Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Rolf Furuli:
 
1. You wrote:  “[P]eople speaking a West Semitic language definitely lived in 
the land of
Canaan in the 14th century.  And they even may have worshiped YHWH.”
 
So far so good for the historical accuracy of the Patriarchal narratives in a 
mid-14th century BCE Late Bronze Age historical context.
 
2.  But unfortunately you also wrote:  “[I]n my view the number of loan words 
from other languages in Hebrew will not tell us anything regarding the origin 
of Hebrew or where persons speaking Hebrew lived in ancient times.”
 
You are asking us to ignore the fact that Hebrew has only 70 loanwords from 
Akkadian?  And when Genesis 25: 8 says that Abraham was gathered to his 
people in Canaan, we should ignore that as well and think that 100% of 
Abraham’s ancestors had died and been buried in Mesopotamia?  And the fact 
that virtually all historians see the Hebrews as being indigenous to Canaan 
(or greater Canaan) should also be ignored?
 
We also must ignore the fact that Hebrew has only 40 loanwords from Egyptian? 
 And we are to ignore the fact that Joseph, all of whose predictions have 
come true so far, says to his older half-brothers and one younger 
full-brother at Genesis 50: 24:  “And Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am 
about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land 
[Egypt] to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob’”?  And 
we’re also supposed to ignore the fact that historians have found no trace of 
any long bondage of the Hebrews in Egypt?
 
Rather than the customary approach of ignoring altogether the foregoing six 
objective factors, why not instead admire the  p-i-n-p-o-i-n-t  historical 
accuracy of the Patriarchal narratives in a mid-14th century BCE context?
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois