From: "Arnaud Fournet" <fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr>
To: <JimStinehart AT aol.com>, <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Seir and El Paran
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 20:09:24 +0100
From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
Dr. Fournet:
A. You wrote: “1. Serri or Sarri is not a Hurrian word but a Semitic
borrowing.
In all cases, the root is S_r, there is no (.
2. “(God Is) King” cannot be a possible Hurrian name.
In addition Hurrians were not monotheistic.”
Here is the standard translation of Mitanni Letter IV: 115-118:
“As by $eri [$e-e-ir-ri], and your [Egyptian] god our life and our fate are
determined, may the gods guide both of us together, Te$up and Amanu, our
lords [ip-ri-iw-we-$u-u$], our fathers.”
1. Your translation of $e-e-ir-ri as “king” is inadequate, as it is clear
from the context that a divine meaning is intended here. That’s why I said
the implication was “(God Is) King” as the name of a city. As you well
know, the most common second element of a Hurrian name is -iya, being a
generalized theophoric reference.
***
That part of the letter, especially IV: 114-115 is damaged.
It's not even clear that Serri is a member of the next sentence.
In addition, king or lord is always written Sar-ri with two signs, so it's
quite obvious that there is a problem in interpreting Se-e-ir-ri as the same
word.
For your information Sarru is a word that has a lateral fricative in
Proto-Semitic (Cf. sin in HEbrew).
There's a tendency in Hurrian to write that kind of borrowings with lateral
fricatives with a particular set of signs (sa, si11, su).
There's no doubt that the translation of Se-e-ir-ri as "lord" or "king" is
false.
A.
***
2. The Hurrians certainly weren’t monotheistic, as here they reference both
Te$up and Amen.
***
Amanu is clearly the gods of the Egyptians in the letter.
A.
***
3. Your transliteration “$erri” is inadequate, and hides the comparison to
the Biblical spelling. The word is $e-e-ir-ri in the Mitanni Letter (per
the original German transliteration), and $e-e-ri in Amarna Letter EA 288:
26 (per Anson Rainey). Those middle vowels are represented by ayin in
Hebrew. Indeed, the later Hebrew spelling, $(-YR, is fairly close to
$e-e-ir, while not being as close to your truncated $erri.
***
I don't know if you are pulling my legs, but all that is nonsense, right?
A.
***
4. Since Phoenician and Punic authors used ayin to represent an interior
vowel in a name, the early Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives could
use the same technique in recording Hurrian names. $R was not an option
here, because he had to show that this was a multiple-syllable Hurrian name.
$(-R works very nicely.
B. In the context of a sentence (Genesis 14: 6) that is expressly telling
us where XR-Y live:
(a) $(-YR = $e-e-ir-ri = $e-e-ri
(b) )L P-)R-N = eli pu-ur-ni
***
This is nonsense.