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  • From: jimstinehart AT aol.com
  • To: kwrandolph AT gmail.com
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] HALOT Etymologies
  • Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2010 22:38:01 -0500


Karl:

You wrote: “You were already told in an earlier message that חת was the name
of one of Canaan’s sons. that this was the land settled by Canaan’s
descendants including the descendants of his sons, making חתי, usually
rendered “Hittite” in English, descendants of Canaan, not an Indo-European
Hittite of a much later time.”

Speaking of “a much later time”, the name KN(-N, which I interpret as being
kina + suffix, is first attested in the Memphis stela of Amenophis II (about
1430 BCE) as Kin‘anu. I see that as being Ki-n‘a-nu, that is, kina + suffix,
where the Egyptians used ‘a to represent a Hurrian vowel. The Karnak
inscription of Seti I (early 13th century BCE) has p3-kn‘n [where p3 means
“the” in Egyptian], which I also interpret as meaning kina + suffix. By
then, Egypt was just using ayin to represent a Hurrian vowel. Ugaritic has
the same, kn‘ny, likely copied verbatim from the Egyptian rendering. That’s
why one sees the ayin representing a Hurrian vowel there, instead of one of
the three Ugaritic alephs. At Alalah: Ki-in-a - nim, Ki-in-a - ni, and
Ki-en-a – ni, which is clearly kina + suffix. The root here is kina, which
is the root of the Hurrian word for “purple”. On at least two occasions, the
spelling of “Canaan” in the Amarna Letters is identical to the spelling of
the full Hurrian word for “purple”: Ki-na-ax-xi. Amarna Letters EA 162: 41;
EA 367: 8. KN(-N, where the Hebrews used Hebrew ayin to represent a Hurrian
vowel, is based on the Hurrian word kina/“purple”, and refers to the fact
that Canaan was famous for its purple dyed wool.

KN(N/“Canaan” comes from the Hurrians, and it’s redolent of the mid-15th
century BCE. XTY comes from the Hurrians as well. It’s the consonantal
version of the most frequently attested Hurrian name at Nuzi, XuT-iYa, or
XTY, meaning “Praise the Lord” or “Praise Te$up”. XTY is redolent of the
mid-14th century BCE, when Te$up-loving and Heba-loving Hurrian princelings
ruled Jerusalem [IR-Heba] and Qiltu [$uwardata], with Qiltu much later being
called the city of Hebron. Genesis 10: 15 is picking up XT, as the root of
XTY, from the mid-14th century BCE composition of the Patriarchal narratives.
XTY has nothing whatsoever to do with the Hittites in eastern Anatolia, but
rather in the Patriarchal narratives is accurately referring to the Hurrians
who historically dominated the cities of Canaan in the mid-14th century BCE.
There were so many Hurrian princelings in Canaan in the Patriarchal Age that
the Patriarchal narratives feature 27 Hurrian names! [Perhaps it’s a
coincidence, but Jacob was age 27 when he went out to Naharim in eastern
Syria, the heart of Hurrianland. The medieval Christian scribes who put
chapter numbers into the Bible didn’t know anything about the Hurrians, of
course, but they had figured out Jacob’s age, and they made the chapter
divisions so that such story occurs in chapter 27 of Genesis.] The presence
of 27 Hurrian names in this Biblical text dates the Patriarchal narratives to
the mid-14th century BCE, thus being an older, and much more historically
accurate, composition than university scholars have heretofore realized.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois






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