Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

From: JimStinehart AT aol.com

1.  “There is some absurdity in stating that a name ends with a waw when in 
fact
it ends with a vowel, no?”

No, what I’m saying is that the final consonant in these geographical place 
names at Nuzi is a consonantal vav.  Naturally, in the non-Semitic way, that 
final consonant has a following vowel.  But in MGD-W and X3RW, which are 
west Semitic and Egyptian, the final magnificent consonantal vav stands 
alone, without any final written vowel [though presumably in the original 
pronunciation, a prosthetic vowel sound would have been implied after the 
final consonantal vav].
***
Egyptian <X3ru> stands for [xa:ru].
There is no -w-.
This is your invention.
A.
***


2.  You wrote:  “The root/stem is actually hurwu- possibly archaic and 
hurru-
and it cannot be further analyzed.”

Surely you jest.  The root/stem is, rather:  XR.
***
No
The stem is xurru- or xurwu.
It cannot be further analyzed at the present stage of our knowledge.
A.
***


So in Biblical Hebrew you get [as this non-Semitic people’s name] XR-Y, 
which is historically perfect.  On the Israel/Merneptah Stele, you get [as 
the derogatory Egyptian name for Syro-Palestine in the Late Bronze Age] 
X3-RW,
***
For the time being, you have just claimed it was derogatory.
I let you explain why gold statues offered by Mitanni kings to Pharaohs were 
shown all around Egypt at that time.
A.
***


where the 3 is a vowel sound being dreamed up by the Egyptians for ease of 
their pronunciation, and the final vav/W is a consonant that is a suffix, 
being the consonantal genitive case marker that was routinely used in 
non-Semitic for geographical place names.
****
I don't buy that pseudo-dichotomy between Semitic and non-Semitic 
place-names.
There are several sets of non-Semitic place names.
A.
***


The key is to note the presence of the consonantal vav/W after the XR 
root/stem of the name.

3.  You wrote:  “There is no basis for this claim.  Kharu is an ethnonym for 
Syrian (=Hurrian) people.”

What you assert has “no basis” is in fact the received wisdom of university 
scholars.  As I quoted Anson Rainey, the #1 Biblical geographer in the 
world:  “The fourth line from the top and the third line from the bottom 
refer to Canaan and Kharu (X3-rw = Xa-ru; = Xurru?), the latter being a 
confirmed synonym for Canaan during this period.”
***
Well
this is proof by authority.
Canaan as far as I understand it refers to the southern part of the Near 
Eastern coast and hinterland.
Xaru is translated "Syrian" by other authors (for example Vercoutter if I 
remember well).
A.
***


4.  You wrote:  “All this strikes me as completely unsupported and 
undocumented in the first place.”

Then please consider the three Biblical names of non-Semitic people in the 
Patriarchal narratives that end in -WN, which in non-Semitic would 
be -we-ni.

(1)  CBY-WN at Genesis 36: 2 is not “Zibeon”, but rather is non-Semitic 
“Tsibeiyaweni”, that is, Tsi-be-iya-we-ni.  The main part of this 
non-Semitic name, CBY/ssade bet yod, can be compared directly to Zi-pa-ya at 
Nuzi (p. 180a of Gelb and Purves, “Nuzi Personal Names”).  (i) C/ssade is 
essentially indistinguishable from Z/zayin in non-Semitic (as noted on your 
website);  (ii) B and P are often interchangeable in non-Semitic (per your 
website);  and (iii) a final -iya in non-Semitic would be expected to have 
a -Y as its early Biblical Hebrew defective spelling equivalent [which 
recorded few vowels].
***
If I understand the reasoning, you're trying to prove that CBYWN is not 
Semitic.
In all cases Hurrian did not have emphatics and Zi-pa-ya cannot be rendered 
in Hebrew as CBYWN.
Logically it should be tsamekh -b- y-
A.
***



The suffix -WN in Hebrew is deliberately designed to be redolent of the 
ubiquitous -we-ni- suffix component of the incredibly long non-Semitic 
suffixes that appear in the famous non-Semitic letter at pp. 23-24 of your 
website.  That -WN/-we-ni suffix was an effective way for the Hebrew author 
to make these names “sound non-Semitic” to his early Hebrew audience.

