Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dora Smith" <villandra AT austin.rr.com>]

My understanding is exactly that the Banu-yamin referred to by the Maori
were an Amoritic tribe, ie, they were seminomadic.   They were located at
the northern end of the hill country and would have ranged through it like
all other Amoritic tribes in that area.

So if Banu-yamin turn up in central Palestine, there is a good chance they
are some of the same people - though it is n't proven.

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, Texas
villandra AT austin.rr.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
To: "b-hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 04, 2004 2:24 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Benjamin


> I agree. Of course 18th century NW Semitic tribal (and other) terminology
is
> useful for understanding biblical Hebrew. That BH is ultimately related to
> "Amorite" (that is, the NW Semitic dialects of "Amurru", including Mari)
is
> obvious. But Dora was making much more concrete connections, basically
> claiming that the Bene Yamin of Mari WERE the ancestors of the Israelite
> Benjaminites.
>
> By the way, how would you explain the connection of Amurru to Emori
> (Amorite), and, for that matter, Hatti to biblical Hitti (Hittite). That
the
> term are related is obvious. But semantically, "Amurru" in the ANE
describes
> a wide range of "western" tribes, including their Mesopotamian
descendants,
> and we could say that "Canaanite" is as sub-group of "Amorite". In the
> Bible, the situation is reversed - the Amorites are a sub-group of the
> Canaanites (sometimes replacing them).
> The ANE Hatti, of course, are an Indo-European, Anatolian nation, that at
> one point took over northern Syria and then left "Neo-Hittite" kingdoms
> behind. The Neo-Babylonians used the term as a synonym for "Amurru". But
> again, in the Bible, the Hittites are a small and specific sub-set of
> Canaanites, living in Hebron, Seir etc.
>
> The same for "Horite" and "Hurrians".
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jonathan D. Safren" <yonsaf AT beitberl.ac.il>
> To: "Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>; "b-hebrew"
> <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Sunday, July 04, 2004 8:55 AM
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Benjamin
>
>
> > Yigal Levin wrote:
> > >
> > > 2. Any direct link between anything in 18th century Mari and in 12th
> > century
> > > (or later) Israel is extremely conjectural.
> >
> > True. But sometimes, one can reasonably term used in the Bible with a
> > cognate used in Mari, generally identified as Amorite, when both the
> context
> > and the etymology permit.
> > This is especially true regarding tribal terminology. Malamat has
> identified
> > Hebrew goy with Mari gawu{m}, Hebrew xever (ha-keyni} with Mari
xibru(m).
> > I have identified the Mari tribal official merhu(m) with (Ahuzzath)
> > mere'ehu, which I read mar'ehu.
> > On the Mari official and his identification with the biblical figure,
see:
> >  Jonathan D. Safren, "merhum and merhutum in Mari", Orientalia 51
(1982),
> > 1-29;
> > idem,  "Ahuzzath and the Pact of Beer-Sheba", Zeitschrift fuer die
> > alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 101 (1989), 184-198.
> > But not only tribal terminology. The Hebrew expression he$ib nepe$/4obeb
> > nepe$ has its cognate in the Mari expression napi$a(m) turru(m),
probably
> a
> > loan translation from the Amorite; on this, see
> > idem, "'He Restoreth My Soul' - A Biblical Expression and Its Mari
> > Counterpart", Mari in Retrospect;Fifty Years of Mari and Mari Studies ,
> Ed.
> > by Gordon D. Young (Winona Lake, IN, Eisenbrauns, 1992), 265-271.
> > Sincerely,
> > Jonathan D. Safren
> > Dept. of Biblical Studies
> > Beit Berl College
> > 44905 Beit Berl Post Office
> > Israel
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >  This mail was scanned via Beit Berl PineApp
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
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