Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Jim:

On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 4:31 PM, <jimstinehart AT aol.com> wrote:

>
> James Christian:
>
> Many of us would love to see a Ph.D thesis on one or more of the following
> topics:
>

How many does this “many” include? So far I know of only one.

>
> 1.  What is the meaning of the Hurrian name Arioch?
>

What makes you think it is a Hurrian name? If he truly was a king, was this
but one of his royal names, as was common in ancient times? Was his real
name the same as the transliteration into Hebrew?

>
> 2.  Is Elassar a Hittite name, and what is its meaning?
>

>From what I read, this place was differently named in different times.
However, one source says that it is an Assyrian name, not Hittite.

>
> 3.  Is Amrapel a west Semitic name that apparently means "Amorite
> Splittest"?
>

This one is so wild it doesn’t deserve an answer.

>
> 4.  Is "Shenir" a Hurrian word for Hurrian-dominated Syria?
>

It was the ancient Semitic name for Mesopotamia.

>
> 5.  Are the letters that make up "Chedorlaomer" a Ugaritic curse?
>

This is a recognizably Elamite name, nothing to do with Ugarit.

>
> 7.  Is XCCN TMR a Hurrian name?
>

This is a West Semitic name, following known Semitic structure.

>
> 8.  Is QD$ the west Semitic rendering of a Hurrian name, either KD$W or
> KD$WN?
>

Are you kidding?

>
> No one but you is interested in asking a young scholar to try to date the
> Amarna Letters, as you do,  by the absence of a reference therein to Sodom
> and Gomorrah.  And no one but you would ask a scholar if the Mediterranean
> Sea is a salt sea.
>

This is a ridiculous question. Of course the Mediterranean Sea is salty.
That is not the question. Is it THE salt sea of Genesis 14? The context
clearly indicates a different salty sea for that place.

>
> But the 10 questions listed above could change the world.  Why don't any
> university scholars investigate those questions, and publish their findings?
>  What gives?
>

Scholarship.

Even the scholars who believe that the Bible is a bunch of fables, still
start out with what the Bible says. The words as they are written give only
one option, namely that these events are described as happening south of the
Dead Sea. Of course, they don’t believe that they actually happened, but if
one tried to say “south = north” and “Jacob = Akhenaton” and some of your
other claims, how long do you think other scholars would take him seriously?
They’re not lawyers who twist words for a living.

>
> Jim Stinehart
> Evanston, Illinois
>
>
> Karl W. Randolph.