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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] "Shinar" at Genesis 14: 1 Is Not "Sumer"
  • Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 10:45:40 EST


“Shinar” at Genesis 14: 1 Is Not “Sumer”

Eric Forster:

You wrote: “Poebel suggested back in 1944 that the Hebrew Shinar was
possibly the Sumerian $ingi-uri, "Sumer and Akkad", which the Sumerians used
to
describe the entirety of Mesopotamia.”

“Shinar” at Genesis 14: 1 has nothing to do with “Sumer”.

1. The Sumerians called their own country “KI-EN-GIR”. That is not close
to “Shinar” at all.

2. The Babylonians called their predecessor “Sumeru”. That is not close to
“Shinar” either. The first consonant sound is wrong, the first vowel sound
is wrong, the second consonant sound is all wrong, as N is not the same as M,
and the second vowel sound is wrong as well.

Here are some scholarly acknowledgments that “Shinar” at Genesis 14: 1 is
not “Sumer”.

(a) “Though sometimes identified with the Babylonian Sumer, the connection
of Shinar with that name is doubtful. The principal difficulty lies in the
fact that what might be regarded as the non-dialectical form singar (which
would
alone furnish a satisfactory basis of comparison) is not found, and would, if
existent, only apply to the southern portion of Babylonia. The northern
tract
was called Akkad, after the name of its capital city (see ACCAD). The Greek
form Sen(n)aar shows that, at the time the Septuagint translation was made,
there was no tradition that the `ayin was guttural, as the supposed
Babylonian
forms would lead us to expect. As the Biblical form Shinar indicates the
whole
of Babylonia, it corresponds with the native (Sumerian) Kingi-Ura, rendered
"Sumer and Akkad," from which, by changing "K" into "Sh" (found in Sumerian),
Shinar may have been derived, but this explanation is not free from
difficulties.”

http://net.bible.org/dictionary.php?dict=dictionaries&word=Shinar

(b) “As has long been suspected, Amraphel is not to be identified with
Hammurabi, nor Shinar with Sumer.”

“The Interpenetration of Cultures as Illustrated by the Character of the Old
Testament Literature”, by Theophile James Meek, in “The Journal of Religion”,
Vol. 7, No. 3 (May, 1927), pp. 244-262.

3. Sumer went extinct long before the Patriarchal Age. There is no reason
for Genesis 14: 1 to be referring to long-extinct Sumer.

4. Chapter 11 of Genesis refers to Harran and Ur, and Harran and Ur are also
mentioned elsewhere in the Patriarchal narratives. Never is that part of the
world referred to as “Sumer”, or “Shinar”, or anything remotely like that
in connection with either Harran or Ur in the Patriarchal narratives.

5. “Shinar” is a west Semitic word, and it matches beautifully to “Shenir”
at Deuteronomy 3: 8-9, which is the Amorite word for Mt. Hermon/Mt. Lebanon.
Only the second vowel type sound is not an exact match, which is to be
expected, since Amorite and Hebrew were not identical west Semitic languages.

6. The person who is from Shinar is “Amrapel”: aleph-mem-resh + peh +
lamed. That is a west Semitic name. Amrapel is a west Semitic-speaking
ruler
from a west Semitic-speaking country, near Mt. Lebanon/Mt. Shenir/Mt.
Shinar/Shinar, in Lebanon. A name that makes perfect sense in west Semitic
is not the
name of a ruler of non-Semitic Sumer (or, for that matter, of the east
Semitic
successor to Sumer either).

7. In fact, this name Amrapel is the name of the most important brother of
Aziru, the iniquitous Amorite of mid-14th century BCE Amurru in the Amarna
Letters. Wm. Moran gives the following somewhat misleading transliteration
of the
name of Aziru’s brother at Amarna Letter EA 170: 38: “Amur-Bala”. The “
Amur” in Akkadian cuneiform is equivalent to aleph-mem-resh/AMR in Hebrew and
in
Ugaritic. The B is what is misleading. Akkadian cuneiform could not
distinguish between B and P in names, and Wm. Moran chooses to transliterate
names
using B instead of P. Thus his “Abdi-Heba” (the ruler of Jerusalem) should
really be “Hepa”, because the Hurrians themselves pronounced the name of this
Hurrian goddess with a P. With a P being as likely, if not more likely here,
that gives us “Pala” at the end of this name, which is the Akkadian cuneiform
equivalent of peh-lamed/P-L in Hebrew. It’s the same name! The name of
Aziru’
s brother in the Amarna Letters appears to be the Akkadian cuneiform exact
equivalent of “Amrapel” at Genesis 14: 1. Is that exciting or what?

That’s a good nickname for the northern pre-Hebrew author of the Patriarchal
narratives to use for Aziru, the iniquitous Amorite of Amurru, because the
AMR
at the beginning of such name means both “Amorite” and “Amurru” (both in
Hebrew and in Ugaritic), which are the two key characteristics of historical
Aziru, the iniquitous Amorite who sold out Amurru in northern Lebanon to the
dreaded Hittites in Year 14 of Akhenaten’s reign. (The U at the end of
Amurru in
the Amarna Letters gets dropped in Hebrew. Likewise, Qidsu in the Amarna
Letters is Qadesh in the Patriarchal narratives, and Surru is Sur.)

As to the tactic of using the actual name of a historical figure’s brother as
a suitable nickname to apply to the historical leader, the author of Genesis
14: 1 did the same thing for mighty Hittite King Suppililiuma I as well.
Suppililiuma nefariously murdered his older brother, named Tudhaliya, to
ruthlessly seize the Hittite throne. Scholars agree that the Hebrew version
of “
Tudhaliya” is “Tidal”, at Genesis 14: 1. So Suppililiuma I is referred to in
chapter 14 of Genesis by a nickname, which is the actual name of his older
murdered
brother, Tudhaliya/Tidal. Aziru is likewise referred to by the actual name
of Aziru’s most prominent brother, Amrapel.

This is all coming directly out of the well-documented secular history of the
mid-14th century BCE, as documented by the Amarna Letters and other
well-known secular sources. J, E, P and D, as southern Hebrews living in the
mid-1st
millennium BCE, knew nothing and cared less about this stuff.

8. Just focus on what nicknames are west Semitic, and what nicknames are not
west Semitic. “Amrapel” and “Shinar” and “Chedorlaomer” and “’Eylam” are
all west Semitic names. (Isaac Fried can go to town analyzing all four such
west Semitic names.) By contrast, “Arioch” is a Hurrian princeling name, and
“Elassar”/Alisar is the Hittite city where he was re-educated by the
Hittites. “Tidal” is the Hittite kingly name “Tudhaliya”. Thus none of
“Arioch”
or “Elassar”/Alisar or “Tudhaliya”/Tidal is a west Semitic name. (So Isaac
Fried will have nothing to say about those three names, since they are not
west Semitic names that can be analyzed in terms of Hebrew.) All 7 nicknames
are
in fact perfect, and clearly show the precise ethnic origin of every one of
the four attacking rulers in chapter 14 of Genesis and in the secular history
of the mid-14th century BCE.

This is not nonsensical, non-historical fiction, as secular scholars would
have us believe. No, chapter 14 of Genesis has pinpoint historical accuracy.

It even tells us the exact year in which the “four kings against the five”
historically took place: “in the fourteenth year”, that is, in the 14th year
of
Akhenaten’s reign, or Year 14 of Akhenaten’s 17-year reign. You can’t get
more accurate than that!

Chapter 14 of Genesis sets forth (i) the exact year of this military
conflict, (ii) the exact number of attacking rulers, (iii) the exact number
of
defending rulers, namely the 5 princelings in greater northern Canaan who
formed a
league/bereit to resist the expansionist-minded Hittites, (iv) the exact
ethnic
origin of the peculiar mix of ethnicities of the four attacking rulers, and
(v) the exact result of this very important military conflict in secular
history: in a men against boys total mismatch, the previously successful 5
rebellious princelings were absolutely smashed by this Hittite-dominated
coalition of 4
attacking rulers.

Is that spectacular, pinpoint historical accuracy or what?

Catch the pulsating excitement of the Patriarchal narratives.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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