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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr, uzisilber AT gmail.com
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Asher again
  • Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2010 12:48:47 EDT


Dr. Fournet:

I had written to Uzi: “[J]ust look at all the vintage Hurrian names in the
Patriarchal narratives: $N(R, )RYWK, BR(, BR%(, $M)BR, $N)B, XCCN TMR,
(PRWN, )YLWN, and B)RY. Those are vintage Late Bronze Age Hurrian names that
would have been incomprehensible to all later Biblical authors.”

To that you responded: “I cannot see what makes these names vintage
Hurrian.


What are the vowels exactly in those names?”

You are of course right to focus on the difficult issue of how Hurrian
vowels would be represented (to the extent they are represented at all) in
old
Biblical Hebrew. Consider the following initial thoughts. Ayin/( is used to
represent Hurrian i; aleph/) is used to represent Hurrian e or a; yod/Y
is only used as a second vowel indicator in a Hurrian word where it follows
an earlier aleph, in which case the yod can represent any Hurrian vowel,
including i; vav/W and he/H are not used as vowel indicators in representing
Hurrian words; the vast majority of Hurrian vowels are not represented at
all
in the defective spelling of old Biblical Hebrew, but rather the foregoing
vowel indicators are used (sparingly) only as needed to indicate the
syllable division of these Hurrian words. Using that fairly simple scenario,
all
of the above Biblical names make perfect sense as Hurrian words (though in a
majority of cases not being attested Hurrian names, but rather being Hurrian
common words, which are used in the Patriarchal narratives as names for
Hurrian persons). $N(R is $eni-ra, )RYWK is Arawa-ka, BR( is [after implying
an initial (prosthetic) aleph, which concept also applies to the next two
words as well, with all three words appearing in a single verse, Genesis 14:
2,
and referring to closely related people] eb-ri, BR%( is eb-ri-ssi, $M)BR is
$umi-ebri, $N)B is $ena-b [where the usual i ending changes in Hurrian to a
here, in the meaning “your brother”], XCC-N TMR is xaTSiTSi-na TM-R
[meaning “the wisdom, nine”, which is super-exciting, because Hurrian XCC is
a
rare word with an Akkadian cognate, X%%, so that XCC-N TMR could be the long
form of the Hurrian name “Wisdom”, XCC, whose Akkadian equivalent would be
X%%, whose short form version in turn could well be Ha-si (with a heth) at
Amarna Letter EA 175, so that Biblical XCC-N TMR is Hasi in the Beqa Valley],
(PRWN is i-pi-ri-wa-n [meaning “the (Hurrian) lord of mine”, where I now
see the vav/W as being a consonant and meaning “my” or “of mine”, rather
than being a vowel indicator], )YLWN is i-i-al-la-a-wu-ne, and B)RY is
e-bi-er-i.

Please note that the vast majority of those Biblical names are not attested
Hurrian names. Rather, they are simple Hurrian common words which the
early Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives is using as Hurrian names
[for
Hurrian individuals, who are confusingly referred to in the Biblical text
as “sons of the Hittites” or as just “Hittite”, meaning the historical
Hurrians]. Many of those Biblical names [like BR(] are super-simple Hurrian
common words, being simpler than actual attested Hurrian names [such as
)RYWK,
which is complex in being the east Hurrian/Nuzi version of ebri which
reverses the two consonants, and uses W for B, to which is added a diminutive
ending; but if Richard Hess’s analysis is right as to the name of the
Hurrian
princeling who ran Egypt’s garrison at Kumidu in the Beqa Valley, with such
name arguably being Arawa-na at Amarna Letter EA 198: 4, then that is where
the early Hebrew author would have picked up this slight variant of a complex
Nuzi name]. We must remember that the early Hebrew author of the
Patriarchal narratives only knew a few Hurrian words, mainly ebri/“lord” and
$eni/“
brother” [though he was quite confident in doing many manipulations of these
two basic Hurrian words]. Most of the above Biblical names are simple plays
on those two Hurrian common words, being about the only two Hurrian words
that a contemporary Hebrew audience in the mid-14th century BCE might be
expected to know.

The presence of that plethora of Hurrian names/words in the Patriarchal
narratives is one key indication that the Patriarchal narratives were
composed
in the mid-14th century BCE, with the 14th century BCE being the only time
in history when Hurrian princelings were widespread throughout Canaan.
Although Hurrian personal names continue to be present in northern
Mesopotamia
after 1100 BCE, as you properly point out, the language of Hurrian, and the
Hurrian people as a distinct people, were basically extinct long before that.

Most of the above Biblical names are based on the Hurrian common words ebri
or $eni, whose meanings would have been unknown to the Hebrews soon after
the end of the 14th century BCE.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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