Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

jim,

sorry if i misinterpreted your last answer [just too long!...].  let me see if i got it right this time.
you assume the original name was SHALEM. so far so good - i think most of us agree.

now, it would be highly improbable if  canaanite or hebrew locals in SHALEM had had access to the letters that a scribe of
their rulers (or, worse, of a hurrian ruler in syria ?), wrote in a foreign language using foreign cuneiforms and sent
by personal emissary to distant countries; and subsequently decided voluntarily to add the foreign logogram URU
before the city name.  a process not experienced by any other city in the region: hebron, shkhem etc.

recall that URU, DINGIR etc were added to these letters as a uniformizing code. no nation called their
god DINGIR-BAAL or DINGIR-DAGON just because it appeared so in the messopotamia archives.
so why jerusalem?

in fact, i do not know of any city name of the ancient world in which a truly foreign element (i.e. not
one existing BEFORE and being adopted) was added. say, something like mexico city or minneapolis
but K3-4 older. even mexico city is not called so in mexico, of course. 

so, the only possible reason to have sumerian URU before the name would be by official babylonian nomination. namely, if
URU- in the sumerian correspondence referred to a very particular city title (say, "capital") and if SHALEM at some point gained
from mesopotamia this title and used it as its name.

unless this last hypothesis is confirmed by the sumerologists among us (which i am not), i find it difficult to accept your theory.

nir cohen
 
On Fri, 28 Sep 2012 14:42:55 -0400 (EDT), JimStinehart wrote

>> jim: No, I do not see the first half of 
the name “Jerusalem” as being a Canaanite word.  That is not my theory of the 
case.

In the beginning, ....