Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Nir Cohen:

 

1.  You wrote:  “…if it can be detected in the old testament that some confusion exists between certain guttural letters, i imagine that transliteration from akkadian is only one among many possible explanations for this confusion.”

 

A key linguistic support for my view that the Patriarchal narratives were originally written down in Akkadian cuneiform about four years after Year 14, using the Canaanite/pre-Hebrew/Hebrew language, is this.  In the received text, (i) there often is a confusion of gutturals in exotic foreign proper names, whereas (ii) all other letters in the received text seem to be letter-for-letter perfect [including all gutturals in Hebrew common words].  The  o-n-l-y  place where one routinely sees wrong letters in the received unpointed Masoretic text of the Patriarchal narratives is regarding gutturals in non-Hebrew proper names.  Such a pattern is antithetical to the scholarly view that the Patriarchal narratives were an oral tradition for centuries:  an oral tradition (i) would have little or no confusion of gutturals in foreign proper names per se, but (ii) would have countless problems with all aspects of the spellings of foreign proper names.  Such a pattern is also antithetical to a traditional religious view that the Patriarchal narratives were at an early date recorded in writing using alphabetical Hebrew:  an early alphabetical tradition (i) would have no confusion of gutturals in foreign proper names, and (ii) would only have occasional scribal sloppiness errors, rarely if ever confusing gutturals.

 

So you see that an essential proof of my view that the Patriarchal narratives are much older as a written text than university scholars realize, having been recorded in Akkadian cuneiform in the late Amarna time period, is that virtually the  o-n-l-y  time one sees spelling errors in the received text is a confusion of gutturals in exotic non-Hebrew proper names, which in all other regards feature perfect Late Bronze Age spellings from various languages.  This issue is a very big deal for my theory of the case.  If there is no confusion of gutturals in foreign proper names in the received text, I’m out of business, because that would mean that the Patriarchal narratives did not start out being a written text in Akkadian cuneiform during the Amarna Age.

 

2.  You wrote:  “the letters H and X are very similar in the "new" aramaic alphabet,
and so it might well be that, for example, HWBH (if indeed H was the original correct choice here, and i really do not know where you got it) changed to XWBH in a much later date than you suppose, by a scribe writing in aramaic letters.”

 

Consider the objective facts there.  In the Amarna Age, we know that the Damascus region was called “the Ubi”.  [Amarna Letter EA 189 at line 12 on the reverse side.]  That would fit H-WBH perfectly, and fits the context of Genesis 14: 15 perfectly.  If the text was originally written in Akkadian cuneiform, what the Jewish scribe in late 7^th century BCE Jerusalem saw as the first letter there was Akkadian cuneiform heth.  Not knowing the Amarna Age name of the Damascus area, he didn’t realize that Akkadian cuneiform heth there was meant to render  H-e-b-r-e-w  he/H, meaning “the” in Hebrew.  He just wrote down Hebrew heth/X, being a very understandable mistake, having nothing whatsoever to do with scribal sloppiness.  Your theory would have it be “by chance” that a scribal sloppiness error happened to occur regarding a guttural in a foreign proper name, even though there are virtually no such guttural errors regarding anything in this long text except foreign proper names.  Note that my explanation is more logical and convincing.

 

3.  You wrote:  “ i am not sure that your claims concerning egyptian names and their cuneiform or semitic transliterations are backed by the egyptologists.”

 

If you looked at what Biblical Egyptologists claim are the explanations of the Biblical Egyptian names near the end of Genesis, you would be absolutely horrified.  For example, it is “unanimously agreed” by university scholars that the Hebrew ssade/C at the beginning of Joseph’s Egyptian name allegedly represents two different Egyptian consonants with two different pronunciations, being both Egyptian dj [alternatively rendered as D]  a-n-d  regular Egyptian d, so that Hebrew ssade allegedly renders the Egyptian word djed [alternatively transliterated as Dd].  It is of course manifestly  i-m-p-o-s-s-i-b-l-e  that a single Hebrew letter could represent two different Egyptian consonants with two different pronunciations!  Lest you think I am misrepresenting the utterly untenable scholarly view here, read it for yourself:

 

“[Joseph’s Egyptian name] Ṣaphnathpane’aḫ is unanimously agreed to be the transliteration of an Egyptian name-type that means ‘God N speaks (or spoke) [djed] and he lives’.  The type begins in the 21^st Dynasty [1070-945 BCE], becomes very common in the ninth through seventh centuries B.C., and thereafter peters out, though sporadic examples survive in Greco-Roman times.”  Donald B. Redford, “Egypt, Canaan and Israel in Ancient Times”, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey (1992), p. 424.

 

As you know, the second letter in Joseph’s Egyptian name at Genesis 41: 45 is peh/P, so the single initial letter Hebrew ssade/C is claimed by scholars, nay is “unanimously agreed” by scholars, to represent both the dj and the d in djed, which is inherently impossible on its face.  The scholarly interpretation of the Biblical Egyptian names near the end of Genesis (not just Joseph’s Egyptian name) cannot possibly stand the light of day.

 

4.  You wrote:  “as to BR( and BR$( , your argument lacks any logical foundation: the fact that "(" is used in CH 14 is not an argument that CH 15 was transliterated from akkadian.”

 

How are you interpreting the names BR( and BR$(?  I see them as being Semiticized Hurrian names, just like “Uriah”.  Hurrian has no ayin [and no he/H either].  Whereas the 10^th century BCE scribe in King David’s Jerusalem used ayin/( to show this Semiticization, the guttural used by the late 7^th century BCE scribe in King Josiah’s Jerusalem is he/H, both in the Semiticized Hurrian name “Keturah” and the Semiticized Hurrian name “Uriah”.

 

5.  To my comment that “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”, you responded:  “is it a fact? is it what you are trying to prove? what is the evidence?”

 

The evidence is that only chapters 14 and 49 of Genesis have frequent archaisms regarding Hebrew common words.  As to Genesis 49:

 

“Most of the Hebrew of Genesis reads quite smoothly.  Gen 49, one of the specimens of archaic poetry in the OT, is an exception to this rule, and its Hebrew will test the mettle of even the best Hebraist.”  Victor P. Hamilton, “The Book of Genesis” (1990), p. 73.

 

Now ask yourself what the only two parts of the Patriarchal narratives are that King David needed to have readily available to support his kingship.  Chapter 14 of Genesis shows a military tradition of the early Hebrews, with King David surpassing Abraham in that regard.  Genesis 49: 8-10 features YHWH saying that Judah will rule over all of the tribes of Israel, which was the theoretical basis for King David’s kingship.  So it’s logical that those two chapters of the Patriarchal narratives, and only those two chapters, were transformed from Akkadian cuneiform to alphabetical Biblical Hebrew in the 10^th century BCE.  By contrast, the rest of the Patriarchal narratives was not rendered into alphabetical Biblical Hebrew until the days of King Josiah, who needed a comprehensive religious foundation to support his attempts to have Jerusalem again become an important political center.

 

6.  You wrote:  “ i have personally nothing against the akkadian hypothesis, i just do not see enough evidence there to argue about it, pro or con.”

 

Each of my posts sets forth additional evidence.  I can only give so many examples in a single post.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois