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- From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
- To: nir AT ccet.ufrn.br, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
- Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] [amarna] Old West Semitic Words
- Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 10:50:10 -0500 (EST)
| Nir 
Cohen: 1.  You wrote:  “it is very difficult for me to accept a 
conjecture that the law of moses was written in any language but 
hebrew” It’s Hebrew, in the sense of 
west Semitic words that for the most part fit classic Biblical Hebrew 
perfectly.  But it’s such west 
Semitic words written in cuneiform, not using an alphabet. If you’re saying that the Patriarchal 
narratives were recorded in alphabetical Hebrew in the Bronze Age, that’s not 
possible.  Just look at how 
rudimentary the Qeiyafa Ostracon is.  
There’s no way that the Qeiyafa Osatracon alphabet could have been used 
to record any significant portion of the sophisticated, complex Torah.  But if, on the other hand, you’re saying 
that the Patriarchal narratives weren’t recorded in writing at all until the 
Iron Age, that won’t work either, because of the pinpoint historically accurate 
details of the first Hebrews’ struggles in Years 12-14 of the Amarna Age that 
are faithfully recorded in the received text.  The Amorite princeling ruler in Years 
12-13 of the valley where the Patriarchs sojourned is given the apt Patriarchal 
nickname of “Mamre the Amorite”, and his historical name is honored and set 
forth in full at Genesis 46: 17:  
MLK  -Y-  )L [Milk-i-Ilu].  There’s no way that anyone in the exilic 
or post-exilic era could come up with details from Years 12-14 like that.   No, all those details must have been 
recorded in the mid-14th century BCE by a contemporary, in cuneiform, 
using west Semitic words.  50 
cuneiform tablets, weighing only about 15 pounds or so in total, would be 
sufficient to record the Patriarchal narratives.  One of the very earliest Hebrew 
traditions, then, dating all the long way back to the Late Bronze Age, would be 
that the Hebrews carted along with them those 50 tablets of sacred Hebrew 
scripture in a sacred chest, wherever they went.  No, we don’t have those 50 cuneiform 
tablets today, but we do have in the received text of the Patriarchal narratives 
how they were transformed into alphabetical Hebrew in the early 7th 
century BCE [with the poetry of Jacob’s Blessings having been put into 
alphabetical Hebrew earlier, as noted in #3 below].  The numbers, proper names, and 
substantive content in the received text of the Patriarchal narratives are all 
redolent of the first Hebrews’ struggles to survive and maintain their homeland 
in the Amarna Age. 2. In a later post you wrote: “jim, the queiyafa ostracon is NOT in cuneiform.” That’s for sure! And that, my good friend, is the point. If you would look at Rollston’s fine article that I cited, you would see how rudimentary the alphabetic system of the Qeiyafa Ostracon was as of 1000 BCE. Neither the Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives, nor Moses, could use such an inadequate writing system to record any substantial portion of the Torah. Not. Meanwhile, the most sophisticated and best writing system known to the ancient world was readily available to the early Hebrews: cuneiform. And we know from the Amarna Letters that cuneiform could easily be used to record west Semitic words. Forget the alphabet. Think cuneiform! That is, cuneiform used to record west Semitic pre-Biblical Hebrew words. Cuneiform worked equally well to record west Semitic words, or Hurrian words, or Akkadian words. 3.  You wrote:  
“cuneiforms were used in the entire region between  Hello, hello?  King David’s scribe was of Hurrian 
ancestry, though his family had lived in  King David’s scribe $ar-ri-iah may indeed 
have been the scribe who advanced the alphabet enough, a mere 50 years or so 
after the dreadful Qeiyafa Ostracon, to be able to record Jacob’s Blessings 
[chapter 49 of Genesis] in alphabetical Hebrew.  By contrast, the non-poetical portions 
of the Patriarchal narratives were not transformed from cuneiform writing of 
west Semitic words into alphabetical Hebrew until the early 7th 
century BCE, when (i) the alphabet had greatly improved, (ii) there was more 
literacy, and (iii) most importantly, King Hezekiah desperately needed a 
religious boost for his devastated kingdom.  That’s why scholars tell us that the 
writing style, as to spelling and grammar, of Jacob’s Blessings is 
11th-10th century BCE, whereas the writing style, as to 
spelling and grammar, of the rest of the Patriarchal narratives is 
7th century BCE. See how everything makes logical sense? Just think cuneiform, with cuneiform being used to write west Semitic words, and then everything falls right into place, just as it should. The first written version of the Patriarchal narratives was really old, dating all the long way back to the mid-14th century. It was written in cuneiform, using west Semitic/pre-Hebrew words that for the most part have a direct equivalent to Biblical Hebrew words. Jim Stinehart | 
- Re: [b-hebrew] [amarna] Old West Semitic Words, JimStinehart, 12/17/2012
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