Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

Regarding the translation I gave -

    the sun went in with her gatekeeper, Rashap

Dave indicated that there was no prepostion for "with", and I responded:

>> 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."

Dave:
>Unless the final h is directional, see below.

Dave earlier:
>> >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

It's interesting to compare this with the lines I got from UF 6 mentioned
in my response to Peter:

    Die Lebern ueberpruefte man:         kbdm tbqrn
    Gefahr.                              skn


>> >This suggests to me that +grh (not precise, but the actual Ugaritic 
>> >is virtually impossible to represent in ASCII) is not "gatekeeper," 
>> >but its more common meaning "gate," and hence "gate of r$p."  
 
Ian:
>> One translation has actually given, "the sun entered her gate ($. ging in
>> ihr Tor hinein)" with Rashap being taken as "Pestilence".

Dave:
>Was this in the Aisleitner text you mentioned to Peter?

The German part was, I seem to remember that the line about "Pestilence"
was as well, but I think that may have come from Sawyer and Stephenson's
review of the literature available to them. I breezed through Aisleitner
because my German ain't too good.

Dave:
>> >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]."  

Ian: 
>> 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.

Dave:
>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...

The problem is to understand why the text was written at all. It seems to
provoke extispicy, but why? If it doesn't regard an event that is well out
of the ordinary, why consult entrails? The text is quite interested in the
suns activity. The day has been put to shame and I think we need to know
why to understand the motive for the text. This is where an eclipse comes
in. What's so strange about the sun going in, when it does so every day? It
would seem that the day was put to shame because of the sun's extraordinary
going in. Otherwise, how could the day be ashamed? I am open to suggestions
on this.

Dave opted for "at sunset" to which I responded:
>> 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".

Dave:
>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.

Yet the verb gives a direction, if it is in fact translated as "enter" or
"go in" with all the literature I've read. The going in is what the sun
normally does at the end of the day; this is why we use the English idiom
"to go down" to translate the verb `rb here, but "to go in" provides a
clear direction.

Dave:
>> >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.

Ian:
>> 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.

Dave:
>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.  

You may be right. The indication of consulting the livers tells us that
something important has led to the necessity of such a consultation.

Dave:
>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)."  

Could you give some of the other uses for the verb `rb. I think you'll find
that we get to sunset by using a more modern cosmological understanding of
what is being said: we think of the sun going "down", which of course is
just as scientifically wrong, but we are swayed by that image and don't
appreciate the image used by the Ugaritic text.

>I suspect it's either a 
>nominal form or a participle, since none of the other texts has the 
>attached t.  

I've probably consulted about ten translations of this text now and only
one I've found gives "at sunset" -- the one that Rohl put on his internet
list recently (and probably that in his book). Nearly all the others used a
past tense verb.

>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.  

What about in this case the fact that we have two verbs which appear to  be
the same, the Hebrew `rb (to get dark) and the Ugaritic `rb (to go in)?

>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).

But the literal uses? 

Doesn't the literal notion of going in conform to your previous statement
of the h in +grh possibly being a directional marker?

As Rashap isn't visible until well after sunset, his mention here needs to
be explained. One could take the approach where it refers to pestilence
(which is possible), yet Rashap is too strong a citation here for it not to
be the god himself, especially when connected with the sun and her gate. If
the sun went in suddenly then a gatekeeper, her gatekeeper, still must have
been present.


Ian