Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ishnian" <ishinan AT comcast.net>]

JIM STINEHART:  To the best of my knowledge, no word or name similar to 
"Midianite" is attested in the ancient world for a people or region in Arabia 
(or east  Africa).

--------------------------------------------

ISHINAN:  Try MadA'in SAliH of ThAmuwd in the northern Arabian peninsula 
nearby the modern Saudi town of Tubuwk. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mada%27in_Saleh 


Also mentioned on a carved stele commemorating Sargon's II victory over 
Thamud  ( 705-721)  B.C.   [National Museum of Saudi Arabia, Riyad]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargon_II 

??? ????? ???? ?? ???? ?????? ??????? ??????? ????? ?????? ???? ???
 ?????? ?? ????? ???? ?? ???? ??????? ??????? ????????? ????? ??? ???? ?????? 
?????? ?? ?????? ?????? ????? ???? ??? ??????? ?? ??????? ?????? ?????? ????? 
??? ?????? ??????? ???? ???? ????? ?????? ????? ????.
???? ?????? ??? ???? ??? ??????? ?? ?????? ??????? ??? ???? ???? ????? ??? 
???? ????? ?????? ??? ????? ?? ?????? ?????? ? ???? ??? ??? ???? ???? ?? ??? 
????? ??????? ????? ?????? (721- 705 ?. ?) ??? ??? ?? ??? ????? ?????? ????? 
??????? ??? ????? ?????? ?? ???? ??????? ???????

Best regards


Ishinan Ishibashi
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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] The meaning of "Hebrew"
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George Athas:

In Year 15 of the Amarna Age, there were three ways to refer to northeast 
Syria:

1.  The non-Semitic locals there called it mi-ta-na or mi-ta-a-ni.  With T 
and D often being interchangeable in going between ancient languages, Hebrew 
MDN at Genesis 25: 2 renders mi-ta-na, and with the early Hebrew author 
consistently using Hebrew yod/Y to render the non-Semitic vowel A, Hebrew 
MDYN at Genesis 25: 2 renders mi-ta-a-ni.

2.  In the Amarna Letters, the most common name for northeast Syria is 
Naharim.  That name appears at Genesis 24: 10.

3.  Finally there’s Paddan Aram.  John van Seters at pp. 30-31 of 
“Abraham in History and Tradition” (1974) shows that the northeastern 
Syria area was sometimes referred to in the 14th century BCE as “the fields 
of the Arameans”: 

“[A] few possible references to individual Arameans occur in the Ugaritic 
texts along with a reference in a fourteenth century cuneiform text to eqleti 
aramima, ‘the fields of the Arameans’.  This expression probably points 
to the steppe region in northeastern Syria….  It may correspond to a 
reference in a text from the time of Amenophis III [Akhenaten’s father] 
which mentions pA Armw, ‘the land of the Arameans’.”

So Paddan Aram at Genesis 28: 2 is also vintage Year 15 nomenclature for 
“the fields of the Arameans”/eqleti aramima, that is, northeast Syria in 
the Amarnha Age.

The Hurrian state of Mitanni/Naharim went extinct at the end of the 14th 
century BCE.  Logically this vintage Year 15 nomenclature for northeast Syria 
in the Patriarchal narratives must have been composed and written down in the 
Amarna Age, before Mitanni/Naharim went extinct.  We know that a 
tent-dwelling early Hebrew [similar to Apiru, as it were] living in the 
Ayalon Valley in the Amarna Age would have known to have his composition 
recorded in writing, per Amarna Letter EA 273: 15-24:  

“[M]ay the king [pharaoh Akhenaten], my lord, know that the Apiru wrote to 
Ayyaluna and to Sarxa, and the two sons of Milkilu barely escaped being 
killed.”

Based on the foregoing objective evidence, why do you make fun of my 
assertion that MDN and MDYN at Genesis 25: 2 are deliberately designed to 
reference northeast Syria in the Amarna Age?  By the same token, XBRWN 
[“Hebron”] is xa-va-ru-u-ne, and (BR-Y [“Hebrew”] is E-bi-ir-ya.  All 
of those non-Semitic names are well-attested in the Amarna Age, and they 
match, letter for letter, with what we see in the received text of the 
Patriarchal narratives.  How could multiple first millennium BCE authors like 
JEP be thought to come up with that vintage Year 15 non-Semitic nomenclature? 
 Wouldn’t you agree that most of the names at Genesis 15: 19-21 and Genesis 
14: 2 are non-Semitic?  Why are you so certain that the Patriarchal 
narratives were composed centuries after the Amarna Age by multiple authors 
in the 1st millennium BCE, given the presence of dozens of non-Semitic names 
in the last 40 chapters of Genesis, being names that make sense in the Amarna 
Age and in no other time period in Canaan?  You don’t think that a Hittite 
from Anatolia with a west Semitic name meaning “Fawn” sold Abraham 
Sarah’s gravesite in chapter 23 of Genesis, do you?  Isn’t that more 
likely a Hurrian lord with a Hurrian name meaning “[Hurrian] lord”, all 
of which makes perfect sense in Amarna Age Canaan but not in any other time 
period?  

With scholars not being able to agree as to the origin of the word 
“Hebrew”/(BRY, why not ask if that name, like dozens of other names in 
the Patriarchal narratives, is an Amarna Age non-Semitic name, being 
E-bi-ir-ya and meaning “God Is Lord”?  For a scholar like you who proudly 
bears the title “Dean of Research”, doesn’t that seem to be a fruitful 
avenue for conducting research regarding the historicity and antiquity of the 
Patriarchal narratives?

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois