Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Prof. Yigal Levin:

 

You wrote:  “Karl, you've got to be kidding. Who identifies Amalek with the Hyksos, and what do the ‘Amu’ have to do with anything? Where's the evidence?”

 

That’s right.  For heavens sake, the Hyksos were west Semitic-speaking people.  There’s nothing west Semitic about any of the following Biblical names:  Amalekites, Kenites, Kenizzites, Hittites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Jebusites, Hivites.  But university scholars err in asserting that those are non-attested names of non-attested Canaanite peoples.  No, they’re attested Hurrian personal names, being used as clever, apt Patriarchal nicknames for the historical Hurrians who dominated the ruling class of Canaan in the mid-14^th century BCE Patriarchal Age.  Likewise, the expected Biblical Hebrew spelling of “Mitannians” is, once one recognizes that Hebrew yod/Y is being used to render the Hurrian true vowel A, exactly what appears at Genesis 37: 28, letter-for-letter:  MDYN-YM [“Midianites”].  All of the spellings of these non-Semitic names are accurate, and none of these peoples are fictional, non-attested west Semitic-speaking Canaanites.  Why not stick with what’s attested, instead of always hypothesizing fictional, non-attested Canaanite peoples allegedly bearing what are in fact non-Semitic names?  As opposed to the Canaanites, the non-west Semitic-speaking peoples who lived in or near Canaan during the Patriarchal Age usually are referred to in the Bible by non-Semitic Patriarchal nicknames.

 

That’s the same reason why the number that was important to the Hurrians and to no other peoples in 5,000 years of human history -- 318 -- appears smack dab in the middle of Genesis 14: 14.  The early Hebrew author is portraying Abram as being as powerful as a Hurrian princeling.  In the Patriarchal Age, that was quite a compliment.  None of this is fictional or non-attested.  But none of it is west Semitic.  Prof. Levin, you know Biblical Hebrew like the back of your hand.  Surely you of all people can tell a non-Semitic name when you see it -- Amalekites, Kenites, Kenizzites, Hittites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Jebusites, Hivites, Midianites, Ephron, Zohar, Arioch, just to name the first dozen non-Semitic names in the Patriarchal narratives that come to mind.  Prof. Levin, the Patriarchal narratives are much older as a written text, and much more historically accurate, than scholars realize.  These vintage non-Semitic names that permeate the Patriarchal narratives through and through are Exhibit A in that regard.  Not a single one of these names is non-attested, and not one has anything whatsoever to do with Canaanites or any other native west Semitic-speaking peoples.  The converse of knowing Biblical Hebrew so well should be the ability to recognize a non-Semitic name as being a non-Semitic name.

 

Throughout almost all of recorded history, most of the people living in Canaan have been native west Semitic speakers [excluding only the armies and administrators of conquerors such as the Romans, etc.].  All of these native west Semitic-speaking peoples had west Semitic names.  The one major exception to that picture is the mid-14^th century BCE when, per the Amarna Letters, we know that a majority of the ruling class princelings in and near Canaan bore non-Semitic names.  If the Patriarchal narratives were reduced to cuneiform writing during that time period, then of necessity the received text is going to feature dozens of non-Semitic names like Amalekites, Kenites, Kenizzites, Hittites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Jebusites, Hivites, Midianites, Ephron, Zohar, Arioch, etc., all of whom are closely associated with Canaan.  These names, with their pinpoint letter-for-letter spelling accuracy that is historically attested, show how incredibly old the Patriarchal narratives are as a written cuneiform text.  

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois