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  • From: "Bryant J. Williams III" <bjwvmw AT com-pair.net>
  • To: <JimStinehart AT aol.com>, <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Seir
  • Date: Fri, 14 May 2010 14:13:03 -0700

Dear Jim,

Your hypothesis is not coherent nor consistent. You have been shown that the
evidence is contrary. If you were a doctoral student, your thesis would be
thrown out and told to do it over again and/or do another subject.

Rev. Bryant J. Williams III
----- Original Message -----
From: <JimStinehart AT aol.com>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 6:56 AM
Subject: [b-hebrew] Seir


>
> %(YR/Seir at Genesis 14: 6 probably comes from the Hurrian word $a(ri [with
> Hurrian variants thereon being $xri or $a-ax-ri], meaning “orchard”.
> Fournet/Bomhard at p. 98. Hurrian had no ayin as such, but it had a voiced
> velar fricative, which is probably equivalent to the archaic ghayin in
> Hebrew.
> As such, this Hurrian letter for ghayin would be expected to come out in
> written Biblical Hebrew as an ayin. The closest possible Hebrew equivalent
> to
> Hurrian $a(ri/“orchard” would likely be $(YR or $(R, which in unpointed
> text is what we see at Genesis 14: 6. [$ and % are the same letter in
> written
> Hebrew. It’s unclear if the yod/Y was there in the original defective
> spelling.] Related words in Hurrian-type languages are “sarme” in Subarian,
> meaning “forest”, and “sare” in Urartian, meaning “orchard”. Since Hurrian
> borrowed almost no words from any Semitic language, it seems that Hebrew
> likely picked up this word and geographical place name from Hurrian.
>
> As to “Seir”/%(YR in Hebrew, the root %(R means "hair" or "hairy" 28 times
> in the Bible, including at Genesis 25: 25 in the Patriarchal narratives,
> often with the connotation of "bristling". BDB at p. 973 sees “Seir”/%‘YR
> as
> meaning “the ‘hairy’, i.e. ‘well-wooded’. Cf. [the Arabic word for] trees”
> . The Arabic words for tree and trees sound a lot like “Seir”/%(YR: “
> Tree = shajra; Trees = shajar”. Gesenius likewise sees “Seir”/%(YR as
> meaning “clothed, and, as it were, bristled with trees and thick woods”.
>
> Thus there is every reason to think that %(YR at Genesis 14: 6 means “
> Well-Wooded”. Such a name would only make sense in a locale that is
“well-wooded
> ”, such as the well-wooded hill country in western Transjordan north of the
> Dead Sea, where the Hurrians are historically attested in the Late Bronze
> Age. No place south of the Dead Sea was “well-wooded” or had any Hurrians,
> so at Genesis 14: 6 Seir is not referencing a locale south of the Dead Sea.
> Yes, in later parts of the Bible Seir was used to reference a locale south
> of the Dead Sea. But not in truly ancient chapter 14 of Genesis. If we are
> willing to analyze Seir in chapter 14 of Genesis in its Late Bronze Age
> historical context, we will see that it means “Well-Wooded”, and that it is
> referring to the well-wooded hill country in the western Transjordan north
> of
> the Dead Sea.
>
> Jim Stinehart
> Evanston, Illinois
> _______________________________________________
> b-hebrew mailing list
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
>


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