Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Karl:

 

You wrote:  “[T]here is absolutely no historical evidence to back it up.  None whatsoever.  That includes the claim that the ancient Hebrews didn’t have an alphabetic writing system until late, while the historical evidence points to that the ancient Hebrews brought their alphabetic system to Canaan around 1400 BC with Joshua, only later picked up by the Phoenicians.”

 

South of Lebanon and Syria, there is no significant amount of alphabetical writing attested until well into the 1^st millennium BCE, long after any historical Patriarchal Age.  If we go with what’s historically attested, the only way for the Patriarchal narratives (a long, sophisticated composition) to have been written down in the Bronze Age is by means of Akkadian cuneiform, which can readily be used to write down Canaanite/pre-Hebrew/Hebrew words, including a sophisticated, lengthy composition like the Patriarchal narratives.

 

The telltale sign of a composition that had originally been written down in Akkadian cuneiform instead of alphabetically, and that was only transformed into an alphabetical text many centuries later, is that in such case gutturals will sometimes be confused in non-Hebrew proper names.  That’s inevitable under those circumstances, because Akkadian cuneiform writing cannot distinguish one guttural from another.  [By contrast, there will be no such confusion of gutturals in Hebrew common words, because the scribe in Jerusalem who transformed the Akkadian cuneiform text into alphabetical Biblical Hebrew was a native Biblical Hebrew speaker, who naturally knew the proper spelling of Hebrew common words like the back of his hand.  But such scribe could not reasonably be expected to have much knowledge of exotic foreign proper names from centuries earlier, so he could not guess all the gutturals right in such proper names.]  

 

If the Patriarchal narratives were originally written down in Akkadian cuneiform in the Bronze Age, and then only in the 1^st millennium BCE were finally, for the first time, transformed into alphabetical Hebrew, we can confidently predict in that event that in foreign proper names [but not in Hebrew common words]:  (i) gutturals will sometimes be confused in the received alphabetical text;  but (ii) in all other respects there will be amazing letter-for-letter spelling accuracy of these truly ancient, exotic foreign proper names from various Bronze Age non-Hebrew languages [because they were recorded in  w-r-i-t-i-n-g  by a contemporary].  Neither of those two prominent characteristics could possibly apply to an oral tradition!

 

T-h-a-t  is one key reason why my many threads on exotic non-Hebrew proper names in the Patriarchal narratives are important regarding Biblical Hebrew.  No matter how well a Hebraist knows Biblical Hebrew, he cannot make sense out of any of the following exotic foreign names in the received text of the Patriarchal narratives, because there has been a confusion of gutturals in transforming these proper names from the original Akkadian cuneiform into alphabetical Biblical Hebrew [while in all other respects the spelling in the received text is exactly perfect, regarding all these many different non-Hebrew proper names]:

 

1.  XWBH at Genesis 14: 15.  [The first guttural was intended to be he/H, not heth/X.]

 

2.  The -R( ending of the name of Joseph’s Egyptian priestly father-in-law at Genesis 41: 45.  [The last guttural was intended to be heth/X, not ayin/(.]

 

3.  PR(H at Genesis 12: 15, etc.  [The last guttural was intended to be heth/X, not he/H.]

 

4.  BR( and BR$( at Genesis 14: 2.  [Chapters 14 and 49 of Genesis were transformed into alphabetical Biblical Hebrew 300 years before the rest of the Patriarchal narratives was transformed from Akkadian cuneiform into alphabetical Biblical Hebrew (which is why, uniquely in the Patriarchal narratives, those two chapters have many archaic elements regarding Hebrew  common words).  The non-Indo-European language represented by the names BR( and BR$( has no ayin.  The final guttural ayin/( is a Semiticization.  But centuries later, in names otherwise of that same general type, that same final letter was customarily rendered alphabetically in Hebrew as he/H, rather than as ayin/(, such as )WRYH at II Samuel 11: 3.]

 

Karl, the way to prove that university scholars have underestimated how old the Patriarchal narratives are as a  w-r-i-t-t-e-n  text is to show that exotic proper names in the received text are replete with confusion as to gutturals, yet in all other respects have letter-for-letter spelling accuracy as to attested Bronze Age spellings in these various non-Hebrew languages.  That would never happen regarding an oral tradition, which would get many aspects of archaic foreign proper names mixed up, but would not have any particular confusion regarding gutturals per se.

 

The linguistic key to showing the great antiquity and  p-i-n-p-o-i-n-t  Bronze Age historical accuracy of the Patriarchal narratives is to show that the confusion of gutturals in exotic foreign proper names in the received text is the sure sign of a text that was originally written down in Akkadian cuneiform, not alphabetically.  The reason why that is super-exciting is that there are very few Iron Age texts in Akkadian cuneiform:  “[There are only] “a small number of cuneiform documents from Iron Age Judah”.  Christopher B. Hays, “Death in the Iron Age II and in First Isaiah” (2011), p. 24.  So a Biblical text from south-central Canaan that was originally recorded in Akkadian cuneiform is a Bronze Age text!  That’s the Patriarchal narratives, as shown by the confusion of gutturals in exotic foreign proper names in the received text, with the received text otherwise having letter-for-letter remarkable spelling accuracy in all other respects as to attested spellings in these various non-Hebrew languages.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois