Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

The “Missing Link”:  Cuneiform Writing of Early Hebrew Words

 

I believe that all previous analysts have assumed that the first written form of the Patriarchal narratives was in alphabetical Hebrew narrative prose.  On that assumption, scholars have toiled for decades to try to determine the time period of the Hebrew language that appears in the received text of the Patriarchal narratives.  For example, Prof. Yigal Levin made the following apt remark on my prior thread [which I will assume represents the middle of mainstream academic scholarship, and with which I do not significantly disagree]:

 

“Standard Biblical Hebrew seems to be the dialect of late Iron Age Judah (called ‘Yehudit’ in 2 Kings 18)….”

 

However, the academic community has erroneously deduced from that fact that the first time the Patriarchal narratives were reduced to writing [as opposed to being an old oral tradition] was therefore in late Iron Age Judah [8^th - 7^th centuries BCE], with the very first written version of the Patriarchal narratives allegedly being in alphabetical Hebrew narrative prose in that time period:  the late Iron Age Judah era.  Not!

 

I believe I may have come up with the “missing link”, which will enable us to square (i) a Late Bronze Age  w-r-i-t-t-e-n  version of the Patriarchal narratives, many centuries before late Iron Age Judah, with (ii) the fact that it appears that the first alphabetical Hebrew narrative prose written version of the Patriarchal narratives, per the received text, does not appear until the late Iron Age Judah era -- the time period of the Books of Joshua, Judges, I and II Samuel, and I and II Kings.  If, prior to late Iron Age Judah, the Patriarchal narratives had been purely an  o-r-a-l  tradition, then absent a written document the storyline would have changed continuously over the centuries, by being told and re-told around innumerable campfires;  as such, the text could not possibly have pinpoint historical accuracy.  With an ancient contemporary writing being the key to historical accuracy, what then is the “missing link” to the Patriarchal narratives having been recorded in  w-r-i-t-i-n-g  in the Bronze Age by a contemporary? 

 

The “missing link”, I suggest, is that in the Late Bronze Age a comprehensive outline of the Patriarchal narratives was written down, using the medium of cuneiform writing of west Semitic/pre-Hebrew words.  It was similar to the style of the Amarna Letters, except that instead of using cuneiform to write Akkadian words, cuneiform was used to write west Semitic pre-Hebrew words [such as the 9 west Semitic words written in cuneiform by IR-Heba’s scribe at Jerusalem, which I set forth in my prior thread].

 

For sake of argument, I will now on this thread tentatively agree with Prof. Levin’s assertion that the Canaanite of mid-14^th century BCE Jerusalem was not “Hebrew”, but rather was a Canaanite dialect of west Semitic that shares many, but by no means all, words with early Biblical Hebrew.  On that mainstream view of the case, the first written version of the Patriarchal narratives was not done in “Hebrew”, narrowly defined, but it was done in west Semitic/Canaanite.  And it was done using cuneiform [not alphabetical Hebrew] to write west Semitic words.

 

Now, for the first time, we can understand the following apparent paradox:  (a) the substantive content of the Patriarchal narratives has pinpoint historical accuracy regarding the Patriarchal Age of Years 12-14 in the Amarna Age, yet (b) the spelling and grammar conventions of the received text are, by sharp contrast, vintage late Iron Age Judah [except for some poetical passages, especially Jacob’s Blessings in chapter 49 of Genesis].  But you see, there’s no real paradox there at all.  Rather, the sequence was as follows.  First, in the Late Bronze Age, a comprehensive outline of the Patriarchal narratives was reduced to  w-r-i-t-i-n-g , using cuneiform [like the Amarna Letters,  n-o-t  alphabetical Hebrew narrative prose] to write west Semitic pre-Hebrew words.  [Per Amarna Letter EA 273, we know that tent dwellers in a valley in south-central Canaan in Year 14 sometimes had their thoughts recorded in cuneiform writing.]  Then many centuries later, in late Iron Age Judah, this cuneiform text was, for the very first time, changed over to being alphabetical Hebrew narrative prose.  Although there are a few notable archaic anomalies in the text of the Patriarchal narratives [especially regarding poetical passages], nevertheless the vast bulk of the non-poetical Hebrew common words in the received text [as opposed to proper names] seem comfortable in the context of the time period that generated the so-called ‘Deuteronomistic History’.  But thankfully for mankind, the scribes in late Iron Age Judah did not change the substantive content of the Patriarchal narratives when they were changing over the truly ancient cuneiform pre-Hebrew words into alphabetical Hebrew narrative prose.

 

This changes  e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g !  Now we see that it’s not a “miracle”, much less impossible, that the received text of the Patriarchal narratives accurately recalls all the many historical details of Years 12-14.  That’s the case because it was only a few years after those historical events occurred when the first Hebrews used a scribe [such as IR-Heba’s former scribe] to do a formal  w-r-i-t-t-e-n  outline of the Patriarchal narratives, using cuneiform to write down west Semitic pre-Hebrew words.  The substantive content of the Patriarchal narratives has, for the most part, never changed one whit from the Patriarchal Age even unto this very day.  Rather, all that changed was that the cuneiform pre-Hebrew words that had been written down in the Patriarchal Age/Late Bronze Age were changed over, in late Iron Age Judah, to alphabetical Hebrew narrative prose, using for the most part the style for Hebrew non-poetical common words that was au courant in 8^th-7^th century BCE Judah, but not changing the original Amarna Age substantive content.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois