Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>]

Karl,

None of those references are sufficient to count as sustained meaningful 
contact. First of all, 1 Kgs 10.24 says that the whole world came to hear 
Solomon. Do you think that is literal? If so, is there evidence of loanwords 
into Hebrew from every single language at the time? This is just not 
convincing. And we are not talking about one word. There are at least two 
(though you deny one of them through a very odd etymology), both of which 
point to the influence of a Persian elite/administration. And yet, Solomon, 
out of all the multitudes who came to have an audience with him, singled out 
the (at the time) relatively insignificant Persians and chose two of their 
words that had to do with royal prestige/administration (even though the 
Persians were relatively insignificant), modified them through Aramaic, and 
then years later used them in Hebrew to describe what he'd done years before 
in a book that doesn't even bear his name? Yes, of course that's *possible*, 
Karl. But if you can't even admit the possibility that maybe, just maybe, the 
loanwords made their way into Hebrew (and other languages) during the Persian 
Era, then I don't think you're being open to evidence, and we have nothing 
further to discuss.


Regards,

GEORGE ATHAS
Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
www.moore.edu.au