Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Arnaud Fournet" <fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr>]

The princeling ruler of Jerusalem in the Amarna Letters is IR-Heba, a name 
that honors the pagan Hurrian goddess Heba (alternatively spelled Khipa, 
etc.).  
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

***

You must be aware that Heba(t) is a Hurrian goddess of Semitic origin: 
Heba(t) is the adjusted pronunciation of Hawwat "Eve".

In addition I found it extremely strange that a Hurrian man would have a name 
containing that goddess. It's more a feature of feminine names to be named 
with Heba(t).

The next point is that usually the first morpheme of Hurrian theophoric names 
is a verb. I understood from another post that IR is a noun. 
This syntactical  structure and the semantic feature of Heba(t) make this 
name very unhurrian-sounding. 

What kind of indications do we have on the "ethnicity" of that person?


Best

A.