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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Sahaduta at Genesis 31: 47
  • Date: Mon, 24 May 2010 08:49:32 EDT


I would like to start a new thread on YGR %HDWT), because my own ideas on
the explanation for that phrase have changed considerably since we discussed
it long ago. I believe I have now discovered an historical name from the
Late Bronze Age that is a mere variation on %HDWT), and two cases from the
Late Bronze Age that use the general format of YGR %HDWT) for a name.
The traditional analysis of YGR %HDWT) at Genesis 31: 47 is that it’s an
Aramaic phrase consisting of two Aramaic words. But is it? If scholars are
right about that, the historicity of the Patriarchal narratives is lost.
There’s no attested written Aramaic prior to the 9th century BCE, many
centuries after any historical Patriarchal Age.

The Bible portrays Laban as saying YGR %HDWT), and at Genesis 24: 10 Laban’
s homeland is said to be NHRYM. NHRYM is attested solely in the mid-14th
century BCE. Biblical NHRYM is an exact, letter for letter match to
na-ah-ri-ma by Abdi-Heba of Jerusalem at Amarna Letter EA 288: 35, referring
to the
Hurrian state of Mitanni in northeast Syria, just east of the upper Euphrates
River. At least as to geographical location, that’s exactly where the
Bible portrays Laban as living. The name “Abdi-Heba”, by the way, features a
Hebrew word followed by a Hurrian word. Might a similar pattern apply to YGR
%HDWT), where YGR is a Hebrew word (not an Aramaic word), and $HDWT) is an
Indo-Aryan word with Hurrian characteristics? Moreover, the word “Aram” at
Genesis 24: 10, the word “Aramean” at Genesis 25: 20, and the phrase “
Paddan-Aram” at Genesis 25: 20 (all of which apply to Laban) also are all
fully
consistent with a mid-14th century BCE timeframe, long before the emergence
of the written language of Aramaic: “[R]eferences to individual Arameans
occur in the Ugaritic texts along with a reference in a fourteenth century
cuneiform text to eqleti aramima, ‘the fields of the Arameans’.” John Van
Seters, “Abraham in History and Tradition” (1975), at p. 30. Thus with the
possible exception of the phrase YGR %HDWT) itself, which will be examined in
this thread, everything else about this story fits the mid-14th century BCE
perfectly.

I myself do not see either YGR or %HDWT) as being an Aramaic word, or as
reflecting the 1st millennium BCE in any way, shape or form. But before
getting to my ideas, it is important to discuss the scholarly view of YGR
%HDWT)
first. Here are some preliminary weaknesses that I see in the scholarly
analysis.

1. Genesis 31: 47 says that YGR %HDWT) and GL(D are alternative names for
the same place. We all call that place Gilead, which is close to GL(D. By
sharp contrast, as far as I can determine, in 5,000 years of human history
no Aramaic-speaking person in secular history has ever called that place YGR
%HDWT), or anything remotely similar.

2. Furthermore, I myself know no Aramaic geographical place names, or
Aramaic proper names, that are similar to, or have the same format as, YGR
%HDWT). If that’s right, then why would we think that YGR %HDWT) is an
Aramaic
geographical place name?

3. If scholars are right that Genesis 31: 47 is mid-1st millennium BCE
fiction, then why didn’t the Hebrew or Jewish author use the e-x-a-c-t
equivalent of GL(D in Aramaic? That would be GDR SHDWT, not YGR %HDWT).

Whether Genesis 31: 47 is fictional or not, and regardless of its
composition date, if YGR %HDWT) is Aramaic, as scholars insist, then why
isn’t YGR
%HDWT) either (a) the exact equivalent of GL(D, and/or (b) an attested
Aramaic
phrase for Gilead? Why is it neither? Shouldn’t we then wonder whether it’
s even Aramaic at all?

4. The scholarly view would have much more credence if scholars, before
concluding that the phrase is Aramaic, had first analyzed YGR %HDWT) in terms
of the languages that were spoken at NHRYM, that is, in northeast Syria in
the mid-14th century BCE. The Bible portrays Laban as saying YGR %HDWT), and
at Genesis 24: 10 the Bible portrays NHRYM as being Laban’s homeland. But
to the best of my knowledge, no scholar has ever done an analysis of YGR
%HDWT) on the basis of languages attested at NHRYM. Important proper names
at
NHRYM historically were usually based on Sanskrit words, being Indo-Aryan,
but often having Hurrian characteristics. (My own prior mistake, I am
embarrassed to say, was to try to analyze %HDWT) in terms of the common
language
that was used at NHRYM, namely Hurrian. But that is non-historical, because
the names of most of the rulers of NHRYM were Indo-Aryan, not Hurrian.) If
and as long as no scholar has examined %HDWT) as possibly being composed of
Sanskrit words with Hurrian characteristics (as rendered in Biblical
Hebrew), and compared %HDWT) to actual historical names from the mid-14th
century
BCE, and asked whether such a word with Hurrian characteristics could be
preceded by a Hebrew word [such as in the name “Abdi-Heba”], how can we be
sure
that scholars are right in insisting that YGR %HDWT) is some peculiar form
of Aramaic, a language that is not even attested as existing when NHRYM is
attested in secular history? In fact, %HDWT) with that spelling is not
attested as an Aramaic word until after 200 BCE. Something seems fishy here.
If
there has n-e-v-e-r been an analysis of YGR %HDWT) in terms of any
language that is historically attested at the time when NHRYM is historically
attested, and since there are obvious problems as noted above with the
Aramaic
analysis, and since everything else in this Biblical story seems to fit the
mid-14th century BCE perfectly, how can we be sure that an Aramaic analysis
(being a 1st millennium BCE written language) is the best possible analysis?

Even before we get to the scholars’ attempts to explain why YGR %HDWT)
features a sin/shin instead of a samekh [a problem which scholars openly
acknowledge], we see that there is a whole battery of other problems with an
Aramaic analysis of YGR %HDWT). In evaluating YGR and %HDWT) [the latter of
which
I see as actually being $HDWT), requiring the sin/shin that’s in the
received text, rather than the sin/shin being a “mistake” for an Aramaic
samekh
as scholars would have it], I myself see neither of those two words at
Genesis 31: 47 as being an Aramaic word. If Laban is reflecting the Hurrian
culture of NHRYM, then Laban would be expected to reference as his witness
Tessup, the all-important Hurrian god of the sky. But instead of using the
Hurrian word Tessup per se, we might properly expect Laban to use as the key
part
of this name the Hurrian version of the Sanskrit word on which the concept
of Tessup is based. Though that might initially seem odd to us today,
historically that was the “Hurrian way” of creating important proper names at
NHRYM, as we know from the Indo-Aryan names of the kings of NHRYM. If we
focus
on the way things were historically at NHRYM, we’ll soon figure out $HDWT).
That Biblical word is letter-for-letter perfect, without any “mistake”,
if we’re willing to consider the Hurrian way of creating important proper
names at NHRYM. There was no Aramaic written language at NHRYM, nor in my
view
is any aspect of YGR $HDWT) at Genesis 31: 47 Aramaic, or in any other way
1st millennium BCE in nature.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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