Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Christian <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>]

Sorry. What did you say? Could you say that again?

James Christian

On 25 May 2010 15:40, <JimStinehart AT aol.com> wrote:

>
> 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
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