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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: ishinan AT comcast.net, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Seir
  • Date: Mon, 17 May 2010 09:58:04 EDT


George Athas:

1. You wrote: “Where do you possibly see שׂער meaning ‘forest’? You
simply have not nailed this down. There is a big difference between ‘hair’
and ‘wooded forest’. Until you can produce a firm linguistic connection
there, you are either speculating at best, or just making it up.”

(a) How do you call quoting BDB “just making it up”? Here is what BDB
says about %(YR: ““the ‘hairy’, i.e. ‘well-wooded’. Cf. [the Arabic word
for] trees”.

(b) How is quoting Gesenius “just making it up”? Gesenius sees %(YR as
meaning “clothed, and, as it were, bristled with trees and thick woods”.

(c) How is citing Arabic cognate words, as referenced by BDB, “just making
it up”? The Arabic words for tree and trees sound a lot like “Seir”/%(YR:
“Tree = shajra; Trees = shajar”.

Ishinan Ishibashi is immensely helpful in clarifying the Arabic cite, which
should be to “sha`Ar (dense tangled trees; written with a medial `ayn) as
mentioned in Brown-Driver-Briggs”. [Thank you so much, Ishinan Ishibashi.
Much appreciated.]

2. You wrote: “If there is a ghayin in שׂער then you would expect this
reflected in cognate languages, such as Arabic, or in transliteration into
other languages, such as Greek. But it isn’t. It just plain isn’t. So that
theory is dead.”

I don’t think there is a ghayin in the Hebrew word %(YR. That’s not what
I said. Rather, what I said was this: “%(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 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.”

Let me now supplement my analysis there by talking a little bit more about
Urartian, which I think will clarify this matter. As background, Wikipedia
states: “Urartian is closely related to Hurrian, though not derived from
it. Although Urartian and Hurrian are related, it is now fairly clear that
the two languages developed quite independently from the third millennium
onwards.”

The Urartian word for “orchard” is sha-re. It’s basically just like the
Hurrian word for “orchard”, sha-a(-ri, except that the mysterious Hurrian
ghayin has been dropped completely. That suggests that the mysterious,
rarely-used Hurrian ghayin did not have a strong sound, and in any event
often was
simply dropped by non-Hurrian peoples. There likely was no exact e
quivalent in the Semitic languages to the elusive Hurrian ghayin. Genesis
14: 6
took the route of taking note of that Hurrian ghayin, and representing it as
an
ayin in Hebrew (not as an archaic ghayin that almost sounded like a G).
But not surprisingly, it seems that other non-Hurrian peoples in the Late
Bronze Age simply dropped that mysterious Hurrian ghayin completely [as is
the
case with the Urartian cognate, sha-re]. Abdi-Heba of Jerusalem just says
She-ru at Amarna Letter EA 288: 26. This may be “the Urartian way” of
dealing with this Hurrian word, simply dropping the ghayin/ayin. On the
other
hand, Akkadian had no ayin, so this testimony alone is ambiguous as to the
narrow issue of how to deal with the mysterious Hurrian ghayin. [The ruler
of
Jerusalem had no dealings with a mountain south of the Dead Sea, whereas the
important city of Seir just across the Jordan River in the hill country of
the Transjordan was naturally of concern to Jerusalem. So She-ru cannot be
Mt. Seir south of the Dead Sea, but rather must be the important hill country
city of Seir/Shar in the well-wooded Transjordan.] The ruins at Jazer in
the hill country of the Transjordan just east of the Jordan River are simply
called Shar, with no ayin or ghayin. This same city, which was the most
important Late Bronze Age city in the Transjordanian hill country, shows up
at
item #22 on the mid-15th century BCE Thutmose III list as $R-N. [There’s no
ghayin or ayin, so the word actually looks closer to the Urartian version
of this word than to the Hurrian; the final –N is a suffix, either a west
Semitic suffix meaning “place” or “town”, and/or a Hurrian suffix meaning “
the”.] We know that city is in the Transjordan, because item #23 is Tubu in
Amarna Letter EA 205: 3, which per Wm. Moran’s edition of the Amarna Letters
at p. 392 is east of the Sea of Galilee, in the Transjordan; and item #24
is Busruna (Biblical Bezer + the commonplace, optional –N suffix),
well-known in the Transjordan from Amarna Letters EA 197: 13 and EA 199: 13,
with EA
197 being full of Hurrian-type names and news from the Transjordan in
traumatic Year 14 (of Akhenaten’s reign). [$R-N at item #22 on the T III
list
cannot be the plain of Sharon, because no other items in that part of the T
III
list are close to the plain of Sharon. Rather, the next two items are in
the Transjordan, and the previous items are up north by Lebanon.]

Chapter 14 of Genesis is generally acknowledged as being a Late Bronze Age
composition, and as such a reference in such chapter to “Horites” must be
to the historical Hurrians, whom everyone in the Late Bronze Age knew lived
north of the Dead Sea. Genesis 14: 5 is obviously referencing the
Transjordan, so the references to Seir and Horites at Genesis 14: 6 must then
logically be referring to the Hurrians in the well-wooded hill country of the
Transjordan at Seir. Since the Hurrians are closely associated with the
Transjordan at Genesis 14: 6 and in Amarna Letter EA 197, it makes sense that
the
name “Seir”/Shar would derive from a Hurrian word meaning “orchard”, and mean
“well-wooded”.

3. You wrote: “[P]lease stop trying our collective patience with these
way-out theories that have little factual basis.”

When a theory is based on BDB, Gesenius, Arabic cognate words, a Hurrian
cognate word, a Urartian cognate word, and attestations on the T III list, in
the Amarna Letters, and in truly ancient chapter 14 of Genesis as to a Late
Bronze Age city located in the “well-wooded” hill country of the
Transjordan just east of the Jordan River, how does such a theory constitute
a “
way-out theory” that “tries our collective patience”? I have shown
overwhelming
objective evidence from the secular history of the Late Bronze Age that
there was an important city called Seir, often as not spelled without any
ayin
as Shar, in the well-wooded hill country of the Transjordan. It would make
perfect sense for the name of that city to mean “orchard” in Hurrian and “
well-wooded” in west Semitic. Why would such a city be called “hairy”? Item
#22 on the Thutmose III list, Amarna Letter EA 288: 26 from Abdi-Heba of
Jerusalem (with “Heba” being the name of a Hurrian goddess), and Genesis 14:
6 are all Late Bronze Age evidence for the city of Seir/Shar in the “
well-wooded” hill country of the Transjordan. BDB, Gesenius, Arabic cognate
words,
a Hurrian cognate word, a Urartian cognate word, and common sense all
strongly suggest that the meaning of “Seir”/Shar in the well-wooded hill
country
of the Transjordan was: “Well-Wooded”.

Why try to deny the historical and linguistic facts, when those objective
facts fully support the pinpoint historical accuracy of the “four kings
against five” at Genesis 14: 1-11? In particular, the Late Bronze Age Hebrew
author of chapter 14 of Genesis certainly knew his geography, with precision.

The “Horites” at Genesis 14: 6 are the historical Hurrians, whom we know
from Amarna Letter EA 197 historically lived in the Transjordan, with Genesis
14: 6 specifying that, not surprisingly, some of those Hurrians lived at and
near the most important Late Bronze Age city in the well-wooded hill
country city of the Transjordan: Seir/Shar. If you want p-i-n-p-o-i-n-t
historical accuracy in the Bible, where virtually every word in the text is
attested in the well-documented secular history of the Bronze Age, Genesis
14: 5-7
is that text. Here, I have shown that there was an important Late Bronze
Age city called Seir/Shar in the well-wooded hill country of the western
Transjordan, where Hurrians historically lived. That is the city that is
being
referenced in connection with the Horites/Hurrians, with pinpoint historical
accuracy in a Late Bronze Age context, at Genesis 14: 6, as Seir.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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