Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

Ian,
> At 16.08 19/06/00 -0700, Dave Washburn wrote:
> >Ian,
> >> This text has a number of difficulties. The first being the significance 
> >> of
> >> b++. This has been related to the Hebrew b$$, "on the six(th)". (Not a
> >> strange connection, the Ugaritic y+tr, is Ishtar.) This would mean that 
> >> the
> >> text reads something like,
> >>
> >>   On the sixth, the day of the full moon of Hiyaru,
> >>   the sun went in with her gate-keeper Rashap.
> >
> >Actually, Gordon renders it "new moon," which is more in keeping
> >with the meaning of the Hebrew XD$.
>
> Sorry, you're right. It was an early lapse of concentration.

Well shucks, I never have those ;-)

> >It looks to me as though `rbt
> >is a construct, hence "the setting of the sun."  I'm not sure where
> >you get "with" and "her" before "gatekeeper," but there's nothing in
> >the text to indicate these terms.  So the translation is speculative
> >at best.
>
> You're right that there is no preposition. As +gr is gatekeeper, the final
> h is taken as the possessive. So we end up with, "the sun entered, her
> gatekeeper Rashap."

Unless the final h is directional, see below.

> >Peter wrote in part, in response:
> >
> >"Of course, if you interpret neither b++ nor `rbt in the Ugaritic text
> >as referring to an eclipse, we are left with a problem: no-one would
> >have written such a text (we may presume) just to report that the
> >sun set on a particular day."
> >
> >True, but there's more to the tablet.  The reverse continues:
> >
> >w`bdm tbqrn
> >skn
> >
> >This suggests to me that +grh (not precise, but the actual Ugaritic
> >is virtually impossible to represent in ASCII)
>
> (I guess you're referring to the form of the g, which the Spanish data base
> represents with the ascii G, and which has what looks like an acute above
> it in the literature.)
>
> >is not "gatekeeper,"
> >but its more common meaning "gate," and hence "gate of r$p."
>
> One translation has actually given, "the sun entered her gate ($. ging in
> ihr Tor hinein)" with Rashap being taken as "Pestilence".

Was this in the Aisleitner text you mentioned to Peter?

> >Hence we may have something along the lines of
> >
> >"On the 6th day of the new moon [or as Gordon renders, 'in the 6
> >days of the new moon, == 1st quarter?'] at sunset at the gate of
> >r$p, the servants did thus and so [meanings for the last 2 words
> >are apparently uncertain]."
>
> I'm aware of this approach to the text, ie six days of the new moon or on
> the sixth day of the new moon. It is one that doesn't allow the text to
> mean an eclipse at all (an eclipse can only happen on the "true" day of the
> new moon). This may be the case. I was analysing the text with the notion
> of an eclipse in mind.

I confess I'm not convinced of the "six days" approach, and lean
more toward the "sixth day."  I'm still a little fuzzy as to why you
were analyzing it with an eclipse in mind...

> Again as you pointed out with "with" there is no preposition "at" as the
> above would have there be twice and is, as you put it, "speculative".

However, if it's a "directional" suffix (see Gordon p. 102) it could
easily be "to" or "at" the gate of r$p.  I admit there's nothing to
indicate "at" with `rbt $p$ except context.

> >It would be good to know, as well,
> >whether this is the whole tablet or whether more has broken off.
> >Judging by the transcription in Gordon, I suspect the former.  But in
> >any case, if we look at both sides of the tablet, I doubt it has
> >anything to do with an eclipse.
>
> There is actually less on the second side than the first. The text is very
> difficult to read because it has been burnt at some stage, either during
> the palace fire mentioned by Rib-Addu or in the final conflagration. I
> don't think that there is anything missing. The second part seems to be
> related to an act of divination.

The Spain database Jim pointed us to lists it as a ritual; Gordon
simply calls it a "menological" text (not terribly enlightening).  I
know there's not much on the second side, but I suspect that what
is there is the key to understanding the text.  That's why I was
rather excited when Jim said there were definitions at that web site,
and why I was rather disappointed when I didn't find any :-)

I'm going to conflate a little here as well, and address this from
Ian's response to Peter:

-----
>I don't know much Ugaritic, but it is clear that `rb(t) is
>cognate with the Hebrew word for "evening",

This is an argument based on appearance. This has little
philological value, Peter. The Ugaritic verb `rb specifically means
"to go in" or "enter" -- and can even have sexual implications. The
words may be related, but what that relationship is doesn't
necessarily mean "cognate". One can see how it can relate to the
Hebrew word for "evening", for this was the time when the sun went
in at the end of the day. But the exact relationship between the two
words in the two langauges is not a clear one.
----

When it comes to Ugaritic, congnates from Hebrew are quite often
all we have, and in fact that's how much of the language was
interpreted in the first place.  (I can't suppress my admiration for
those who decoded this series of birds' footprints to begin with.)
Gordon lists texts 9:9; 173:52, 56-57 and 1 Aqht:210 as using the
same phrase or sometimes m`rb $p$ (participle?) as "sunset" and
lists this text under `rb as "to set (sun)."  I suspect it's either a
nominal form or a participle, since none of the other texts has the
attached t.  But the point is, Ugaritic is so similar to Hebrew that
there is no good reason not to use the two languages to enlighten
each other.  One need only look at the work of M. Dahood or
Fisher's "Ras Shamra Parallels" to make the case for this idea.  In
addition, I'd like to see some Ugaritic references where the word
could have sexual implications.  Gordon lists a "technical meaning"
of "to enter (as a pledge)" but that's the only non-literal meaning he
gives (aside from place names).




Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"Éist le glór Dé."