Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Jim:

On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 12:06 PM, <JimStinehart AT aol.com> wrote:

>  Karl:
>
>
>
> 1.  Thank you so much for your suggestion of XCCN TMR as possibly having 
> the following meaning in Hebrew:  “gravel place (with) date palm tree”, or 
> somewhat less literally:  “gravelly place with palms”.  But that seems like 
> a strange name to me.
>
>
So? There are a lot of places with strange names.

>
>
> (a)  Are there any other west Semitic town names of that type?  Noun + -N  
> suffix plus a second noun.  To the best of my knowledge, when you have a 
> west Semitic geographical place name with an –N suffix, that –N suffix 
> invariably appears at the end of the  s-e-c-o-n-d  word, not the first word.
>
>
Even if it appears only once, you can’t á priori rule it out. The first noun
can have the form like MKMN, NX$TN, P(MN, C)NN, CPRN, QRBN, and many others
that end in a nun. This is not necessarily a suffix.

>
>
>
>
> (b)  Why would a small village south of the Dead Sea have “gravel” or 
> “gravelly” in its name?
>
>
Have you ever been in a desert?

>
>
> (c)  What does that have to do with Amorites?  Genesis 14: 7 refers to 
> Amorites being at XCCN TMR.
>
>
Other than your presuppositions, what problem is there with that?

>
>
> Jim Stinehart
>
> Evanston, Illinois
>
>
You are having your presuppositions dictate to the ancients what they may
report, rather than having them speak for themselves.

Karl W. Randolph.