Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>]

jim,

i do not see any biblical pattern where a word with a final letter X (or, for 
this matter, any final letter) indicates association with the same 
word without that letter. SARAY/SARAH and SERAX could well be mere 
coincidence.

the whole issue of names is a mine field, since  (as we see all around us 
nowadays) names often cross ethnic and linguistic limits with
HUGE frequency and enormous rapidity. here in brazil, for example, 
wellington, washington, wilson and many original names ending 
in "-ton" like neiton are very popular (as PROPER names!), and have nothing 
to do with the latin, indian or black cultures, nor with 
any particular immigration wave. clearly they were initially meant to 
immitate the american culture. this does not mean that the person bearing 
this 
name is less "blood-brazilian" than a guy named traditionally joão or 
henrique. nor would anybody here think of ever 
changing a "wellington" to, say, "wellingtoX".

if you look at the entire biblical genealogical text (chapters like the one 
we are discussing), you will discover great variability of names, 
clearly belonging to different cultures and still mostly without 
extra-biblical confirmation.

it is for this reason that i deliberately avoided discussing ethnicity in 
relation to names like SERAH.  even if the name is not semitic,
its bearer could very vell be "kosher" jewish.

nir cohen

On Thu, 24 May 2012 08:18:55 -0400 (EDT), jimstinehart wrote
> 
> 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
> 
>  

-- 
Open WebMail Project (http://openwebmail.org)