Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Joel Salomon correctly points out that as to Hebrew, Aramaic is “a 
different (if cognate) language”.  Doesn’t that, in and of itself, indicate 
that 
something has gone terribly wrong in the scholarly view that YGR %HDWT) is 
the 
exact Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew word GL(D?  Note the obvious huge 
difference in the length between YGR %HDWT) and GL(D in these cognate 
languages.  9 letters in two words vs. 4 letters in one word.  If these are 
supposed 
to be exact parallels, which is the scholarly theory of the case, then why 
such a huge difference in length, given that Aramaic and Hebrew are quite 
similar languages?  Something does not seem right here.
 
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, once one dares to challenge the 
traditional analysis (being the apparently unanimous scholarly analysis) of 
YGR 
%HDWT) at Genesis 31: 47 as being an Aramaic phrase consisting of two 
Aramaic words.
 
A.  If the first word was an Aramaic word meaning “heap of stones”, we 
might expect gdr, which means “heap of stones” in Aramaic.  GL in GL(D in 
this 
same verse means “heap of stones” in Hebrew, and scholars routinely try to 
see an exact parallelism between these words.  But instead of GDR, which 
means “heap of stones” in Aramaic, we see YGR, which if it’s an Aramaic word 
at all, would mean “heap” in Aramaic, not “heap of stones”.  Joel Salomon 
thinks I’m asking for too much precision here.  But consider that whereas 
GDR would have been both an exact match to Aramaic and also unambiguous [in 
that the heap of stones would not be a “wall”/GDR in Hebrew], by sharp 
contrast YGR may well in this context be a Hebrew word [not an Aramaic word], 
meaning “fear” (e.g. Deuteronomy 9: 19).  Remember, at Genesis 31: 53 the 
monotheistic Jacob righteously counters Laban’s polytheism by swearing by the 
“
fear” of Isaac [although using a different Hebrew word for “fear”].
 
B.  But enough of YGR for now.  Most of the excitement has naturally 
focused on the big word, %HDWT).  Is that an Aramaic word?  Is that an 
Aramaic 
proper name?  Has any university scholar ever asked if %HDWT) is an Aramaic 
proper name, or at least is an historically-attested form of an Aramaic 
proper 
name?  (I myself have never seen any analysis along those lines.) 
 
In the mid-1st millennium BCE, we see shdwt’ in Aramaic [where S is 
samekh], meaning “testimony” as a common word.
 
1.  The scholarly view that the final aleph/) indicates Old Aramaic is 
questionable.  We see this word in the mid-1st millennium BCE with a final 
aleph, so how is that Old Aramaic?
 
Moreover, if the final aleph means “the”, then we have a lack of 
parallelism.  There’s no Hebrew word for “the” in the Hebrew word GL(D.
 
So even before we get to the main issue that scholars themselves have 
focused on, namely the presence of a sin/shin instead of the samekh that 
would 
rightly be expected in Aramaic, we already see all sorts of problems with the 
scholarly view that YGR %HDWT)  is Aramaic. 
 
2.  Most attention has focused on the inconvenient fact that the first 
letter in %HDWT) at Genesis 31: 47 is a sin or shin, not the samekh that 
would 
be expected in Aramaic.
 
An old 2004 thread on the b-hebrew list may have succinctly summarized the 
scholarly view of the lack of a samekh in this allegedly Aramaic word:
 
“This particular word is attested in Nabatean with sin, and the related &hd 
all over the place in older Aramaic evidence (see DNSI). There is also a 
lot of variation between sin and samekh in Qumran Aramaic material. I've 
personally cataloged several variants in the Enoch mss where one ms has sin 
and 
another samekh. Generally speaking, I think the later Aramaic dialects tend 
to replace sin with samekh, although Sokoloff's DJPA shows significant 
occurrence of sin.
 
Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics”
 
Here are some objections to that analysis:
 
(i)  %HDWT) is not attested in writing by the Nabateans until after 200 
BCE, well over a thousand years after the Patriarchal Age, and then south of 
Canaan, hundreds of miles south of NHRYM.  How does a Nabatean attestation 
from that incredibly late date, and from that incredibly southern locale, 
affect how Laban in NHRYM in northeast Syria would be expected to talk in the 
Patriarchal Age?  Not even the Biblical Minimalists see the Patriarchal 
narratives as having been composed after 200 BCE.
 
Believe it or not, that Nabatean analogy seems to be scholars’ best 
argument, such as it is.  Why no reference to proper names in Aramaic?  Why 
no 
reference to the type of proper names attested regarding NHRYM?  Not only 
does 
George Athas have expertise in Aramaic, but he has also properly advised us 
that what counts is whether the names match.  As far as I can see, there’s no 
match of names here to Aramaic at all.
 
(ii)  Qumran Aramaic is of about the same very late vintage, and once again 
is very far south.  How can that determine how Laban in NHRYM in northeast 
Syria would be expected to talk in the Patriarchal Age?
 
(iii)  More relevant timewise is the comment that “the related &hd [is 
attested?] all over the place in older Aramaic evidence (see DNSI)”.  But 
that’
s only 3 letters, and is not close to being the 6-letter word %HDWT).  And 
how old is “older Aramaic”?  Are we talking about the mid-1st millennium 
BCE, 500-1,000 years after the only attestations of NHRYM in secular history? 
 
(iv)  Also of possible relevance is the statement that “Sokoloff's DJPA 
shows significant occurrence of sin”, but apparently that’s not attested for 
%HDWT).  And what’s the time period involved there?
 
Is that the sum and substance of the scholarly analysis?  No mention of 
whether %HDWT) is attested as being used as a proper name in Aramaic?  No 
mention of what Bronze Age language was used by the people of NHRYM for 
proper 
names?
 
As far as I can tell, in analyzing YGR %HDWT) it seems that scholars have 
not looked at the types of proper names that are historically attested at 
NHRYM.  But Genesis 24: 10 explicitly tells us that Laban lived in NHRYM.  So 
shouldn’t we consider proper names from the Late Bronze Age Hurrian state of 
NHRYM in analyzing YGR %HDWT)?  I understand that mainstream university 
scholars routinely state in their peer-reviewed publications that all this is 
allegedly 1st millennium BCE fiction.  Yet how would they know that, if they 
have never made any attempt to analyze YGR %HDWT) on the basis of any 
language that is attested as being in existence in the Bronze Age?
 
2.  In addition to the above objections, the scholarly site below seems to 
indicate that in Old Aramaic, just as later, a samekh was used to represent 
a normal s sound in Aramaic, which in Hebrew could be a sin.  If so, then 
any claim that the presence of the sin in the Biblical text is an indication 
of Old Aramaic (rather than being an indication of extremely late, common era 
Aramaic) would not be very strong.
 
_http://balshanut.wordpress.com/essays/a-short-introduction-to-aramaic/old-a
ramaic-c-850-to-c-612-bce/_ 
(http://balshanut.wordpress.com/essays/a-short-introduction-to-aramaic/old-aramaic-c-850-to-c-612-bce/)
 
 
If there’s no sin/% for samekh/S attested regarding the Aramaic word shdwt’
 until after 200 BCE, long after the composition date of the Patriarchal 
narratives, then Houston, we’ve got a problem.
 
The closer one looks, the weaker the scholarly Aramaic analysis becomes.
 
3.  If the Nabatean analogy (which is incredibly late and incredibly far 
south) is the best historical example that scholars can come up with 
regarding 
a Biblical story set in northeast Syria in the Bronze Age, then should we 
think that Biblical YGR %HDWT) is bollixed up, non-historical Aramaic?  That 
is how I myself interpret [misinterpret?] the following remark made years 
ago [in 2004] on the b-hebrew list by Yigal Levin:
 
“Following up on our recent discussion, I noticed that the Aramaic word 
"sahaduta" (testemony) in Gen. 31:47 is spelled with a Sin, while in standard 
Aramaic it would be spelled with Samekh. Is this a "Hebraized" spelling, or 
does it reflect use of Sin in early Aramaic. In the Tel Dan inscription 
(apparently early 8th century), not only is "Israel" spelled with a Sin (not 
surprising) but also the word ")sm" in line 9 of fragment A - at least, 
that's 
how Naveh read it - like Hebrew for "put".  Does anyone have any other 
examples of Sin in Aramaic?”
 
But why would a Hebrew author get the Aramaic wrong, allegedly using a 
"Hebraized" spelling of %HDWT), yet get the  e-x-a-c-t, letter-for-letter, 
spelling right for NHRYM, a word attested in the secular history of the 
ancient 
world only in the mid-14th century BCE, 500 years before the first attested 
Aramaic?  And in analyzing this issue regarding the Patriarchal Age, why 
reference only an 8th century BCE inscription, instead of anything from the 
Late 
Bronze Age, when NHRYM was in existence?  Why are scholars so very 
reluctant to reference Bronze Age inscriptions in making their critiques of 
the 
Patriarchal narratives?  Is that kosher?  Shouldn’t scholars at least look at 
the plethora of Late Bronze Age inscriptions that come from the time period 
when NHRYM is attested in secular history?
 
4.  As I previously noted, my own prior mistake here, I am embarrassed to 
say, was to naively look at the ordinary language of the people who lived in 
NHRYM.  But that’s non-historical, because those people usually used a 
different language for their important personal names.  Shouldn’t the 
language 
used in the names of the famous rulers of NHRYM be the language to be looked 
at in analyzing $HDWT)?
 
Remember, if we passively accept the scholarly view that YGR %HDWT) is an 
Aramaic phrase consisting of two Aramaic words [though YGR does not seem 
quite the right word in Aramaic, and %HDWT) is never historically attested 
with 
that spelling in Aramaic except by the Nabateans, a very late, very 
southerly people whose relevance to NHRYM in northeast Syria in the Bronze 
Age seems 
dubious, and the long foreign phrase is definitely not parallel to the 
short Hebrew word], the historicity of the Patriarchal narratives is out the 
window.  Or to make the same point a slightly different way, if there was an 
historical Moses, he likely knew not a single word of written Aramaic!
 
Shouldn’t we at least ask if $HDWT) reflects words that are historically 
attested in the Bronze Age for important personal names at NHRYM?  After all, 
that’s where Genesis 24: 10 tells us Laban lived, and Laban is the one who 
says YGR $HDWT).  The entire historicity of the Patriarchal narratives is 
riding on the language issue of YGR %HDWT) at Genesis 31: 47.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois