Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Prof. Yigal Levin:

 

You wrote:  “I have no idea what language "Abraham the Hebrew" spoke.  I assume a Western-Semitic dialect.  Probably more than one, since he came from Aram (an anachronism) Naharaim (northern Syria) and migrated to Canaan.”

 

There was no Canaanite per se spoken at the real Naharim, which was located very far away from Canaan in eastern Syria (not northern Syria)/northern Mesopotamia, and in the Amarna Letters refers specifically to the Hurrian great power state of Mitanni.  Linguistically, let’s first compare NXRYM at Genesis 24: 10 [on which you are relying] to the name recorded by IR-Heba’s scribe in Jerusalem at Amarna Letter EA 288: 35:  na-ax-ri-ma.  Although narrative prose alphabetical Hebrew did not exist until after 1000 BCE, we know from my first post on this thread that it was child’s play in the mid-14^th century BCE to use Akkadian-style cuneiform to write down west Semitic/pre-Hebrew words.  I am asserting that what was written down in the Amarna Age, as a written outline of the Patriarchal narratives, in cuneiform using west Semitic/pre-Hebrew words [centuries before narrative prose alphabetical Hebrew came into existence], was na-ax-ri-ma.  When, centuries later, the cuneiform original was changed over into being narrative prose alphabetical Hebrew, the first three segments of na-ax-ri-ma were taken over letter-for-letter as the first three letters at Genesis 24: 10:  NXR.  The ending, perhaps viewed as being -i-ma, was then taken over into alphabetical Hebrew as a standard Hebrew plural ending, -YM.

 

But if this Biblical reference is to the real Naharim [my view], in eastern Syria where no Canaanite was spoken, then we might expect to see a reference to the Hurrians’ own name for their country, which per Amarna Letter EA 104: 21 is mi-ta-ni.  You likely noted in Shlomo Izre’el’s fine article that IR-Heba’s scribe used the same cuneiform marking for both /te/ and /de/.  Accordingly, with dalet/D and tav/T often being indistinguishable in cuneiform [which in my view is the manner by which the first written recording of the Patriarchal narratives was done, way back in the Amarna Age], the MDN and MDYN that we see in the received text at Genesis 25: 2 may likely have originally been intended in cuneiform to be MTN and MTYN.  Adding vowels, the cuneiform rendering of either or both names likely was ­mi-ta-ni, which is the identical spelling that we see in the Amarna Letters.  Thus the NXRYM at Genesis 24: 10 is very likely the real Naharim, which IR-Heba’s scribe spelled na-ax-ri-ma, and which was one and the same place as mi-ta-ni [Biblical Hebrew MDN/MDYN, which more properly should be MTN/MTYN, being the names of two of Abram’s sons borne to him by a minor wife from Naharim/Mitanni], namely the Hurrian great power state of Mitanni in eastern Syria, where no Canaanite was spoken.

 

As I’m sure you will agree, the name “Abram”/)B-RM works perfectly in Canaanite.  So Abram cannot be “from…Naharaim”, as you assert, because no Canaanite per se was spoken at the real Naharim [though perhaps pre-Aramaic was spoken there at that time].  No, Abram and the first Hebrews are indigenous to south-central Canaan, where they preferred to sojourn in a valley only a day’s walk northwest of Jerusalem.  The Patriarchal narratives open with Abram’s father’s family being on a long, one-time-only caravan trip way out east to Ur [you didn’t mention Ur], to buy lapis lazuli at wholesale [the only reason to go to Ur in the Late Bronze Age].  Since the first Hebrews were indigenous to south-central Canaan and routinely sojourned in a valley only a day’s walk northwest of Jerusalem, we should not be surprised to find the first Hebrews in Years 12-14 speaking a west Semitic language that is quite similar to the 9 west Semitic words that IR-Heba’s scribe wrote down in Years 12-14 [while he still worked for the Hurrian princeling IR-Heba, a few years before he later was used by the first Hebrews to write down a comprehensive outline of the Patriarchal narratives, using Akkadian-style cuneiform to write down west Semitic/pre-Hebrew words].  Note that per my first post on this thread, 7 of those 9 words match perfectly to Hebrew words in the Bible.  When you’re looking at those 9 words that I set forth in my first post, you’re looking at a dialect in Jerusalem in Years 12-14 of the Amarna Age that is very close to the dialect that Abram himself spoke [in the identical time period], and that is quite close to, though admittedly not exactly the same as, the early Biblical Hebrew recorded in the Bible.  All three could well be called “Hebrew”.

 

So when YHWH first speaks to Abram at Genesis 12: 1, YHWH is speaking:  Hebrew!

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois