Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Nir Cohen:

1.  You wrote:  “in fact, i suspect the name you quote is abdi-heba, not ir-heba. this is
significant: while "heba" is (perhaps!) related to a hurrian goddess, but
maybe not, "abdi" is (quite certainly!) semitic.”

 

The name “IR-Heba” appears in the Amarna Letters 17 times.  The made-up name “Abdi-Heba” never appears a single time in the Amarna Letters.  IR-Heba’s Amarna Letters contain Hurrian common words and the quintessential Hurrian number 318.  IR-Heba associates mostly with Hurrian princelings:  $uwardata, Endaruta and Surata (per Amarna Letter EA 366).  IR-Heba’s Amarna Letters contain logograms.  There is an attested Hurrian name that, like the name “IR-Heba”, starts with the logogram IR, so we know that the use of the logogram IR does not mandate that IR-Heba is a Canaanite, rather than being a Hurrian princeling.  A majority of the princelings in Canaan in Years 12-14 were Hurrian, not Canaanite.  At p. 176 of “Amarna Personal Names” (1993), Richard S. Hess, the leading scholar of Amarna names, expressly states that “IR-Heba” is a Hurrian name.  Why on earth would a Canaanite have a name that honors the Hurrians’ chief goddess?

 

But on this thread, I want to talk about early  H-e-b-r-e-w  words, not about the Hurrians.

 

2.  You wrote:  “anyway, since i suspect you are referring to the amarna letters, please
check if they were written in hurrian. to the best of my knowledge, they
were mostly written in a unique mixture of akkadian and NW semitic
[see many papers by moran and others]….”

 

Why are you and Prof. Yigal Levin talking about the thousands of substandard Akkadian words that IR-Heba’s scribe wrote?  Who cares about that?  This thread is focusing, rather, on the only 9 west Semitic words that IR-Heba’s scribe ever wrote.  I’m asking if those 9 west Semitic words are indeed “Hebrew”.

 

On this thread, I am talking about early  H-e-b-r-e-w  words.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois