Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

“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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