Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 26/01/2004 20:22, Karl Randolph wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Polycarp66 AT aol.com
>
>  
>
> > In a message dated 1/25/2004 2:27:36 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
> > kwrandolph AT email.com writes:
> > I noticed that these terms were used exclusively to refer to soldiers. What 
> > made me suspect that it may refer to classes of professional soldiers was the 
> > realization that the PLTY is always written with a definite article prefix in 
> > Tanakh, which would have had a pronunciation of “hapeleti”. This sounds 
> > awfully similar to a class of soldiers among the Greeks, who had imported a lot of 
> > their culture along with their alphabet from Semitic sources.
> >
> > The terms, as well as the weaponry, may have been Philistine, but in the list 
> > of David’s top soldiers, almost all of them were native Israelis (2 Samuel 
> > 23).
> > _________
> >
> > Are you implying that the Greek "hoplite" derives from this?
> >
> > gfsomsel
> >    
>
> Any reason why not?
>
> Karl W. Randolph.
>
>  
Liddell and Scott derive Greek hOPLITHS from hOPLON, usually used in the 
plural hOPLA, meaning arms, weapons. -ITHS (H is eta) is a regular Greek 
derivational suffix. So, although we can't rule out a loan word with 
similar form and meaning, hOPLITHS would have meant "armed man" anyway.

There may be a little more mileage in postulating a loan from Greek into 
Hebrew, if hOPLITHS or something similar was already used by the 
(Greek-speaking, from Linear B) Cretans: HAKK:RETIY W:HAPP:LETIY could 
then be an expression (hendiadys, or perhaps the W- added later) for 
"armed Cretans" or "Cretan soldiers".

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