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  • From: jimstinehart AT aol.com
  • To: nir AT ccet.ufrn.br, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] serah
  • Date: Thu, 24 May 2012 08:18:55 -0400 (EDT)


Nir Cohen:

1. Let me start with your last comment: “the name SERAH is not obviously
female to hebrew ears, how else would the narrator indicate it was a daughter
and not a son?”

(a) Does $RX sound like a Hebrew name to you? Pray tell what would it mean?
I see it as being a non-Semitic name that means “like Sarah”, where (i) the
first two letters, $/%-R, are the first two letters in Sarah’s two names, $RY
and %RH, and (ii) in non-Semitic a final heth/X means “coming from” or
“-like” or “akin to”, etc. [Compare the final heth/X in the name of
Abraham’s father, TRX, where that final heth/X plays the same role in the
intentional non-Semitic pun on that name, which means “coming from the
man”/turu-xi. All 7 Patriarchs and Matriarchs “come from the man” TRX.]
$RX means “like Sarah”, and I see $RX’s situation as being essentially
identical to $RY’s situation, as to the precise manner in which each woman
was brought into the Hebrew family by her husband’s father.

(b) As to clarifying that $RX is a female, what we would have expected, if
$RX is Asher’s blood daughter, is that the text would say “and his daughter”.
But instead, the text mysteriously says “and their sister”. To me, that
alerts us to the key fact that $RX is not Asher’s blood daughter, just as $RY
was not Terah’s blood daughter. Asher did not think of $RX as being his
daughter [as we know from the word “daughter” not being used at Genesis 46:
17], and Terah did not think of $RY [the attested non-Semitic woman’s name
$aru-ya, which does not make sense in west Semitic] as being his “daughter”,
because at Genesis 11: 31 $RY is referred to as being Terah’s
“daughter-in-law”. The text is telling us what is going on, if we pay close
attention to what the text says and does not say.

2. You wrote: “it is even possible that some of the earliest biblical
translations/interpretations, like onklos, introduced alterations/innovations
which influenced the masorah in editing the final form of the OT in ways
which differ from the original text.”

Yes, Onkelos saw Ayalon – Mamre, that is, )LN – Y – MMR), at Genesis 13: 18,
14: 13 and 18: 1, and he deliberately mistranslated that phrase into Aramaic
as “plains of Mamre”. He did that in order to claim, falsely, that the
Patriarchs’ “Hebron” had been located in a locale controlled by the later
state of Judah. The world would be a better place today if Onkelos had not
deliberately mistranslated those key passages.

But Onkelos had nothing to do with $RY or $RX.

3. You wrote: “granted, it is uncommon to find a daughter mentioned in a
biblical genealogical list - so we have a real issue: why here?”

Precisely. No one has understood that for well over 2,000 years now. There
are only two females in the list of 70 Hebrews in chapter 46 of Genesis: (i)
Dinah, who is explicitly referred to as being Jacob’s “daughter”, and (ii)
Beriah’s “sister” $RX.

The reason for including $RX was to confirm that Terah had not acted
wrongfully in having his blood son )BRM [ab-rum in west Semitic, but also
being a deliberate non-Semitic pun, a-ba-ri-im, meaning “lord”, as these
names are indicating a strong non-Semitic influence on the first Hebrews,
including marriage patterns like this] marry a woman who Abraham later
describes as being his “sister”, but who in fact was not Terah’s blood
daughter [with Terah for his part always viewing $RY as being his
“daughter-in-law”, not his “daughter”, per Genesis 11: 31]. That was exactly
what Asher did for his blood son Beriah regarding $RX. Same. For the same
reasons. Same. And with the same good result. Same. The same in every
way. Otherwise, there would be no reason for Genesis 46: 17 to include a
mysterious reference to “their sister $RX”.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois






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