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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: Fri, 16 Jul 2010 14:53:41 EDT


Dr. Fournet:

You wrote: “These people had names, why use nicknames if people have
names. How many people in Genesis are not named by their real names?”

1. To answer your second question first, I see only one person in the
Patriarchal narratives as having his historical name: )B-Y-MLK. That’s the
same name as the mid-14th century BCE ruler of Sur [in Greek and English,
“Tyre”
] at (for example) Amarna Letter EA 149: 1. Both in eight Amarna Letters,
and in chapters 21 and 26 of Genesis, Abimelek is always complaining about
not having access to water wells. (No other character in the Amarna Letters
or in the Bible has that complaint.) The reason why the early Hebrew author
of the Patriarchal narratives decided not to use a nickname for the
princeling ruler of the arrogant island city-state of Sur was because this
ruler’s
historical name was a natural pun. The actual meaning of )B-Y-MLK is
probably “(the divine) Father is king”. However, since people in southern
Lebanon often referred to Baal as MLK, or Molech, a second, pagan meaning
would be
“(the divine) Father (is) Molech”. Despite the second meaning which
honors a pagan deity, the early Hebrew author liked this name, because of its
possible third meaning: “father of the king”. Though that probably is not
the real meaning, it is a possible meaning. That highlights the possibility
that perhaps Abimelek is the biological father of Isaac? Or, because in fact
Abimelek is not the biological father of Isaac, it serves to highlight the
much more realistic view that Abraham may well have worried for years that
perhaps Abimelek was the biological father of Isaac (since Sarah was in
Abimelek’s bedroom right before she got pregnant with Isaac, with Sarah never
before having succeeded in getting pregnant by Abraham). This third-level
pun
on the name Ablimelek neatly shows one of the great tribulations that
righteous Abraham had to endure in order to show himself worthy of being
chosen
for greatness by YHWH.

2. All other names of individuals in the Patriarchal narratives are
nicknames, in my view. Many scholars have pointed out that virtually every
name
in the Patriarchal narratives fits the role that the person plays in the
Patriarchal narratives. Also, note that no king of Egypt is called by his
formal historical name, but rather is referred to generically as “Pharaoh”.

Most notably, however, all 17 names and titles of the nine contending
rulers at Genesis 14: 1-2 are nicknames. No Hittite king whose actual name
was “
Tidal” ever did what Biblical Tidal does. But mighty Hittite King
Suppiluliuma I historically did everything that Biblical Tidal is portrayed
as doing
at Genesis 14: 1-11. “Tidal” is a perfect, nasty nickname here, because
Suppiluliuma gained the Hittite throne by the dastardly expedient of
murdering
his own older brother named “Tidal”/Tudhaliya. So “Tidal” at Genesis 14:
1 effectively means “Murderer”. It’s an appropriately pejorative nickname
for a Hittite king who was truly hated by the early Hebrew author of the
Patriarchal narratives. “Chedorlaomer” is a curse in Ugaritic, which is a
suitable pejorative nickname for Ugaritic King Niqmaddu II. “Amraphel”
means “Amorite Splittest” in west Semitic, which is a suitable pejorative
nickname for west Semitic-speaking Aziru, who split off the Amorite state of
Amurru from the rest of Canaan and sold out to the Hittites. (That’s the
historical “iniquity of the Amorites” at Genesis 15: 16, with all of these
various events dating to the mid-14th century BCE.) And Arawa-ka is a
Hurrian
name. The diminutive ending highlights the fact that this is the son, not
the
father. As such, it’s a nasty nickname for Etakkama, a Hurrian princeling
who was re-educated by the Hittites in eastern Anatolia, and who apparently
left his own father high and dry up there in Anatolia, while Etakkama himself
(the son, alone) came back and reclaimed his patrimony of Qadesh on the
Orontes as a Hittite partisan. (If we had time to look at the nicknames used
for the titles of the four attacking rulers, we would see that each of the
last three rulers is effectively called a “Hittite Puppet”, whereas the
mighty Hittite king, Biblical “Tidal”, is appropriately called “king of
nations”
.)

3. No one could do nicknames better than the early Hebrew author of the
Patriarchal narratives. The foregoing is but the tip of the iceberg.

I think I may have said enough for you to be able to see that the perfect
generic, non-pejorative nicknames for the 4 named members of the doomed
league of five rebellious Hurrian parties would be Hurrian common words that
each
effectively means “Hurrian princeling”. Note that every single detail
matches perfectly to everything we know from non-biblical sources about the
Great Syrian War in western Syria, when the Hittites at the head of a
coalition
of four attacking rulers absolutely destroyed a league of five rebellious
Hurrian princelings in the Orontes River Valley in Year 14 of Akhenaten’s
troubled reign: the “four kings against five” at Genesis 14: 9. Every
detail
matches. Since the rebellious princelings were Hurrians, their nicknames
at Genesis 14: 2 need to reveal their status as being Hurrians. That’s why
all four personal names at Genesis 14: 2 are plays on two simple Hurrian
words, ebri and $eni, each of which can effectively mean “Hurrian princeling”.

Every detail matches perfectly. Two of the keys to seeing the pinpoint
historical accuracy of the “four kings against five” at Genesis 14: 1-11 in a
mid-14th century BCE context are as follows: (i) recognize that all 17
names and titles at Genesis 14: 1-2 are nicknames, and (ii) recognize that
all
four personal names at Genesis 14: 2 are Hurrian common words, rendered in
defective early Biblical Hebrew spelling (which omits most vowels), each of
which effectively means, as a generic, non-pejorative, apt nickname:
“Hurrian
princeling”.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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