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  • From: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: raqia encore
  • Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2002 10:20:45 +0200

Title: Re: raqia encore



Dear Ian,

If you use the word "cognates" regarding Tiamat and THWM in its normal sense,you stand on a shaky foundation. C. Westermann wrote in his monumental work on Genesis (Genesis 1-11 (1974), Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, p. 107):

"Tiamat in Babylonian is almost always a proper name and is only rarely used for the ocean or the sea, which are regularly called tamtu. Tiamat is a mythical being, and THWM never has this meaning in the Old Testament. the phrase "upon the face of the deep" shows that it is not a case of a mythological being but of a flood of water. It is impossible  phonetically and grammatically to derive THWM from the Babylonian Tiamat; THWM has a masculine ending, Tiamat a feminine; the H of the hebrew THWM cannot be explained as deriving from Tiamat."

Westermann points out that there is agreement that both words go back to a common Semitic root (No traces of "Proto-Semitic" has ever been found. so it is just hypothetical), and then he concludes:

"There is widespread agreement that Tiamat and THWM go back to a common Semitic root; but the occurrence of THWM in Gen 1:2 is not an argument for the direct dependence of the creation account of Gen 1 on Enuma Elish."


I have noted that nobody has pointed to any extra-biblical source from the first part of the first millennium B.C.E., or even later (as I asked for), indicating a world view of the earth fixed on pillars in a cosmic ocean with a solid vault above. This may suggest that the Semites never had such a world view, but that views from the Middle Ages have been projected backwards.


Regards

Rolf


Rolf Furuli

University of Oslo








>Ian, I remember you saying something recently about the etymological
>fallacy. That is the fallacy that just because two words (in the same or
>in cognate languages) have the same etymology, there is a relation
>between their meaning. That fallacy potentially applies here.

The situations are not comparable. I showed what
was wrong in the specific case. The similarities
only worked in isolation and not with the
diachronic changes observed.

The relationship between Tiamat and tehom is
systematic in that the differences between them
can be seen on a language-wide scale. he in
Hebrew is null in Akkadian. Vocalic waw seems
consistently an /a/ in Akkadian. Thematic
feminine taw is lost in the simple form of the
feminine noun in Hebrew. How would you say
"his deep" in Hebrew? thwmtw perhaps?

>Linguists
>may not dispute that tehom and tiamat are etymologically related.

I didn't say "etymologically related". I said that
they are cognates, ie they come from the same
source (just as "caput" and "head" do).

>That
>does not imply that there is any relation between their meanings or
>referents, especially in two quite remote languages with (as far as we
>can tell) many centuries of time difference. I accept that they may be
>related in meaning or referent. But a common etymology and a similar
>form does not prove that.

As they are plainly cognates, the important question
should be what is the relationship between their
meanings? We do this by looking at the way the terms
are used.


Ian



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