl College
Beit Berl Post Office 44905
Israel