Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

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