Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Prof. Yigal Levin:

 

I agree with virtually everything you say in your post.  Your post then concludes:  “Now please, what's your point?”

 

The scholarly view of the name of King David’s scribe, $RYH, is in error.  The majority scholarly view is that it’s a Hebrew name of a Hebrew, and a minority scholarly view holds that although King David’s scribe was an ethnic Hurrian, he changed his name to a Hebrew name.  It’s true that often in the Bible, $RYH is a Hebrew name of a Hebrew, namely $R-YH.  But scholars have failed to realize that, linguistically, $RYH works just as well as a Semiticized Hurrian name of a Hurrian:  $R -Y  [-H] : $ar-ri  -ya Semiticized.  $ar-ri -ya is an attested Hurrian man’s name.  In fact, conceptually it’s virtually identical to a name that most scholars recognize as being a Semiticized Hurrian name:  )W-R  -Y  [-H] : Ev-ri -ya Semiticized [“Uriah”].

 

This thread has shown one important factor that argues against the scholarly view.  Prior to King David’s sons, very few Hebrews in the Bible are portrayed as having west Semitic names ending in -YH that honor YHWH.  Yes, I am largely ignoring Chronicles, which is a special case, but I am taking into account all other books in the Bible.

 

It simply does not make sense to argue, as the majority scholarly view does, that the un-named father of King David’s obscure scribe was one of the first people in the Bible to give his son a west Semitic name ending in -YH that honors YHWH.  The scholarly minority view is correct in realizing that King David’s scribe should be a Hurrian, since Jerusalem at that time was dominated by several families of Hurrian ancestry, having names such as “Uriah” and “Araunah”.  But the scholarly minority view errs in dreaming that King David’s scribe was born with a Hurrian name but changed it later to a Hebrew name ending in -YH that honors YHWH.  Neither in the Bible nor outside of the Bible is there a single documented case of a Hurrian changing his name to a Hebrew name that honored YHWH.

 

The answer is that King David’s scribe has a vintage Hurrian name, that has been Semiticized, just like his contemporaries “Uriah” and “Araunah” in King David’s Jerusalem.  The expected Biblical Hebrew spelling of the attested Hurrian man’s name $ar-ri -ya is $R-Y, and per the names “Uriah” and “Araunah”, we know that the way to Semiticize a Hurrian man’s name was to add a final -H at the end.  That Semiticization is important in showing that these three individuals came from families that had dominated Jerusalem since the Late Bronze Age, when most Hurrians went extinct.

 

“My point” is that the rarity in the Bible of Hebrew names ending in -YH that honor YHWH, prior to King David’s sons, strongly argues against the majority scholarly view that the name of King David’s scribe should be viewed as being the Hebrew name $R-YH of a Hebrew.  Rather, in context, that name should definitely be viewed as being the Semiticized Hurrian name $ar-ri -ya : $R -Y  [-H] of a Hurrian.

 

This is a big deal for me, for I have to have some explanation for the fact that, contra university scholars, (i) the received text of the Patriarchal narratives has dozens of bona fide Hurrian names, and (ii) the rest of the Bible has a fair number of Hurrian names as well, in each case with such Hurrian names being spelled correctly.  Since the Hurrians for the most part went extinct at the end of the 13^th century, how can that possibly be?  One big part of the answer is that Joshua 15: 63 is spot-on historically accurate in asserting that Hurrians/Jebusites remained in Jerusalem “until this very day”.  If Jerusalem had not happened to be the only place in greater Canaan that had prominent Hurrian families in the 1^st millennium BCE, then (a) there’s no way that the Hurrian names in the Patriarchal narratives, written in cuneiform in the Amarna Age, could have come out with letter-for-letter spelling accuracy in the received alphabetical Hebrew text of the Patriarchal narratives, or that (b) later books in the Bible could manage, consistently, to come up with bona fide Hurrian names whenever a Biblical text needs a Hurrian name.

 

Thus it’s very important for my theory of the case, which holds that the Patriarchal narratives were written down in cuneiform using west Semitic common words in the mid-14^th century BCE on 50 tablets that were in the Temple in Jerusalem until the sacking of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, to be able to point to there being Hurrian scribes in 1^st millennium BCE Jerusalem.  The antiquity and historical accuracy of the Patriarchal narratives are on the line here.  I must be able to show Hurrians in King David’s Jerusalem.  That’s why it’s so important to realize that even though the names “Uriah” and “Seraiah” end in -YH, they nevertheless are not Hebrew names of Hebrews that honor YHWH.  Rather, both such names are Semiticized Hurrian names of Hurrians in King David’s Jerusalem.  One key to seeing that, being “my point” on this thread, is to realize that west Semitic names ending in -YH that honor YHWH are very rare in the Bible prior to King David’s sons, so King David’s scribe in Jerusalem should not be expected to have such a rare Hebrew name.  That’s my point.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois