Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Karl:
 
The Hurrians were extinct by 1000 BCE.  Yet the Amarna Letters are replete 
with Hurrian names.  How then could the Amarna Age be the 9th -8th century 
BCE?
 
Here are some vintage Hurrian names from the Amarna Letters:
 
a-k-ia
a-ki-tessub
a-ki-iz-zi
a-ra-wa-na
ar-te-e-es-su-ba
hi-bi-ya
ir-sa-ap-pa
ke-lia-ia
ke-lu-he-ba
ma-zi-ba-ad-li
pi-ri-iz-zi
pu-he-wa
pu-u-hi
ta-du-a
ta-a-du-he-e-ba
ta-gi-tul-ub-ri
tu-ni-ib-ew-ri
ut-hi
zili-ya
ti-hu-ti-su-pa
IR-he-ba
MI-ya
 
The name of the princeling ruler of Jerusalem, Abdi-Heba, honors the 
Hurrian goddess Heba.
 
In addition, many Hurrian rulers sported Indo-European names.  That would 
include not only Tushratta of the Hurrian great power state of 
Mitanni/Naharim in eastern Syria, but also Yamiuta of Qadesh of Upper 
Galilee, as well as 
the following three Hurrian maryannu active in the Transjordan:  Biryawaza, 
Biridiya, and ar-za-aw-ya.
 
If you thumb through the Amarna Letters, you’re constantly confronted with 
non-west Semitic names like these, which most often are names of Hurrian 
princelings.
 
Hurrian names like that make sense in one, and only one, historical time 
period:  the Late Bronze Age.  Chapter 14 of Genesis (though it is not very 
long) contains three Hurrian names:  )RYWK, $N(R and XCCN TMR.
 
The presence of Hurrian names out the wazzoo in both the Amarna Letters and 
chapter 14 of Genesis neatly dates both such sources to the Late Bronze 
Age, with the mid-14th century BCE making perfect sense for both sources.
 
Based on your great knowledge of Biblical Hebrew, certainly you can tell at 
a glance that none of the above names are west Semitic.  How then do you 
explain the presence of all these Hurrian names if, on your view, the 
Patriarchal Age was the Early Bronze Age (before there were any Hurrians), 
and the 
Amarna Age was the 9th or 8th century BCE (after all Hurrians had gone 
extinct)?
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois