Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 25/01/2004 04:07, Dora Smith wrote:

> In his pretty much excellent but not perfect work, "Egypt, Canaan, and
> Israel" in Ancient Times", Donald Redford says, "Interestingly, both
> "Carians" and "Cretans" appear as ethnic indicators in the lists of
> bodyguards of Judaean kings recruited from Philistia."  In the footnote he
> cites only, "2 Sam. 20:23; 2 Kings 11:4, 19" for his source on that
> remarkable idea.
>
> The entire sentence makes no sense whatever to me.  Does it make sense to
> anybody?
>
>  
I think all he means is that in those verses in 2 Kings we find the word 
KARIY "Carite" or "Carian"; in 2 Samuel 20:23 the word may be KARIY 
"Carian" (Ketiv) or K:RETIY "Kerethite" or perhaps "Cretan" (Qere). The 
latter word is found undisputed in about ten places. The references are 
all to the royal bodyguard of Judah.

> I know that Egyptian part phonetic, part syllabic hieroglyphic writing has
> "determinatives" after many proper nouns to indicate things abouat that
> noun, such as whether it is a person's name, a place or a people, or a god.
>
> I am not aware of Hebrew having any such feature.  My Hebrew bible is
> straight Hebrew characters.
>
> Waht is he talking about - and if "determinatives" are there, what do they
> really say and mean?
>
>  
There are no special determinatives, just words or names apparently 
indicating the ethnic or geographical origin of these people.

> Yours,
> Dora Smith
> Austin, Texas
> villandra AT austin.rr.com
> /b-hebrew
>
>
>  


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/