Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Ed Walkwitz:
 
You wrote:  “Abram took a new ‘local’ name. I've immigrants to the USA who 
have done that.”
 
No, that’s inconsistent with what the text says.  “And Terah lived seventy 
years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.  Now these [are] the generations of 
Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.”  Genesis 
11: 26-27  We’re told twice that Abraham’s birth name was )B-RM.  That’s a 
virgin pure west Semitic name that would not make sense for a newborn child 
in southern Mesopotamia, while making perfect sense for a newborn child in 
Canaan.  Note also what YHWH says at Genesis 17: 5:  “Neither shall thy name 
any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham;  for a father of 
many nations have I made thee.”  The first Patriarch’s birth name was )B-RM, 
and his divinely-changed name is Abraham.  How could the text be any clearer 
than that?  Abraham’s birth name, being the virgin pure west Semitic name 
)B-RM, is telling us that Abraham and the Hebrews are indigenous to Canaan.
 
The name “Laban” is the same.  It means “white” in Hebrew, and refers to the 
white moon, with Harran being famous as a center of worship of the moon god.  
Akkadian does not have these words or names.
 
As to Aramaic, it’s true that many words and names make sense in both Hebrew 
and Aramaic, both of which are west Semitic languages.  But how late to you 
think the names in the Patriarchal narratives are, as to when they were first 
written down?  Aramaic is not even attested as being in existence prior to 
the 1st millennium BCE, whereas most mainstream scholars agree that at least 
chapter 14 of Genesis was composed centuries before that time period.  “Old 
Aramaic inscriptions are first attested in North Syria and Mesopotamia in the 
ninth century bce….”  Eric M. Meyers, “The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology 
in the Near East, Vol. 4” (1997).
 
If you’re seeing Aramaic as underlying the Patriarchal narratives (as opposed 
to the great influence Aramaic obviously had on post-exilic portions of the 
Bible), then you’re saying that the Patriarchal narratives date to the 1st 
millennium BCE.  That contradicts both the Bronze Age substantive content of 
the Patriarchal narratives, and the ancient nomenclature of the Patriarchal 
narratives, such as the Hurrian proper names in that ancient text.  Unless 
the Patriarchal narratives are 1st millennium BCE fiction, Aramaic does not 
underlie the Patriarchal narratives.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois