Isaac Fried wrote: “I think it needs be stressed that the geographical name אדוֹם EDOM may have nothing to do with אדוֹם, ADOM, 'red'….”
That’s correct. אדום : “Edom” : Udūmu is a Sanskrit-based Hurrian name of a city located on the northern edge of northwest Gilead in both Amarna Letter EA 256: 24 and the Ugaritic myth of Keret. But despite the fact that Esau’s אדום : “Edom” : Udūmu is not a west Semitic name and its underlying meaning has nothing to do with “red”, it makes for an irresistible pun on the west Semitic word for “red”.
Now here’s the cool part. The s-a-m-e pun is made on אדם : ’dm : adūm vs. אדום : udūmu in both the myth of Keret and at Genesis 25: 30.
Here’s the pun in the 15th century BCE heroic myth of Keret. In order for Keret, an Amorite king from the west coast of Syria, to see the “red”/’dm rouge on the face of the lovely faraway princess in Hurrian-dominated northwest Gilead who will become his bride, he must go to Udm. That is to say, to see and obtain “red”/’dm, Keret must go to udm. ’dm vs. udm.
Now here’s that s-a-m-e pun at Genesis 25: 30: And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with the red [אדם] -- the red thing [אדם] there, for I am faint. Therefore was his name called אדום [: Udūmu].
Is that neat or what? In the Ugaritic myth, “the red”/’adm is red rouge. In the Patriarchal narratives, “the red”/אדם : ’dm : adūm is red stew. But in each case, “the red” is punned with udm : udūmu : אדום.
How can scholars try to tell us that Genesis 25: 30 was ginned up by a Jewish author or editor in pre-exilic or post-exilic Jerusalem? No way! Nobody knew the myth of Keret 800 years after the fact. Not. That pun at both Genesis 25: 30 and in the myth of Keret is Late Bronze Age all the way, in every way.
In fact, the Patriarchal narratives literally r-e-e-k of vintage Late Bronze Age nomenclature, including the Esau as Edom segment of the text. For example, at Genesis 36: 20-21, check out all the nomenclature that is unique to the Late Bronze Age and is never attested thereafter:
חרי : ḫry and אלוףחרי : ulp.ḫry : ullūpu ḫry and “Seir” : שעיר : Ša-aġ-a-ri or Ša-ġa-a-ri and “Lotan” : לוטן : Lu-ub-tu -ni and “Shobal” : שובל : Še-wi-be-lu and “Zibeon” : צבעון : Ṣi-be-ġe-en-ni and “Anah” : ענה : E-na-gi or E-ni-ge and “Dishon” : דשון : Dai-še-en-ni and “Ezer” : אצר : Iṣ-ri and “Dishan” : דשן : Dai-še-ni. Whew! That’s a lot of Late Bronze Age nomenclature in two verses of Biblical text.
How can university scholars try to tell us that the Esau as Edom segment of the Patriarchal narratives was ginned up in 7th century BCE Jerusalem? No way. As I was saying, Genesis 36: 20-21 literally r-e-e-k-s of vintage Late Bronze Age nomenclature.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
Genesis 25: 30: אדם vs. אדום
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Isaac Fried
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Re: Genesis 25: 30: אדם vs. אדום
Since I brought it up, I will say more on it. יְרִיקָה, YRIYQAH, 'spitting',and ירוֹק YAROQ, 'green', are connected "vertically" by their common root ירק YRQ, a bona fide member of the family of roots
דרג, דרך
זרח
טרח, טרק
ירח, ירך, ירק
סרג, סרח, סרך, סרק
צרח, צרך
שרג, שרך, שרק
Thus יְרִיקָה is a זְרִיקָה ZRIYQAH, 'throwing, propelling', of רוֹק (related to רוֹךְ ROK, 'softness') ROQ, 'saliva'. יֶרֶק YEREQ is זֶרֶק ZEREQ, a growing plant sending forth its green (the color of growing plants) branches or שריגים.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
דרג, דרך
זרח
טרח, טרק
ירח, ירך, ירק
סרג, סרח, סרך, סרק
צרח, צרך
שרג, שרך, שרק
Thus יְרִיקָה is a זְרִיקָה ZRIYQAH, 'throwing, propelling', of רוֹק (related to רוֹךְ ROK, 'softness') ROQ, 'saliva'. יֶרֶק YEREQ is זֶרֶק ZEREQ, a growing plant sending forth its green (the color of growing plants) branches or שריגים.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
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Jim Stinehart
- Posts: 352
- Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 11:33 am
Re: Genesis 25: 30: אדם vs. אדום
Esau’s Lifestyle
The Patriarchal narratives portray Esau as having the same lifestyle in “Edom”/Seir as Jacob, both as of the time Esau left Canaan (Genesis 36: 6-7 below), and as of the time Jacob returns from eastern Syria (Genesis 33: 9 below) [always excluding, of course, the two men’s differing religious views]. The text also refers to the “fields” of Edom (Genesis 32: 3 below) -- referring to one or both of cultivated fields and/or pastureland, not to desert or oases or copper mining or the caravan trade:
“6 And Esau took his wives, and his sons, and his daughters, and all the souls of his house, and his cattle, and all his beasts, and all his possessions, that he had acquired in the land of Canaan, and went into a country away from his brother Jacob. 7 For their property was too great for them to dwell together, and the land where they were sojourners could not bear them, because of their cattle.” Genesis 36: 6-7
“3 And [on his way back to Canaan after having been in eastern Syria for 20 years] Jacob sent messengers before his face to Esau his brother, into the land of Seir, the fields of Edom.” Genesis 32: 3
“9 And Esau said, I have enough, my brother; let what thou hast be thine.” Genesis 33: 9 [Darby translation]
Many university scholars tell us that the above passages were dreamed up by a Jew in pre-exilic Jerusalem or post-exilic Jerusalem. Is that scholarly view possible?
Every Jew in pre-exilic Jerusalem and post-exilic Jerusalem knew what life was like south of the Dead Sea, and accordingly knew that, contra the scholarly view: (i) there are no cultivated fields or pastureland south of the Dead Sea, so that the Biblical phrase “the fields of Edom” could not apply to a geographical locale south of the Dead Sea; (ii) no individual had a huge flock of sheep and goats south of the Dead Sea, as was possible for Jacob to have both in eastern Syria and in Canaan, because the land south of the Dead Sea could not support such huge flocks for individuals like Jacob and Esau; and (iii) anyone of wealth in the mid-1st millennium BCE state of Edom south of the Dead Sea owed that wealth either to copper mining or the caravan trade between Egypt and Mesopotamia, having nothing to do with flocks of sheep and goats or agriculture.
Every Jew in pre-exilic Jerusalem and post-exilic Jerusalem knew that the following lifestyles pertained south of the Dead Sea:
“The Arabah [south of the Dead Sea] contains one of the richest sources of copper ore in the entire Eastern Mediterranean. It was here, based on the mining and industrial production of copper, that the state of Edom rose. …To this is the added attraction that Edom lies athwart the east-west Arabian trade routes and the north-south King’s Highway.” Hillel I. Millgram, “The Invention of Monotheistic Ethics”, Volume 1 (2010), pp. 336-337.
“Edomites [are] the people inhabiting the rugged semi-desert terrain of Seir or Edom, below the Dead Sea.” Joan Comay, “Who’s Who in the Old Testament” (2001), p. 120.
Neither Esau, nor any of his חרי : ḫry in-laws in Edom/Seir, are portrayed in Genesis as having anything to do whatsoever with “the mining and industrial production of copper”, the caravan “trade routes” between Egypt and Mesopotamia, or a difficult life with few sheep or goats in “the rugged semi-desert terrain of Seir or Edom, below the Dead Sea”. On the contrary, Esau is portrayed as being as economically successful as Jacob, and maintaining the s-a-m-e lifestyle. Esau takes with him from Canaan to אדום : “Edom” : Udūmu a large flock of sheep and goats, and Esau maintains that large flock of sheep and goats in אדום : “Edom” : Udūmu, thereby prospering in a land outside of Canaan that is very similar to Canaan as to topography and climate -- Late Bronze Age northwest Gilead, just east of the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee. Historically, that is precisely the time and place to find the following Late Bronze Age references at Genesis 36: 20-21: (i) חרי : ḫry : “Hurrians”; (ii) אלוףחרי : ulp.ḫry : ullūpu ḫry : “Hurrian princeling”; (iii) “Seir” : שעיר : Ša-aġ-a-ri or Ša-ġa-a-ri (per Amarna Letter EA 288: 26); and (iv) “Lotan” : לוטן : Lu-ub-tu -ni (the name of oldest attested Hurrian god).
Except for a relative handful of later-added editorial additions, the Patriarchal narratives were composed in the Late Bronze Age, were recorded by a scribe in cuneiform writing in the Late Bronze Age, and accurately reflect the world of the Late Bronze Age. Esau’s אדום : “Edom” : Udūmu in the above-cited Biblical passages and at Genesis 25: 30 is Late Bronze Age northwest Gilead, having nothing to do with (i) the mid-1st millennium BCE or (ii) a geographical locale south of the Dead Sea or (iii) the mid-1st millennium BCE state of Edom south of the Dead Sea or (iv) copper mining or (v) the caravan trade between Egypt and Mesopotamia or (vi) a rugged semi-desert terrain or (vii) pre-exilic Jerusalem or post-exilic Jerusalem. In particular, every single Jew in pre-exilic Jerusalem and post-exilic Jerusalem knew that Jacob’s fine lifestyle in Canaan, featuring a huge flock of sheep and goats, could not be replicated by Esau south of the Dead Sea. Esau's "Edom" is northwest Gilead in the Late Bronze Age.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
The Patriarchal narratives portray Esau as having the same lifestyle in “Edom”/Seir as Jacob, both as of the time Esau left Canaan (Genesis 36: 6-7 below), and as of the time Jacob returns from eastern Syria (Genesis 33: 9 below) [always excluding, of course, the two men’s differing religious views]. The text also refers to the “fields” of Edom (Genesis 32: 3 below) -- referring to one or both of cultivated fields and/or pastureland, not to desert or oases or copper mining or the caravan trade:
“6 And Esau took his wives, and his sons, and his daughters, and all the souls of his house, and his cattle, and all his beasts, and all his possessions, that he had acquired in the land of Canaan, and went into a country away from his brother Jacob. 7 For their property was too great for them to dwell together, and the land where they were sojourners could not bear them, because of their cattle.” Genesis 36: 6-7
“3 And [on his way back to Canaan after having been in eastern Syria for 20 years] Jacob sent messengers before his face to Esau his brother, into the land of Seir, the fields of Edom.” Genesis 32: 3
“9 And Esau said, I have enough, my brother; let what thou hast be thine.” Genesis 33: 9 [Darby translation]
Many university scholars tell us that the above passages were dreamed up by a Jew in pre-exilic Jerusalem or post-exilic Jerusalem. Is that scholarly view possible?
Every Jew in pre-exilic Jerusalem and post-exilic Jerusalem knew what life was like south of the Dead Sea, and accordingly knew that, contra the scholarly view: (i) there are no cultivated fields or pastureland south of the Dead Sea, so that the Biblical phrase “the fields of Edom” could not apply to a geographical locale south of the Dead Sea; (ii) no individual had a huge flock of sheep and goats south of the Dead Sea, as was possible for Jacob to have both in eastern Syria and in Canaan, because the land south of the Dead Sea could not support such huge flocks for individuals like Jacob and Esau; and (iii) anyone of wealth in the mid-1st millennium BCE state of Edom south of the Dead Sea owed that wealth either to copper mining or the caravan trade between Egypt and Mesopotamia, having nothing to do with flocks of sheep and goats or agriculture.
Every Jew in pre-exilic Jerusalem and post-exilic Jerusalem knew that the following lifestyles pertained south of the Dead Sea:
“The Arabah [south of the Dead Sea] contains one of the richest sources of copper ore in the entire Eastern Mediterranean. It was here, based on the mining and industrial production of copper, that the state of Edom rose. …To this is the added attraction that Edom lies athwart the east-west Arabian trade routes and the north-south King’s Highway.” Hillel I. Millgram, “The Invention of Monotheistic Ethics”, Volume 1 (2010), pp. 336-337.
“Edomites [are] the people inhabiting the rugged semi-desert terrain of Seir or Edom, below the Dead Sea.” Joan Comay, “Who’s Who in the Old Testament” (2001), p. 120.
Neither Esau, nor any of his חרי : ḫry in-laws in Edom/Seir, are portrayed in Genesis as having anything to do whatsoever with “the mining and industrial production of copper”, the caravan “trade routes” between Egypt and Mesopotamia, or a difficult life with few sheep or goats in “the rugged semi-desert terrain of Seir or Edom, below the Dead Sea”. On the contrary, Esau is portrayed as being as economically successful as Jacob, and maintaining the s-a-m-e lifestyle. Esau takes with him from Canaan to אדום : “Edom” : Udūmu a large flock of sheep and goats, and Esau maintains that large flock of sheep and goats in אדום : “Edom” : Udūmu, thereby prospering in a land outside of Canaan that is very similar to Canaan as to topography and climate -- Late Bronze Age northwest Gilead, just east of the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee. Historically, that is precisely the time and place to find the following Late Bronze Age references at Genesis 36: 20-21: (i) חרי : ḫry : “Hurrians”; (ii) אלוףחרי : ulp.ḫry : ullūpu ḫry : “Hurrian princeling”; (iii) “Seir” : שעיר : Ša-aġ-a-ri or Ša-ġa-a-ri (per Amarna Letter EA 288: 26); and (iv) “Lotan” : לוטן : Lu-ub-tu -ni (the name of oldest attested Hurrian god).
Except for a relative handful of later-added editorial additions, the Patriarchal narratives were composed in the Late Bronze Age, were recorded by a scribe in cuneiform writing in the Late Bronze Age, and accurately reflect the world of the Late Bronze Age. Esau’s אדום : “Edom” : Udūmu in the above-cited Biblical passages and at Genesis 25: 30 is Late Bronze Age northwest Gilead, having nothing to do with (i) the mid-1st millennium BCE or (ii) a geographical locale south of the Dead Sea or (iii) the mid-1st millennium BCE state of Edom south of the Dead Sea or (iv) copper mining or (v) the caravan trade between Egypt and Mesopotamia or (vi) a rugged semi-desert terrain or (vii) pre-exilic Jerusalem or post-exilic Jerusalem. In particular, every single Jew in pre-exilic Jerusalem and post-exilic Jerusalem knew that Jacob’s fine lifestyle in Canaan, featuring a huge flock of sheep and goats, could not be replicated by Esau south of the Dead Sea. Esau's "Edom" is northwest Gilead in the Late Bronze Age.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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Isaac Fried
- Posts: 1783
- Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 8:32 pm
Re: Genesis 25: 30: אדם vs. אדום
Gen. 25:25
וַיֵּצֵא הָרִאשׁוֹן אַדְמוֹנִי כֻּלּוֹ כְּאַדֶּרֶת שֵׂעָר וַיִּקְרְאוּ שְׁמוֹ עֵשָׂו
NIV: "The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau."
The firstborn was hirsute שעיר entirely covered by reddish-brownish hair. Hence the claim often heard that עשו hints at עשב, 'grass'; and that הר שׂעיר is the abode of the hairy people.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
וַיֵּצֵא הָרִאשׁוֹן אַדְמוֹנִי כֻּלּוֹ כְּאַדֶּרֶת שֵׂעָר וַיִּקְרְאוּ שְׁמוֹ עֵשָׂו
NIV: "The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau."
The firstborn was hirsute שעיר entirely covered by reddish-brownish hair. Hence the claim often heard that עשו hints at עשב, 'grass'; and that הר שׂעיר is the abode of the hairy people.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
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Jim Stinehart
- Posts: 352
- Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 11:33 am
Re: Genesis 25: 30: אדם vs. אדום
Isaac Fried wrote: “NIV: ‘The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau.’ The firstborn was hirsute שעיר entirely covered by reddish-brownish hair. Hence the claim often heard that עשו hints at עשב, 'grass'; and that הר שׂעיר is the abode of the hairy people.”
1. (a) The people of Esau’s אדום : “Edom” : Udumu were not “hairy people”.
(b) Nor were the חרי : ḫry there cave-dwelling troglodytes.
(c) In fact, as leading Genesis scholar Gordon Wenham notes: “The generally positive attitude toward Edom and the Edomites throughout Genesis fits a period long before the exile, when relations between Israel and Edom became very bitter (cf. Obad; Ps 137:7-9).” “Genesis 16-50”, p. 336.
We get an extremely detailed account at Genesis 36: 20-30 of three generations of the חרי : ḫry, who are portrayed, beginning with “Seir”, as being the founders of אדום : “Edom” : Udumu. Uniquely in the Bible, no one in this long genealogy is a blood relative of Esau or the Hebrews. There’s no way that such nifty genealogy would be given for “hairy people” who are cave-dwelling troglodytes. Not. Moreover, the text is clear that Esau is portrayed as flourishing in אדום : “Edom” : Udumu, with Esau being economically as successful as his wealthy younger twin brother Jacob (as noted in my prior post regarding Esau’s lifestyle). There’s a strong implication that Esau’s economic success was due in part to the fact that he married into the princeling [אלוףחרי : ulp.ḫry : ullūpu ḫry] power structure of his חרי : ḫry in-laws in אדום : “Edom” : Udumu.
So No, the people of Esau’s אדום : “Edom” : Udumu were not “hairy people”, and the חרי : ḫry there were not cave-dwelling troglodytes.
2. Now let’s figure out what Esau’s name means and why Rebekah gave her firstborn twin son that odd name. University scholars consider the name “Esau” to be inexplicable: “ ‘Esau’ the name is unknown elsewhere in the ancient Orient, and its etymology is uncertain.” Wenham, p. 176. In fact, “Esau” : עשו is I-ši-ú, where i-ši-ú is the Hurrian common word for “ebony”. In initial position, the Hebrew letter ע is usually an ayin (not a ghayin) rendering the Hurrian true vowel I (or E) as a separate syllable, so עשו is the expected Hebrew spelling of the Hurrian common word i-ši-ú. Note that the following 12 Biblical names start with I in English (KJV) and ayin in Hebrew: Ibri, Iddo, Ir, Ira, Irad, Iram, Iri, Ir-Nahash, Ir-Shemesh, Iru, Ittah-kazin, Ivah. So עשו [“Esau”] is the expected Hebrew spelling of i-ši-ú, which is the Hurrian common word for “ebony”.
Since the two most common colors for ebony are either dark red or black, the name I-ši-ú can imply: “Dark Red Ebony”. Esau’s mother Rebekah, who grew to adulthood in the Hurrian heartland of eastern Syria, presumably had an ethnic Hurrian mother (whose name is not given in the text) and Hurrian maternal grandparents, in which case Rebekah would be expected to be bi-lingual in Hurrian and Hebrew. When her firstborn twin son came out “dark” and “red” (because the newborn infant had so much dark red hair), Rebekah blurted out the Hurrian common word for “dark red ebony”, i-ši-ú, and that became such son’s name. “And the first came out red, all over like a [dark] hairy garment; and they called his name Esau [עשו : I-ši-ú].” Genesis 25: 25. Normally, Rebekah would have carefully chosen a name that would make sense both in Hebrew and Hurrian (as is the case for the name of the first Hebrews’ historical nemesis Yapaḫu, whose name makes sense in both Hurrian and west Semitic because his mother was a Hurrian [Tagi’s daughter], whereas his father, Milkilu, was an Amorite). But this is an unusual case, where Rebekah simply blurted out the first thing that came to her mind upon the birth of the first of her twin sons, and then Isaac and Rebekah decided to keep that Hurrian-only name for their firstborn son’s name.
The fact that Esau, unlike Jacob, has a name that is exclusively a Hurrian name deftly foreshadows that Esau will end up marrying into the Hurrian [חרי : ḫry] princeling [אלוףחרי : ulp.ḫry : ullūpu ḫry] power structure in Late Bronze Age, Hurrian-dominated northwest Gilead -- אדום : “Edom” : Udumu.
The Patriarchal narratives are much older, and much more historically accurate (in a Late Bronze Age context), than university scholars realize.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
1. (a) The people of Esau’s אדום : “Edom” : Udumu were not “hairy people”.
(b) Nor were the חרי : ḫry there cave-dwelling troglodytes.
(c) In fact, as leading Genesis scholar Gordon Wenham notes: “The generally positive attitude toward Edom and the Edomites throughout Genesis fits a period long before the exile, when relations between Israel and Edom became very bitter (cf. Obad; Ps 137:7-9).” “Genesis 16-50”, p. 336.
We get an extremely detailed account at Genesis 36: 20-30 of three generations of the חרי : ḫry, who are portrayed, beginning with “Seir”, as being the founders of אדום : “Edom” : Udumu. Uniquely in the Bible, no one in this long genealogy is a blood relative of Esau or the Hebrews. There’s no way that such nifty genealogy would be given for “hairy people” who are cave-dwelling troglodytes. Not. Moreover, the text is clear that Esau is portrayed as flourishing in אדום : “Edom” : Udumu, with Esau being economically as successful as his wealthy younger twin brother Jacob (as noted in my prior post regarding Esau’s lifestyle). There’s a strong implication that Esau’s economic success was due in part to the fact that he married into the princeling [אלוףחרי : ulp.ḫry : ullūpu ḫry] power structure of his חרי : ḫry in-laws in אדום : “Edom” : Udumu.
So No, the people of Esau’s אדום : “Edom” : Udumu were not “hairy people”, and the חרי : ḫry there were not cave-dwelling troglodytes.
2. Now let’s figure out what Esau’s name means and why Rebekah gave her firstborn twin son that odd name. University scholars consider the name “Esau” to be inexplicable: “ ‘Esau’ the name is unknown elsewhere in the ancient Orient, and its etymology is uncertain.” Wenham, p. 176. In fact, “Esau” : עשו is I-ši-ú, where i-ši-ú is the Hurrian common word for “ebony”. In initial position, the Hebrew letter ע is usually an ayin (not a ghayin) rendering the Hurrian true vowel I (or E) as a separate syllable, so עשו is the expected Hebrew spelling of the Hurrian common word i-ši-ú. Note that the following 12 Biblical names start with I in English (KJV) and ayin in Hebrew: Ibri, Iddo, Ir, Ira, Irad, Iram, Iri, Ir-Nahash, Ir-Shemesh, Iru, Ittah-kazin, Ivah. So עשו [“Esau”] is the expected Hebrew spelling of i-ši-ú, which is the Hurrian common word for “ebony”.
Since the two most common colors for ebony are either dark red or black, the name I-ši-ú can imply: “Dark Red Ebony”. Esau’s mother Rebekah, who grew to adulthood in the Hurrian heartland of eastern Syria, presumably had an ethnic Hurrian mother (whose name is not given in the text) and Hurrian maternal grandparents, in which case Rebekah would be expected to be bi-lingual in Hurrian and Hebrew. When her firstborn twin son came out “dark” and “red” (because the newborn infant had so much dark red hair), Rebekah blurted out the Hurrian common word for “dark red ebony”, i-ši-ú, and that became such son’s name. “And the first came out red, all over like a [dark] hairy garment; and they called his name Esau [עשו : I-ši-ú].” Genesis 25: 25. Normally, Rebekah would have carefully chosen a name that would make sense both in Hebrew and Hurrian (as is the case for the name of the first Hebrews’ historical nemesis Yapaḫu, whose name makes sense in both Hurrian and west Semitic because his mother was a Hurrian [Tagi’s daughter], whereas his father, Milkilu, was an Amorite). But this is an unusual case, where Rebekah simply blurted out the first thing that came to her mind upon the birth of the first of her twin sons, and then Isaac and Rebekah decided to keep that Hurrian-only name for their firstborn son’s name.
The fact that Esau, unlike Jacob, has a name that is exclusively a Hurrian name deftly foreshadows that Esau will end up marrying into the Hurrian [חרי : ḫry] princeling [אלוףחרי : ulp.ḫry : ullūpu ḫry] power structure in Late Bronze Age, Hurrian-dominated northwest Gilead -- אדום : “Edom” : Udumu.
The Patriarchal narratives are much older, and much more historically accurate (in a Late Bronze Age context), than university scholars realize.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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Jemoh66
- Posts: 307
- Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 11:03 pm
Re: Genesis 25: 30: אדם vs. אדום
Hi Jim,
I don't have a problem at all with Tiberian Edom being a late pronunciation of early Udūmu. And I am trying to work out in my mind the proper stages that would lead to MT /edom/.
1. The migration from /u/ to /e/.
2. The dropping of final /u/.
3. The move from /u/ to /o/.
Not necessarily in that order of course.
Also, research in Tiberian prosody would support the supposition that the internal /u/ is long and stressed. It's entirely justifiable to posit that the intitial /u/ was monomoraic. And it would be quite natural to assume that in archaic Hebrew the final /u/ was monomoraic as well, leaving the bimoraic internal /u/ to take the stress. Thus neither the initial or the final /u/'s could take stress. The lack of stress on the final /u/ then would support the eventual drop.
The migration from /u/ to /e/ really intrigues me. Notice below in the IPA vowel chart: I would lean toward the theory that the initial /u/ was /ʉ/. This would support the LXX Ιδουμαια. Here the initial is /ɨ/, the unrounded version of /ʉ/. And notice that /ɘ/ is one feature away from /ɨ/.
So I would suggest Udūmu was initially pronounced /ʉˈdumu/ (with /du/ taking stress, but not necessarily long). Then */ɨdumu/. It's possible at the next stage both initial /ɨ/ and internal /u/ dropped together. If not chronologically, at least logically, the /u/ would take on the feature of /ɘ/ and shift to /o/. Then the final /u/ would naturally drop rather than force the speaker to pronounce a high vowel on an unstressed syllable just after a lower vowel. Also, the /o/ would compensatorily lengthen, producing /ɘˈdom/.
I think there is plenty of time between bronze age and LXX for this pronunciation shift to occur.
Jonathan Mohler
I don't have a problem at all with Tiberian Edom being a late pronunciation of early Udūmu. And I am trying to work out in my mind the proper stages that would lead to MT /edom/.
1. The migration from /u/ to /e/.
2. The dropping of final /u/.
3. The move from /u/ to /o/.
Not necessarily in that order of course.
Also, research in Tiberian prosody would support the supposition that the internal /u/ is long and stressed. It's entirely justifiable to posit that the intitial /u/ was monomoraic. And it would be quite natural to assume that in archaic Hebrew the final /u/ was monomoraic as well, leaving the bimoraic internal /u/ to take the stress. Thus neither the initial or the final /u/'s could take stress. The lack of stress on the final /u/ then would support the eventual drop.
The migration from /u/ to /e/ really intrigues me. Notice below in the IPA vowel chart: I would lean toward the theory that the initial /u/ was /ʉ/. This would support the LXX Ιδουμαια. Here the initial is /ɨ/, the unrounded version of /ʉ/. And notice that /ɘ/ is one feature away from /ɨ/.
So I would suggest Udūmu was initially pronounced /ʉˈdumu/ (with /du/ taking stress, but not necessarily long). Then */ɨdumu/. It's possible at the next stage both initial /ɨ/ and internal /u/ dropped together. If not chronologically, at least logically, the /u/ would take on the feature of /ɘ/ and shift to /o/. Then the final /u/ would naturally drop rather than force the speaker to pronounce a high vowel on an unstressed syllable just after a lower vowel. Also, the /o/ would compensatorily lengthen, producing /ɘˈdom/.
I think there is plenty of time between bronze age and LXX for this pronunciation shift to occur.
Jonathan Mohler
Jonathan E Mohler
Studying for a MA in Intercultural Studies
Baptist Bible Theological Seminary
Studying for a MA in Intercultural Studies
Baptist Bible Theological Seminary
-
Jim Stinehart
- Posts: 352
- Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 11:33 am
Re: Genesis 25: 30: אדם vs. אדום
Jonathan Mohler:
You wrote: “So I would suggest Udūmu was initially pronounced /ʉˈdumu/ (with /du/ taking stress, but not necessarily long). Then */ɨdumu/. It's possible at the next stage both initial /ɨ/ and internal /u/ dropped together. If not chronologically, at least logically, the /u/ would take on the feature of /ɘ/ and shift to /o/. Then the final /u/ would naturally drop rather than force the speaker to pronounce a high vowel on an unstressed syllable just after a lower vowel. Also, the /o/ would compensatorily lengthen, producing /ɘˈdom/. I think there is plenty of time between bronze age and LXX for this pronunciation shift to occur.”
Thank you so much for that linguistic analysis. You may well be right about all of that.
I myself am particularly interested in this part of your analysis: “I would suggest Udūmu was initially pronounced /ʉˈdumu/ (with /du/ taking stress, but not necessarily long).” A key part of my analysis is that in the beginning, the second U in “Edom” was not long.
1. Now here is some new, exciting news on this subject.
(a) Following up on issues that were raised (but not resolved) earlier in this thread, I wrote to Prof. Luis Robert Siddall, who in his recent book “The Reign of Adad-nīrārī III” at p. 67 states that there is the following Neo-Assyrian toponym: Udūmu. His book presents that toponym as having a long U in its second syllable. I said the following in my E-mail to Prof. Siddall: “Based on my own preliminary research on this topic, it seems to me that in fact we don’t know if that second U is a long U or a short U. Per The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of Chicago: (i) there is no Assyrian common word udūmu; Deller is cited, and Deller says: “[for *udūmu (AHw 1402a) read ú-qup(u) GE6. MEŠ] ”; however, (ii) there is a very common Assyrian word meaning “container”: ú-du-ú (pp. 22-25), that on one occasion is attested in the following form: ú-de-e-ma (p. 24). Accordingly, I deduce that ú-du-mu, having an unknown meaning, would likely be misunderstood as being u-dū plus ending, hence your rendering of Udūmu.”
(b) Prof. Siddall was gracious enough to respond to my enquiry, and what he said was quite enlightening. (Remember, in my E-mail to Prof. Siddall, I myself had said nothing whatsoever about either the Bible or “Edom”.) Here is the bulk of what Prof. Siddall said to me in his E-mail that I received just this morning:
“The short answer is we do not have sufficient evidence to be confident in the length of vowels for the toponym, Udumu (Edom). I ascribed the vowel length in the manner I did for two reasons:
- the regular rules for vowel length in Akkadian
- the way Edom is spelt in Biblical Hebrew is mostly with a waw for the o-vowel. Hence, aleph-daleth-waw-mem.
While these reasons are not proof of a long vowel I figured it was reasonable grounds for ascribing the vowel so.”
2. Based in part on what Prof. Siddall said, though based primarily on the additional research I myself have done since starting this thread, I have refined my own analysis of this mysterious Biblical place name in Genesis. So let me set forth here my updated, revised analysis of “Edom” in the Patriarchal narratives.
I see a “cuneiform bias” in evaluating this place name. On my controversial theory of the case, most of the Patriarchal narratives (but not all of it) started out as a cuneiform written text in the Late Amarna time period (mid-14th century BCE): the early tent-dwelling (illiterate) Hebrews in rural southern Canaan hired a scribe to record in cuneiform their grand oral composition -- just as Judah is accurately portrayed as being an illiterate tent-dweller who, as we know from Genesis 38: 18, routinely used the services of a scribe who wrote cuneiform. In my view, in the following 5 places (and only in these 5 places) the geographical place name that KJV transliterates as “Edom” is coming from a Late Amarna Age cuneiform original writing: Genesis 25: 30; 32: 3; 36: 16, 17, 21. (The other 6 references to “Edom” in chapter 36 of Genesis are, by contrast, editorial additions from the 7th century BCE, and in my opinion are referring to a different geographical place in a different time period, namely the conventional interpretation of “Edom”.)
The original name here may have been ud-tu -ma, in which case it would be a Sanskrit-based Hurrian name, where both U’s are short, not long. In any event: (i) its underlying meaning, and perhaps even its language type, was already unknown in the mid-14th century BCE, and (ii) the scribe (whom the early Hebrews had retained for the occasion) recorded this mysterious historical name using cuneiform as if it were a non-existent Akkadian common word udumu or udūmu. Rather than referencing an area south of the Dead Sea, as always heretofore supposed, it is my opinion that in those 5 places in Genesis this name referenced a city on the northern edge of northwest Gilead, just east of the Sea of Galilee, and by such reference intended to refer to northwest Gilead. That same city name is found non-biblically in three other places in the 15th and 14th centuries BCE: (i) ú-du-mu at Amarna Letter EA 256: 24 (a Late Amarna Age letter from the city of Piḫilu, located just east of the Jordan River); (ii) udm in the 15th century BCE Ugaritic myth of Keret (now generally viewed as being at a location east of the Sea of Galilee, and where the other two proper names there, Ḫry and Pbl, are unequivocally Hurrian, so that udm would be expected to be Hurrian as well); and (iii) ì-t-m-m or ’(a)-ta-m-m at item #36 on the 15th century BCE Thutmose III list of places in and near Canaan (where it appears three places after Piḫilu, and two places after the Sea of Galilee). All three of these non-biblical renderings likely reference the same Late Bronze Age city located just east of the Sea of Galilee. Note that if the original were ud-tu -ma, without a long U, it’s not surprising to see this mysterious, inscrutable place name come out as (i) ú-du-mu (cuneiform rendering by a native west Semitic speaker, where vowel length is not indicated by cuneiform writing) or (ii) udm (alphabetical rendering by a native west Semitic speaker) or (iii) ì-t-m-m or ’(a)-ta-m-m (by an Egyptian using phonemic hieroglyphs to mimic local pronunciation). The linguistic key, on my theory of the case, is that originally there was no long U sound anywhere in this place name, and that is why udm and ì-t-m-m (or ’(a)-ta-m-m) are not surprising renderings of this place name.
700 years later, in 7th century BCE Jerusalem, a Jewish scribe had to deal with this mysterious place name that had been recorded in cuneiform as udumu or udūmu. He did not know the meaning, or even what underlying language applied. So “cuneiform bias” kicked in, exactly like Prof. Siddall’s own thought process (as quoted above): this place name seemed like an unknown Akkadian common word udūmu, with the second U being long per, in Prof. Siddall’s helpful wording, “the regular rules for vowel length in Akkadian”. Plus, in order to record the nifty pun at Genesis 25: 30 (which is the s-a-m-e pun as appears in the Ugaritic myth of Keret), that Jewish scribe couldn’t use the identical spelling as the Hebrew word for “red”, which is אדם. So that Jewish scribe made the understandable decision to treat the ambiguous cuneiform original as if it intended the second U to be a long U. Since long U in Akkadian names is (in my opinion) virtually the only exception that applies to the general rule that a vowel in a consonant-vowel syllable is not rendered by any Hebrew letter in Hebrew defective spelling, that long U Akkadian vowel (though in fact it had not existed in the original place name) got rendered by Hebrew vav/ו, so that the place name in Genesis comes out as: אדום. (KJV transliterates that as “Edom”.) That Jewish scribe reasonably thought that such place name was u-dū-mu, but it really was u-du-mu, and originally it had been ud-tu -ma -- with no long U in sight.
Switching now from linguistics to geography, my novel interpretation of Biblical “Edom” : אדום : u-du-mu now allows אדום to be given its natural geographical meaning, for the first time, at Genesis 32: 3. In chapters 31-33 of Genesis: (i) Jacob logically sends a messenger to tell Esau that Jacob will be passing through the southern edge of northwest Gilead, since Esau lives in northwest Gilead; (ii) on two occasions the text says that a person goes “ahead” of Jacob to where Esau lives, which makes perfect sense if Esau is living in northwest Gilead and Jacob, in moving west along the Jabbok River, will be passing through the southern edge of northwest Gilead; (iii) fearing a night-time attack from Esau, who would be coming from the north (northwest), Jacob naturally takes his family south across the Jabbok River at night to the relative safety of the southern bank of the Jabbok River; and (iv) Jacob speaks truthfully when he tells Esau (who has turned out not to be hostile after all) that Jacob will soon be in Esau’s land (northwest Gilead), with there being a short delay only because Jacob’s flock of sheep and goats is utterly exhausted; when Jacob then a little later builds shelter for his flock at Succoth, Jacob is literally i-n אדום, being on the southwest corner of Esau’s adopted homeland of northwest Gilead. Geographically speaking, the entire text of chapters 31-33 of Genesis reads completely naturally if אדום is northwest Gilead, while such text is utterly incomprehensible geographically on the conventional, unanimous view that Esau allegedly is living south of the Dead Sea.
Note that the linguistic key to my novel, controversial theory that many references in Genesis to אדום are to northwest Gilead, rather than to the mid-1st millennium BCE state of Edom or to the geographical area south of the Dead Sea as always heretofore supposed, depends precisely on explaining the presence of the Hebrew vav/ו in the Biblical place name אדום. That’s why that long U issue is a big deal to me.
I see the Patriarchal narratives as being much older (the bulk of the text being a cuneiform writing from the mid-14th century BCE), and much more historically accurate in a Bronze Age context, than university scholars currently realize.
(Thanks again so much to Prof. Siddall for responding to my inquiry as to whether there is a long U in the Neo-Assyrian place name Udumu. Very much appreciated.)
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
You wrote: “So I would suggest Udūmu was initially pronounced /ʉˈdumu/ (with /du/ taking stress, but not necessarily long). Then */ɨdumu/. It's possible at the next stage both initial /ɨ/ and internal /u/ dropped together. If not chronologically, at least logically, the /u/ would take on the feature of /ɘ/ and shift to /o/. Then the final /u/ would naturally drop rather than force the speaker to pronounce a high vowel on an unstressed syllable just after a lower vowel. Also, the /o/ would compensatorily lengthen, producing /ɘˈdom/. I think there is plenty of time between bronze age and LXX for this pronunciation shift to occur.”
Thank you so much for that linguistic analysis. You may well be right about all of that.
I myself am particularly interested in this part of your analysis: “I would suggest Udūmu was initially pronounced /ʉˈdumu/ (with /du/ taking stress, but not necessarily long).” A key part of my analysis is that in the beginning, the second U in “Edom” was not long.
1. Now here is some new, exciting news on this subject.
(a) Following up on issues that were raised (but not resolved) earlier in this thread, I wrote to Prof. Luis Robert Siddall, who in his recent book “The Reign of Adad-nīrārī III” at p. 67 states that there is the following Neo-Assyrian toponym: Udūmu. His book presents that toponym as having a long U in its second syllable. I said the following in my E-mail to Prof. Siddall: “Based on my own preliminary research on this topic, it seems to me that in fact we don’t know if that second U is a long U or a short U. Per The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of Chicago: (i) there is no Assyrian common word udūmu; Deller is cited, and Deller says: “[for *udūmu (AHw 1402a) read ú-qup(u) GE6. MEŠ] ”; however, (ii) there is a very common Assyrian word meaning “container”: ú-du-ú (pp. 22-25), that on one occasion is attested in the following form: ú-de-e-ma (p. 24). Accordingly, I deduce that ú-du-mu, having an unknown meaning, would likely be misunderstood as being u-dū plus ending, hence your rendering of Udūmu.”
(b) Prof. Siddall was gracious enough to respond to my enquiry, and what he said was quite enlightening. (Remember, in my E-mail to Prof. Siddall, I myself had said nothing whatsoever about either the Bible or “Edom”.) Here is the bulk of what Prof. Siddall said to me in his E-mail that I received just this morning:
“The short answer is we do not have sufficient evidence to be confident in the length of vowels for the toponym, Udumu (Edom). I ascribed the vowel length in the manner I did for two reasons:
- the regular rules for vowel length in Akkadian
- the way Edom is spelt in Biblical Hebrew is mostly with a waw for the o-vowel. Hence, aleph-daleth-waw-mem.
While these reasons are not proof of a long vowel I figured it was reasonable grounds for ascribing the vowel so.”
2. Based in part on what Prof. Siddall said, though based primarily on the additional research I myself have done since starting this thread, I have refined my own analysis of this mysterious Biblical place name in Genesis. So let me set forth here my updated, revised analysis of “Edom” in the Patriarchal narratives.
I see a “cuneiform bias” in evaluating this place name. On my controversial theory of the case, most of the Patriarchal narratives (but not all of it) started out as a cuneiform written text in the Late Amarna time period (mid-14th century BCE): the early tent-dwelling (illiterate) Hebrews in rural southern Canaan hired a scribe to record in cuneiform their grand oral composition -- just as Judah is accurately portrayed as being an illiterate tent-dweller who, as we know from Genesis 38: 18, routinely used the services of a scribe who wrote cuneiform. In my view, in the following 5 places (and only in these 5 places) the geographical place name that KJV transliterates as “Edom” is coming from a Late Amarna Age cuneiform original writing: Genesis 25: 30; 32: 3; 36: 16, 17, 21. (The other 6 references to “Edom” in chapter 36 of Genesis are, by contrast, editorial additions from the 7th century BCE, and in my opinion are referring to a different geographical place in a different time period, namely the conventional interpretation of “Edom”.)
The original name here may have been ud-tu -ma, in which case it would be a Sanskrit-based Hurrian name, where both U’s are short, not long. In any event: (i) its underlying meaning, and perhaps even its language type, was already unknown in the mid-14th century BCE, and (ii) the scribe (whom the early Hebrews had retained for the occasion) recorded this mysterious historical name using cuneiform as if it were a non-existent Akkadian common word udumu or udūmu. Rather than referencing an area south of the Dead Sea, as always heretofore supposed, it is my opinion that in those 5 places in Genesis this name referenced a city on the northern edge of northwest Gilead, just east of the Sea of Galilee, and by such reference intended to refer to northwest Gilead. That same city name is found non-biblically in three other places in the 15th and 14th centuries BCE: (i) ú-du-mu at Amarna Letter EA 256: 24 (a Late Amarna Age letter from the city of Piḫilu, located just east of the Jordan River); (ii) udm in the 15th century BCE Ugaritic myth of Keret (now generally viewed as being at a location east of the Sea of Galilee, and where the other two proper names there, Ḫry and Pbl, are unequivocally Hurrian, so that udm would be expected to be Hurrian as well); and (iii) ì-t-m-m or ’(a)-ta-m-m at item #36 on the 15th century BCE Thutmose III list of places in and near Canaan (where it appears three places after Piḫilu, and two places after the Sea of Galilee). All three of these non-biblical renderings likely reference the same Late Bronze Age city located just east of the Sea of Galilee. Note that if the original were ud-tu -ma, without a long U, it’s not surprising to see this mysterious, inscrutable place name come out as (i) ú-du-mu (cuneiform rendering by a native west Semitic speaker, where vowel length is not indicated by cuneiform writing) or (ii) udm (alphabetical rendering by a native west Semitic speaker) or (iii) ì-t-m-m or ’(a)-ta-m-m (by an Egyptian using phonemic hieroglyphs to mimic local pronunciation). The linguistic key, on my theory of the case, is that originally there was no long U sound anywhere in this place name, and that is why udm and ì-t-m-m (or ’(a)-ta-m-m) are not surprising renderings of this place name.
700 years later, in 7th century BCE Jerusalem, a Jewish scribe had to deal with this mysterious place name that had been recorded in cuneiform as udumu or udūmu. He did not know the meaning, or even what underlying language applied. So “cuneiform bias” kicked in, exactly like Prof. Siddall’s own thought process (as quoted above): this place name seemed like an unknown Akkadian common word udūmu, with the second U being long per, in Prof. Siddall’s helpful wording, “the regular rules for vowel length in Akkadian”. Plus, in order to record the nifty pun at Genesis 25: 30 (which is the s-a-m-e pun as appears in the Ugaritic myth of Keret), that Jewish scribe couldn’t use the identical spelling as the Hebrew word for “red”, which is אדם. So that Jewish scribe made the understandable decision to treat the ambiguous cuneiform original as if it intended the second U to be a long U. Since long U in Akkadian names is (in my opinion) virtually the only exception that applies to the general rule that a vowel in a consonant-vowel syllable is not rendered by any Hebrew letter in Hebrew defective spelling, that long U Akkadian vowel (though in fact it had not existed in the original place name) got rendered by Hebrew vav/ו, so that the place name in Genesis comes out as: אדום. (KJV transliterates that as “Edom”.) That Jewish scribe reasonably thought that such place name was u-dū-mu, but it really was u-du-mu, and originally it had been ud-tu -ma -- with no long U in sight.
Switching now from linguistics to geography, my novel interpretation of Biblical “Edom” : אדום : u-du-mu now allows אדום to be given its natural geographical meaning, for the first time, at Genesis 32: 3. In chapters 31-33 of Genesis: (i) Jacob logically sends a messenger to tell Esau that Jacob will be passing through the southern edge of northwest Gilead, since Esau lives in northwest Gilead; (ii) on two occasions the text says that a person goes “ahead” of Jacob to where Esau lives, which makes perfect sense if Esau is living in northwest Gilead and Jacob, in moving west along the Jabbok River, will be passing through the southern edge of northwest Gilead; (iii) fearing a night-time attack from Esau, who would be coming from the north (northwest), Jacob naturally takes his family south across the Jabbok River at night to the relative safety of the southern bank of the Jabbok River; and (iv) Jacob speaks truthfully when he tells Esau (who has turned out not to be hostile after all) that Jacob will soon be in Esau’s land (northwest Gilead), with there being a short delay only because Jacob’s flock of sheep and goats is utterly exhausted; when Jacob then a little later builds shelter for his flock at Succoth, Jacob is literally i-n אדום, being on the southwest corner of Esau’s adopted homeland of northwest Gilead. Geographically speaking, the entire text of chapters 31-33 of Genesis reads completely naturally if אדום is northwest Gilead, while such text is utterly incomprehensible geographically on the conventional, unanimous view that Esau allegedly is living south of the Dead Sea.
Note that the linguistic key to my novel, controversial theory that many references in Genesis to אדום are to northwest Gilead, rather than to the mid-1st millennium BCE state of Edom or to the geographical area south of the Dead Sea as always heretofore supposed, depends precisely on explaining the presence of the Hebrew vav/ו in the Biblical place name אדום. That’s why that long U issue is a big deal to me.
I see the Patriarchal narratives as being much older (the bulk of the text being a cuneiform writing from the mid-14th century BCE), and much more historically accurate in a Bronze Age context, than university scholars currently realize.
(Thanks again so much to Prof. Siddall for responding to my inquiry as to whether there is a long U in the Neo-Assyrian place name Udumu. Very much appreciated.)
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois