Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Jim:

On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 6:55 AM, <JimStinehart AT aol.com> wrote:

Prof. Yigal Levin:

 

1.  You wrote:  “Jim, even if Sulam were a foreign loanword, that in itself would not be proof of how old the story is.”

 

If SLM is a Hurrian loanword, that would tend to indicate an Amarna Age composition date for the Patriarchal narratives, because we know from the Amarna Letters that that was the only time period when Hurrian princelings dominated the ruling class of Canaan.

What makes you think that Hurrians dominated the ruling class?

For example, the fate of Abdi-Heba parallels that of wicked King Jehoram, a native Jewish king in Jerusalem 2 Chronicles 21. With the archaeological data indicating a late date for the Amarna latters, why shouldn’t we consider that these were just two different names for the same king, a common practice in those days?

 

2.  Now consider whether the scribe of Hurrian princeling ruler IR-Heba of Jerusalem may have been the very person who, after IR-Heba was gone, the first Hebrews retained to record in writing an outline of the Patriarchal narratives, using cuneiform to write pre-Hebrew west Semitic words.  We know from Amarna Letter EA 273, which deals with the identical succession crisis that threatened the first Hebrews’ continued ability to live in their beloved homeland, that tent dwellers in the valley in Year 14 sometimes retained scribes to record their thoughts in writing.  Now consider the following truly  s-t-u-n-n-i-n-g  similarities in the peculiarities of the writing style of IR-Heba’s scribe and the peculiarities of the writing style in the received text of the Patriarchal narratives:

Why shouldn’t we take these “s-t-u-n-n-i-n-g  similarities” to be evidences that we are dealing with a continuation of the same people and nation?

 

(a)  These are the only texts from Canaan that use xireq compaginis in common words.

 

(b)  These are the only texts from Canaan that routinely use Hurrian common words in a positive manner.  [The hapax legomenon SLM has been the focus of this thread.]

You have yet to show that there is any need to consider this a Hurrian word. 

 

(c)  These are the only ancient texts from Canaan that refer to northern Mesopotamia as “Naharim”.  Genesis 24: 10.  Amarna Letter EA 287: 35.

Jews continued calling that area Naharaim long after Genesis, even after the Babylonian Exile in 1 Chronicles 19:6, therefore this is no indication of the date. 

 

(d)  These are the only texts from Canaan that refer to southern Mesopotamia as “Kassite land”.  Genesis 11: 28, 31;  15: 7.  Amarna Letter EA 287: 36.

Why do you think that Genesis was careful to indicate that Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldeans, if not to distinguish that city from Ur of the Sumarians? The same way we distinguish Lafayette, Louisiana from Lafayette, Indiana? Or Evanston, Wyoming from Evanston, Illinois?

 

(e)  Each of these texts refers to the most important princeling in the lives of the first Hebrews, using the same spelling of his historical name:  Milk-i-Ilu.  Genesis 46: 17.  Amarna Letter EA 287: 29. 

A great-great-grandson of Abraham was “the most important princeling in the lives of the first Hebrews”?C’mon! 

 

If IR-Heba’s former scribe was retained by the first Hebrews, shortly after Akhenaten’s death, to record in writing an abbreviated outline of the Patriarchal narratives, that would nicely explain both (i) the foregoing remarkable similarities in the writing peculiarities of the received text of the Patriarchal narratives as compared to IR-Heba’s Amarna Letters, and (ii) the  p-i-n-p-o-i-n-t  historical accuracy of the Patriarchal narratives regarding all the many historical details of the traumatic events that happened in the first Hebrews’ valley [Genesis 37: 14] in Years 12-14.

I’m stunned that Jacob asking Joseph to check up on his brothers, expecting that everything is going well, can be called “traumatic events that happened in the first Hebrews’ valley”. The illogic of this idea floors me.

 

Do you see how very important it is to identify various hapax legomenon like SLM in the Patriarchal narratives as being Hurrian loanwords?

No, not at all. 

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois

 

Jim: you are building speculation upon speculation, before you’ve shown that the first one is to be accepted you’ve already used it as a basis for the next.

I see you’ve abandoned trying to make a linguistic argument for your thesis, relying instead on a highly speculative historical argument, which makes it off limits for this discussion group.

Karl W. Randolph.