Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

George Athas:

You wrote:  “Hurrian names are no more a determining factor of biblical texts 
than Hebrew, Aramaic, Akkadian, or Egyptian names. You've failed to see the 
point that Young was making and actually fall right into the fallacy he was 
outlining. You're swimming in circles in Hurrian-infested waters, Jim. Either 
quit the Hurrian obsession and stick to the issue of early and late biblical 
Hebrew, or else please desist from hijacking an otherwise valuable 
discussion.”

As to dating issues, scholars often point out that Hurrian names disappear in 
non-biblical sources by the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE:

“Hurrian peoples and names are found in the Late Bronze Age (1550-1200 BC).  
Their presence diminished in the following two centuries and disappeared 
altogether at the beginning of the first millennium BC.”  Richard S. Hess, 
“West Semitic Texts and the Book of Joshua”, Bulletin for Biblical Research 7 
(1997), pp. 67-68.

So it is important that scholars also recognize that many of the names at 
Genesis 15: 19-21 appear to be Hurrian names, thereby representing 2nd 
millennium BCE people:

“Palestine also contained other elements, particularly Indo-Aryans and 
Hurrians….  No doubt many of the peoples whom the Bible lists as 
pre-Israelite inhabitants of the land (Hittites, Hivites, Horites, Jebusites, 
Girgashites, Perizzites, etc.), though most of them cannot be identified with 
certainty, represent non-Semitic elements in the population.  Hurrians 
(together with Indo-Aryan elements) were certainly present in Palestine, and 
they must have been fairly numerous, since the Egyptians in this period [the 
13th century BCE] referred to Palestine as Xuru.”  John Bright, A History of 
Israel (2000), p. 116.

If Ian Young can focus attention on the allegedly “Persian words dat in 
Deuteronomy 33.2, raz (“secret”) in Isaiah 24.16, and peladot (“steel”) in 
Nahum 2.4”, then why can’t I counter with 6 Hurrian-based Patriarchal 
nicknames at Genesis 15: 19-21?  What you call my “Hurrian obsession” is what 
I would prefer to characterize as my obsession to show the true antiquity, 
and pinpoint historical accuracy as to the historical setting of, the 
Patriarchal narratives.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois