Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

From: jimstinehart AT aol.com

1. You wrote:  “Hurrian initial z was a voiceless affricate, it should 
therefore be rendered as tsamekh which was also a voiceless affricate at 
that time.”

But that is not borne out by the historical record, where it is Hurrian Z 
and ssade/C [not tsamekh] that are closely related.  Gelb notes at p. 6 of 
“Nuzi Personal Names” that Z is not distinguished from C/ssade for 
alphabetic purposes in his listing of the Nuzi names, and then adds: 
“Etymological C/ssade is normally expressed by z-containing syllables…;  but 
they are alphabeted not with or near s [%/sin, nor near or with $/shin 
either, and there is no tsamekh/S] but with z because of the interchange of 
C/ssade and z values.”
****
All this is irrelevant.

Tsade is an emphatic consonant, typically a Semitic or at least Afrasian 
phoneme.
None of the Ancient Near East languages outside Afrasian is known to have 
had that kind of consonant.
It does not matter what Semitic tsade is written in cuneiform.
You're trying to show that a word containing a tsade could derive from 
languages with no emphatics.
That's just impossible.

A.
****



2.  You wrote:  ““KUR [country] Mi-zi- ir- ri- e- wə-ni-eš”  This is the 
ergative case (eS) of the syntagm "the one (-ni-) of (-wə-) Egypt (Mi-zi- 
ir- ri- e-)", obviously referring to the Egyptian Ruler.”

Now we’re finally getting somewhere!  Leaving off the ergative case ending, 
let’s see how that same non-Semitic suffix, -we-ni/-WN,
***
This "suffix" is itself two suffixes: wi- genitive and ni- article sg.
whence the name Mizirri "Egypt".
A.
***


works in the name of Leah’s #2 son, who was born near where that famous 
letter came from, and whose mother, who named him, had to that point never 
lived anywhere else:  $M(-WN.  “The one of understanding.”  Nice!  How’s 
that for a Hebrew name [with the Hebrew root $M, in the form of $M(], with 
non-Semitic characteristics?  [Leah gives a creative spin on this, focusing 
solely on the west Semitic root of the name, in saying it means that YHWH 
has “heard and understood” her.]  Or how about the name of Leah’s son #6: 
ZBL-WN?  “The one of dwelling with (my other sons, all of whom are dwelling 
here in eastern Syria/Naharim).”  Hebrew -WN is non-Semitic -we-ni-.  Since 
Leah in Naharim is portrayed as coming up with these names, why wouldn’t the 
endings have a non-Semitic sound?  [Once again, Leah puts a spin solely on 
the west Semitic root of this name, saying it means that Jacob will “dwell 
with” her.]  Or if you don’t like your own phrase “the one of” as the 
meaning of the Biblical Hebrew vav nun/-we-ni-/-WN suffix in these names 
that Leah in Naharim came up with, what then would you propose as an 
alternative meaning of this vav nun/-we-ni-/-WN suffix in the names of these 
two sons of Jacob?
***
$M(-WN with ( cannot be a Hurrian word.
I think you should stop trying to make un-Semitic words which contain 
obviously Semitic sounds.
This is just absurd.
A.
***


3.  You wrote:  “The phonetic reality between simple graphemes -t- and -d- 
is [d].

Which is what real speakers would hear and render as -d-“

Do you really think that these 25 non-Semitic names were told around 
campfires for umpteen generations?  No, they obviously were written down in 
the mid-14th century BCE, and never altered thereafter.  The person who 
wrote down these names knew that XuT-iYa was often written with a T, not a 
D, so that’s the Biblical written rendering.  Even if you were right that 
the pronunciation was D, not T, it’s the written record that counts.
***
This is nonsense.
How could these people possibly know that 3500 years later *we* would 
decipher cuneiform signs as being either Xu-ti-ya or Xu-di-ya in *our* 
system???
The only information at their disposal is actual phonetics [xudiya].
A.
***



4.  You wrote:  “What are the *philological* reasons to think or to doubt 
that Abraham should be born in this period rather than before?”

Prior to the 14th century BCE, there were no non-Semitic princelings in 
Canaan, so there would have been no reason to record 25 non-Semitic names in 
the Patriarchal narratives.  Once you see 25 out of 25 non-Semitic names 
spelled with letter-for-letter accuracy, that sets the composition date as 
being the only time period in which non-Semitic maryannu held sway over many 
cities throughout Canaan (including Jerusalem and Hebron):  the mid-14th 
century BCE -- not earlier, and not later.
***
You claim that
but for the time being, I see nothing.
What are those 25 names??
A.
***


5.  You wrote: “[L]ooking at the genealogies transmitted from David backward 
to Sem….It makes your Battle of Kings contemporary of Tidal = possibly 
Tudaliya (II) ca. 1430 to 1400 BC.”

If we can keep the discussion on the linguistic level, you are of course 
aware of the super-spectacular match between Biblical TD(L and the Hittite 
kingly name “Tudhaliya”, where as confirmed by Ugaritic alphabetic writing, 
that killer Hittite voiced velar fricative is accurately rendered in the 
Biblical text as ghayin.  Very nice.  But on the historical side, no Hittite 
king named “Tudhaliya” ever did any of the things recorded at Genesis 14: 
1-11.  No, all of those things were done by the Hittite king who nefariously 
gained the Hittite throne by murdering his older brother named -- Tudhaliya! 
In a mid-14th century BCE historical context, near the end of the Amarna 
Age,
***
This is too late.
Apparently it's coherent with the time bracket 1450-1400 BC.
A.
***


the Biblical text is 100% accurate in stating that the league of rebellious 
Hurrian princelings formed in Year 13, and that the Hittite-led coalition of 
four attacking rulers crushed that rebellion in Year 14.  We’ve got exact 
year numbers in the Biblical text, and a letter-for-letter rendering of the 
ideal, if pejorative, nickname for mighty Hittite King Suppiluliuma.
***
This is not exactly what the text says.
A.
***


The key linguistic fact is that 25 non-Semitic names in the Patriarchal 
narratives have letter-for-letter spelling accuracy.  And that’s why common 
words and personal names having a -we-ni-/-WN/vav nun suffix are 
concentrated in the last 40 chapters of Genesis.  The only time period in 
5,000 years of human history when the Patriarchal narratives could have been 
composed is the mid-14th century BCE.  That glorious vav nun suffix, with 
the accent on the interior vav, is itself one of the main “*philological* 
reasons to think…that Abraham should be born in this period [the mid-14th 
century BCE]”.
***
This is not coherent with the average generational gap that can be evidenced 
in dozens of known genealogies around the world.
The average gap is between 30 to 33 years. I have calculated with 31 years, 
which is what is found between Sem and Nahor.
Unless you prove that David was not born ca. 1040 BC and that there is not 
fourteen generations but fewer, then Abraham was born ca. 1474 BC.
Your dating is four generations too low.
A.
***


And the same goes for Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Judah as well:  the entire 
text is coming out of, and reflects, the handful of critical years in the 
mid-14th century BCE that witnessed the difficult birth of Judaism, in the 
face of non-Semitic militaristic princelings from Naharim in eastern Syria 
holding sway over much of Canaan.  Think vav nun/-we-ni-/-WN suffix, and 25 
Semitic names in the text with letter-for-letter spelling accuracy, and you’ll 
come to the same super-exciting conclusion as I have.  The Patriarchal 
narratives are much older, and more historically accurate, than university 
scholars realize.  The philological case is clear.  The vav nun suffix tells 
all.
***
I don't understand.
You're making them considerably younger...
Nearly half a millennium younger...

According to your framework Abraham nearly died after the first potential 
attestation of the word Israel on a stela...

Arnaud Fournet.
***