Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Karl:

 

1.  The problem with the “basket-elevator” idea is not linguistic, but rather is historical and geographical.  Jacob had never seen an Egyptian pulley-system or a Babylonian pulley-system in southern Mesopotamia, so he wouldn’t dream of such things, which did not exist in Canaan.

 

2.  University scholars who argue for an exilic dating of the Patriarchal narratives make a linguistic argument similar to what you make, when you say:  “[SLM is] from a Hebrew root indicating raising above, other derivatives include ramp, trellis for holding up plants, raised highway….”  That works well for a Babylonian ziggurat, which Jews would see during the Exile.  But it doesn’t work for Jacob, who had never seen a ziggurat, and whose religious imagery is not coming from the Babylonians in southern Mesopotamia.

 

Those two ideas are not a major linguistic problem, but they don’t work historically or geographically.

 

3.  The purely linguistic argument only really bites as to the traditional view of a “ladder”.  Contra most modern scholarly analysts, you assert:  “…this derivative indicating a ladder….”  Based on Hebrew linguistics [but not historically or geographically], SLM fits a ziggurat and ramps, not a ladder.  Thus on a linguistic basis, scholar Robert Alter says:  “Mesopotamian ziggurat…the structure envisioned is probably a vast ramp with terraced landings.”

 

4.  You then say:  “…or, as I have always pictured this, a stairway leading upwards.”  But linguistically, “stairway” is like “ladder”, being hard to fit to the alleged Hebrew roots of SLM.  “Ramp” fits much better regarding Hebrew linguistics, but that once again would be a Mesopotamian ziggurat.

 

5.  By contrast, my proposal of a Hurrian loanword eliminates all of these problems.  The Hurrian common word $ilum, which might well come into Hebrew as SLM as a Hurrian loanword during the Amarna Age [being the only time when Hurrian princelings dominated the ruling class of Canaan], literally likely means:  “something that allows (pleasant) relations to occur”.  It might be viewed as effectively meaning:  “gateway”.  Whereas the Hurrian word a-a-pi refers to a tunnel to the netherworld, being a Hurrian concept that definitely is not in evidence in chapter 28 of Genesis, the Hurrian word $ilum would by contrast be a fitting word for the uniquely Hebrew conception of Jacob envisioning a “gateway”/SLM up to the gate of heaven.

 

Unlike all other proposals I have seen, my proposed Hurrian loanword gambit for the mysterious Hebrew common word SLM fits linguistically, historically and geographically, while in no way impinging on the 100% Hebrew-ness and true antiquity of this memorable Hebrew religious concept.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois