Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

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