Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

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