(2)  )YL-WN at Genesis 26: 34 and Genesis 36: 2 is not “Elon”, but rather is 
non-Semitic “Ayaliweni”, that is, A-ya-li-we-ni.  A-i-li is attested as a 
name at Nuzi (p. 11a).  Alternatively, A-y and A-a are attested as the 
initial element in the two-element name Ay-Aba at Nuzi (p. 11a).  As to the 
non-Semitic name A-y, the yod/Y would be functioning as a true consonant. 
[In my view, a Hebrew yod/Y was probably not used in the original Biblical 
text to represent a non-Semitic vowel.  Rather, either the Hebrew yod/Y is 
functioning as a true consonant, or else it was added centuries later as a 
plene spelling update.]   -li is a non-Semitic suffix (see p. 232b).  As 
noted above, the Hebrew suffix -WN is deliberately designed to “sound 
non-Semitic”.

(3)  (PR-WN at Genesis 23: 8, 10, 13-14, 16-17;  25: 9;  49: 29-30;  50: 13 
is not “Ephron”, but rather is non-Semitic “Epiriweni”, that is, 
E-pi-ri-we-ni.  Since an initial Hebrew ayin is used in Biblical (LM, which 
is the expected spelling of non-Semitic E-la-mi, meaning “Elam”, we know 
that an initial Hebrew ayin can represent a non-Semitic true vowel in 
initial position.  The roots E-pi-ri [from the name Epiri-tu (p. 47b), 
where -tu is a suffix (see p. 268a)] and I-pu-ur [from the name I-pu-ur-ta 
(p. 72b), where -ta is a suffix (see p. 260b)], and the names I-ip-pa-ri (p. 
71b) and A-pa-ri (p. 22b), are attested at Nuzi.

So why do you say that my analysis of these non-Semitic personal names in 
the Patriarchal narratives that have a vav nun suffix is “completely 
unsupported and undocumented”?  The above three non-Semitic names in the 
Biblical text are the “documentation” you seek.  Note how all three Biblical 
names effortlessly match to names at Nuzi.  And in writing or when speaking, 
those Nuzi names would have had added to them a very long string of 
suffixes, which very often included, shortly after the basic name, -we-ni- 
[Biblical -WN], as an integral part of the long non-Semitic suffix sequence 
(per pp. 23-24 of your website).
***
This is not an attested word formation in Hurrian.
A.
***


This Biblical text has pinpoint historical accuracy in reproducing these 
non-Semitic names from the Late Bronze Age.  No multiple 1st millennium BCE 
Hebrew or Jewish authors could possibly have come up with those vintage 
mid-14th century BCE non-Semitic names.  No way.  The Bible is much older 
and more historically accurate than scholars realize.  Just focus on the 
interior vav in all those vav nun suffixes in the Patriarchal narratives and 
you’ll see it.  The interior vav tells the tale.

5.  Speaking of Biblical brilliance regarding non-Semitic names, the classic 
generic non-Semitic name, recorded in 92 (!) different places at Nuzi (pp. 
64a, 65a,b), is XuT-iYa.  [It means “Praise Te$up”, though without literally 
using the name of the chief non-Semitic pagan god Te$up.]  And how would 
that non-Semitic name, XuT-iYa, appear in early Biblical Hebrew defective 
spelling?  Yes, that’s right, exactly as we see in the received text at 
Genesis 15: 20;  23: 10;  25: 9;  26: 34;  36: 2;  49: 29-30;  50: 13; 
namely:  XTY.
***
It should have a -d- not a -t-
A.
***


The Patriarchal narratives literally reek of the world of the mid-14th 
century BCE, when Judaism was borne under adverse circumstances, including 
much of Canaan being ruled by non-Semitic militaristic princelings who 
worshipped Te$up and the goddess Xeba.  The scholarly fantasy that this is 
all somehow multiple authors weaving 1st millennium BCE fiction is a 
non-starter.
***
I'm afraid you are still a long way from proving that.

Arnaud Fournet