Biblical Hebrew Forum

["JAMES CHRISTIAN READ" <JCR128 AT student.apu.ac.uk>]

Yitzhak wrote:
*tiha:m; "sea"; Akk. tamtum, tia:mat, Arab taham "land sloping down by the
sea", tiha:mat "(geographical name for a coastal plain)"; Heb thom; Sy
thoma (loanword); Ug taha:matu
END QUOTE

JCR: Thanks for showing how they could be cognates. My 
difficulty lied in accounting for the 'h' of tehom and 
you seem to have adequately done so and shown similar 
patterns which I have omitted in my reply for brevities 
sake. I can now see what you were saying.

Yitzhak wrote:
 It is therefore significant that
the word tehom is used as a proper name in the right place (before
division of the seas).
END QUOTE

JCR: I think this is an overstatement that may well be 
quite a lot less significant than to imply a direct 
relation with the tiamat myth. There is nothing in 
the context whatsoever which personifies tehom and the 
sense is very much of a thing rather than a being.

The very phrase ' The earth was formless and void, and
darkness was over the surface of the deep' seems, in
my mind, to recall only thoughts of lifeless matter
that are yet to be prepared for the arrival of life.

Could it be that Tiamat was merely named after the
physical entity represented and the hebrew makes use
of the normal word tehom with no regard for whether
other cultures use a cognate of this word to refer
to their mythical Tiamat? I am certainly aware of
clear examples in the tanak where ba'al is used in a
sense clearly distinct from any association with the
foreign god ba'al and used only as a normal word to
express a relation husband/master.

What do you think?

James C. Read
UK



lation with the tiamat myth. There is nothing in
the context whatsoever which personifies tehom and the
sense is very mu