Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Prof. Yigal Levin:

 

You wrote:  “Shlomo Izre'el's article really is interesting – thank you for bringing it to my attention. However your post totally misconstrues what it says. Nowhere does Izre'el call the language of the Amarna letters "Hebrew". He calls it "Canaano-Akkadian", a local literary dialect used by Canaanite scribes who "thought that they were writing Akkadian". So do you consider Canaanite and Hebrew to be identical? Most linguists would say that Hebrew is one of the Iron-Age dialects that developed from Late Bronze Age southern Canaanite. But they are not the same.”

 

Are you sure that my post “totally misconstrues what it [Shlomo Izre’el’s article] says”?  Shlomo Izre’el actually published a pair of articles.  Let me quote here from his other article, which seems to leave open the issue that you see as being an open and shut matter:

 

“Moran [the editor of the Amarna Letters] leans on the later evidence of Biblical Hebrew which is supposed to reflect the Hebrew dialect of Jerusalem.  In this respect, one may note the following:  the Hebrew of the Bible may well reflect the dialect of Jerusalem (at least the bulk of it), but (1) it is a first millennium B.C. dialect, whereas the Amarna evidence is from the second millennium B.C., quite a few centuries earlier;  and (2) it reflects a dialect of Hebrew, the roots of which may have been different from the local Canaanite dialect attested by the scribe of Jerusalem of the Amarna period.  The question remains open, especially when one recalls that the scribe may not have himself originated in Jerusalem, but might have been imported from Syria.”  Shlomo Izre’el, “Vocalized Canaanite:  Cuneiform-Written Canaanite Words in the Amarna Letters:  Some Methodological Remarks”, DS-NELL V, NR. 1-2 (2003), 13-34, at p. 20.  http://www.academia.edu/230041/Vocalized_Canaanite_Cuneiform-Written_Canaanite_Words_in_the_Amarna_Letters_Some_Methodological_remarks

 

Of the 9 west Semitic words that IR-Heba’s scribe wrote, 7 have a direct equivalent in the Hebrew Bible.  (2)  ma-ax-si-ra-mu, “whatever they need” = Deuteronomy 15: 8:  MXSRW;  (3) zu-ru-ux, “arm” = ZR(Y at Genesis 49: 11;  (4) ca-du-uq, “just” = Genesis 38: 26:  CDQH;  (5) la-qa-xu, “they took” = Deuteronomy 31: 26:  LQX;  (6) ga-ag-gi-mi,  “roof” = Deuteronomy 22: 8:  GG [as the root];  (8) $a-de-e, “field” = Genesis 23: 11:  %DH;  and (9) a-ba-da-at, “lose” = Exodus 10: 7:  )BDH.

 

Are you saying that’s not Hebrew?

 

What language, then, did the first Hebrews speak?

 

The 9 “Hebrew” words that I cited are the  o-n-l-y  west Semitic words that IR-Heba’s scribe ever wrote;  almost all of the rest of his Amarna Letters use Akkadian words.  IR-Heba’s scribe did not think that those 9 west Semitic words were " ‘Canaano-Akkadian’, a local literary dialect used by Canaanite scribes who ‘thought that they were writing Akkadian’ ".  You know that.  What Shlomo Izre’el is referring to in the passage you cite is the truly awful, substandard “Akkadian” that is used in the Amarna Letters;  it’s such awful Akkadian that it’s better understood as being Canaanite, using Akkadian vocabulary.  But you of course know that.  I’m not talking about Akkadian!

 

Rather, I’m talking about the only 9 west Semitic words that IR-Heba’s scribe ever wrote, not the thousands of substandard Akkadian words he wrote.

 

1.  Are these 9 west Semitic words “Hebrew”?

 

2.  What is the Biblical Hebrew equivalent of words #1 and #7, which have baffled me, especially since they start with U as its own separate syllable, which to me doesn’t seem like Hebrew.  But the other 7 words fit Biblical Hebrew perfectly, don’t they?

 

Prof. Levin, surely you see the Hebrews as pre-dating the Iron Age, don’t you?  If so, then what language did the early Hebrews speak in the Late Bronze Age?  Didn’t they speak pre-Hebrew, which was quite similar to early Biblical Hebrew?  Aren’t we looking at that pre-Hebrew when we examine the only 9 west Semitic words that IR-Heba’s scribe ever wrote?

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois