Genesis 11: 28 Reference to Kassite Bablylonia

[Jim Stinehart]

Genesis 11: 28 Reference to Kassite Bablylonia

The dalet/ד/D in the name Kašdym/כשדים/KŠDYM at Genesis 11: 28 has long baffled analysts. Consider the following proposed solution to this 3,000-year-old Biblical mystery.

The Kassite name for “Kassite” is attested in the following four forms: gal-du = gal-šu = Kaššū = Ku-uš-šu(-hé). Note the -du suffix in the first form thereof.

Now consider the following name attested at Nuzi (p. 80 of “Nuzi Personal Names”): Ka-aš-ši-i-du or Qa-ši-du. Though the meaning is not certain, the likely meaning of this personal name attested at Nuzi is: “Kassite”. One form of this name would be: Ka-ši-du.

So as a personal name, Ka-ši-du probably means “Kassite”. Ka-ši-du in Hebrew would be rendered as Kšd/כשד/KŠD. To make this personal name meaning “Kassite” into a reference to the “Kassite people”, Hebrew would add the suffix -ym/ים-/-YM (being the Hebrew suffix that effectively means “people”). Thus the Patriarchal way to reference “Kassite Babylonia”, literally meaning “Kassite people”, may well have been: Kašdym/כשדים/KŠDYM.

As such, Kašdym/כשדים/KŠDYM at Genesis 11: 28 may well mean: “[the] Kassite people”. It’s a letter-for-letter match to Ka-ši-du -people, that is, Ka-ši-du -YM. That’s כשדים. Genesis 11: 28 tells us that Abram’s oldest brother Haran died at “Ur of the Kassite people” [Ur of Kassite Babylonia]: כשדים --
-- אור.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

[Jim Stinehart]

My prior post argued that כשדים at Genesis 11: 28 is based on the name Ka-ši-du, which is an attested Late Bronze Age name at Nuzi that very likely means “Kassite”. Ka-ši-du -YM would then mean “Kassite people”. Ka-ši-du -YM is a letter-for-letter match to כשדים.

In this post let’s contrast my suggestion to the scholarly view. University scholars teach that כשדים at Genesis 11: 28 is allegedly an embarrassing historical anachronism that refers to the “Chaldeans” in 8th century BCE Babylonia. But is that scholarly explanation convincing? On the historical side, Ur was almost a ghost town by the 8th century BCE, so a reference to “Ur of the Chaldeans” does not make historical sense. Besides, the Patriarchal narratives are supposed to be telling us about the first Hebrews in the Bronze Age, rather than making anachronistic comments about the 8th century BCE world of the state of Judah. Arguably more important here, however, is the obvious linguistic problem: there is no lamed in כשדים, which instead has a sibilant as its second phoneme, whereas the name “Chaldeans” is never historically attested without a lamed, or with a sibilant. Given that huge linguistic problem, why are scholars so sure that כשדים at Genesis 11: 28 is allegedly an 8th century BCE historical anachronism meaning “Chaldeans”?

Here is the standard scholarly analysis of כשדים:

“Akk. kaldu becomes Heb. kaśdîm (cf. Gk. chaldoi) as the result of a phonetic shift in which l becomes a sibilant (here ś) when followed by a dental (d).” Victor P. Hamilton, “The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-17” (1990), p. 364.

The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago says that it knows why this inexplicable change of phonemes allegedly happened, but that it does not have enough time to explain it:

“The possible relations of Kaldu to…KaSdim (Gen. 11: 28, etc.), and to Kardu(niai) form too extensive a problem to be discussed conveniently here. Suffice it to say that there are vague hints of an earlier origin of the name.” “Studies Presented to A. Leo Oppenheim”, University of Chicago Oriental Institute (1964), p. 8.

As opposed to the unspecified “vague hints” mysteriously referred to by the Oriental Institute, a standard Biblical dictionary is more honest about the obvious linguistic problem with this scholarly etymology:

“While there is no satisfactory explanation for this, the one most frequently suggested is that the Hebrew form reflects an earlier Akkadian *kašdu. …However, this postulated form *kašdu remains unattested in cuneiform texts.” “Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible” (2000), p. 230.

Scholars agree that (i) *kašdu is n-e-v-e-r historically attested as a name for the Chaldeans, and that (ii) it would make no sense for a Biblical story about the Bronze Age Patriarchs to place the first Hebrews in 8th century BCE Chaldean Babylonia. So shouldn’t we on the b-hebrew list ask if כשדים means “Kassite people”?

As opposed to the unanimous scholarly view, it is my opinion that כשדים may be based on the following name that is attested at Nuzi: Ka-ši-du. Assuming that this was a Kassite way of saying “Kassite”, which was known in the Late Bronze Age, then a Patriarchal way to say “Kassite people” would be: Ka-ši-du -YM. On a letter-for-letter basis, Ka-ši-du -YM = כשדים. There is no need to change any letters, and there is no anachronism. כשדים is used with Ur at Genesis 11: 28 to refer to “Ur of the Kassite people”. That’s an appropriate Late Bronze Age reference, using attested Late Bronze Age nomenclature.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

[Jim Stinehart]

The third sentence of the Patriarchal narratives, Genesis 11: 28, features the name כשדים which, as I noted in my prior post, university scholars teach is allegedly an historical anachronism that refers to the “Chaldeans” in 8th century BCE Babylonia. If true, that would be a truly embarrassing historical anachronism, since there were no Chaldeans in the Bronze Age, which is the time period of the Patriarchal narratives. This view of the Biblical name כשדים at Genesis 11: 28, which if true would vitiate any historical accuracy of the Patriarchal narratives, is firmly held by scholars despite the inconvenient fact that in 5,000 years of human history, the name “Chaldeans” is never attested in cuneiform in a form like כשדים, which features as its second phoneme a sibilant, and has no lamed.

To gain some perspective on this matter, let us now consider the very next sentence of the text, Genesis 11: 29, being the fourth sentence of the Patriarchal narratives, which features the name שרי as the birth name of Abram’s wife. Do scholars view that name as likewise being an 8th century BCE name? No, as we shall now see, scholars insist that שרי is a west Semitic name that, already in the Late Bronze Age, had a west Semitic feminine ending, -ay, that was archaic. So after telling us that the name כשדים in the third sentence of the Patriarchal narratives post-dates the Late Bronze Age by at least 400 years, university scholars, without missing a beat, turn right around and assure us that the name שרי in the very next sentence of the Patriarchal narratives pre-dates the Late Bronze Age. Is that a coherent approach to analyzing this Biblical text?

Although KJV transliterates the name שרי as “Sarai”, that name is transliterated as “Saray” by the leading scholar concerning this name: Harvard Professor Scott C. Layton, “Archaic Features of Canaanite Personal Names in the Hebrew Bible” (1990) (in the Harvard Semitic Monographs series); this particular topic is covered at pp. 241-249.

Since scholars are anxious to tell us that, allegedly, the name כשדים in the third sentence of the Patriarchal narratives post-dates the Late Bronze Age by at least 400 years, whereas the name שרי in the very next sentence pre-dates the Late Bronze Age, do we dare ask when the name שרי is attested in the ancient world? Pursuant to Prof. Layton’s exhaustive examination of this name, the answer is: Never. We might broaden the question somewhat and ask it this way: when is a name of a human female attested in the ancient world that has a form like “Saray” : שרי, that is, when in the ancient world is a human female attested as having a name featuring a west Semitic root, and -ay as a west Semitic feminine suffix? The answer is the same: Never.

Do people on the b-hebrew list agree with the scholarly interpretation of these two Biblical names? Since the name “Chaldeans” is never attested in cuneiform in a form like כשדים, which features as its second phoneme a sibilant and has no lamed, why should we accept the scholarly view that כשדים is allegedly a glaring historical anachronism that references the Chaldeans and dates to the 8th century BCE or later? Isn't it more likely that this name references the Late Bronze Age Kassites, who ruled southern Mesopotamia at a time when Ur was still the vibrant center of the lapis lazuli trade? And since the name “Saray” : שרי is never attested in the ancient world as a west Semitic name, and no name of that general type is ever attested in the ancient world for a human female, why should we accept the scholarly view that שרי is a west Semitic name with an archaic west Semitic -ay ending that allegedly pre-dates the Late Bronze Age? Isn't it more likely that this is an attested non-Semitic name from the Late Bronze Age, Šar-ri-ia?

Why passively accept these bizarre scholarly linguistic analyses of names in the third and fourth sentences of the Patriarchal narratives, which have the effect of reducing the Patriarchal narratives to a non-historical mishmash? Or to put the question slightly differently, why is the Late Bronze Age verboten in analyzing the historical time period of the Patriarchal narratives?

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

[Jim Stinehart]

Linguistically, כשדים at Genesis 11: 28 does not match to “Chaldeans”, because the cuneiform writing of “Chaldeans” a-l-w-a-y-s had a lamed, and n-e-v-e-r had a sibilant. Historically, a reference to “Ur of the Chaldeans” makes no sense, because by the time the Chaldeans came into being, Ur was a mere ghost town. Yet despite the linguistic and historical impossibility of כשדים at Genesis 11: 28 being a reference to the “Chaldeans”, Biblical scholars are u-n-a-n-i-m-o-u-s in making that false assertion. Here is a typical scholarly analysis of this Biblical phrase:

“Ur is the name of an ancient city of the second millennium BCE, but the Chaldeans only arrived there about a thousand years later in the period of the ninth century BCE! …The ‘Ur of the Chaldeans’ is an anachronism and shows us when the tradition was written down, after 1000 BCE….” Richard A. Freund, “Digging Through the Bible: Understanding Biblical People, Places, and Controversies Through Archaeology” (2009), p. 16.

Prof. Freund is not lacking in scholarly credentials: “Richard Freund is the Director of the Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies and Greenberg Professor of Jewish History at the University of Hartford. He has directed six archaeological projects in Israel and three projects in Europe on behalf of the University including: Bethsaida, Qumran, the Cave of Letters, Nazareth, Yavne, Har Karkom (Mount Sinai) as well as archaeological projects in Burgos and Cadiz, Spain and a research project at the extermination camp at Sobibor, Poland. Dr. Freund is the author of six books on archaeology, two books on Jewish ethics, over one hundred scholarly articles and has appeared in fifteen television documentaries.”

In accordance with university scholars generally, it seems that Prof. Freund has never a-s-k-e-d what the name כשדים would mean in a Late Bronze Age context. As I said in my first post on this thread, כשדים is likely Ka-ša-du -YM, in which case כשדים means “Kassite people”. The phrase “Ur of the Kassite people” makes perfect sense on all levels: linguistically, historically, textually, and logically.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

[Jim Stinehart]

Here’s another scholarly assertion that כשדים means “Chaldeans”. What is semi-unique here is that (i) a reference to “Kassites” as being the meaning of Kašdym/ כשדים/KŠDYM at Genesis 11: 28 is explicitly considered, though it is firmly rejected, and (ii) this university professor considered himself to be a friend of Biblical Inerrantists (so he is probably not a “mainstream” university professor).

“Genesis 11: 28 says…very explicitly that the Ur from which Abraham came was ‘Ur of the Chaldeans’. …The suggestion that this might have reflected the Kassites of the Kassite Dynasty in Babylon 1500 - 1200 B.C. has little to commend it. There was never any third radical d attached to the name Kassî.” Gleason L. Archer, Jr., “New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties” (1982).

Prof. Gleason had decent academic qualifications: “GLEASON L. ARCHER, JR. (1916-2004), (B.A., M.A., Ph.D., Harvard University; B.D., Princeton Theological Seminary; L.L.B., Suffolk Law School) was a biblical scholar, theologian, educator, and author. He was a professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where he taught from 1965 through 1991.”

Note that Prof. Gleason shrewdly does not breathe a word of the inconvenient fact that “Chaldeans” in cuneiform texts is n-e-v-e-r spelled with a sibilant, rather than a lamed, as is the case for the Biblical name כשדים. Is that kosher? He expressly asserts that “There was never any third radical d attached to the name Kassî”. But what about considering the attested Late Bronze Age personal name Ka-ši-du, which has such “third radical d” and means “Kassite”?

If one is willing to ask what names in the Patriarchal narratives mean in the historical context of the Late Bronze Age, then one will find that such names make perfect sense, on all levels: textual, linguistic, logical, and historical. By contrast, trying to view Kašdym/ כשדים/KŠDYM as allegedly meaning “Chaldeans” makes no sense on any level. In particular, linguistically “Chaldeans” is never attested in cuneiform writing with a sibilant or without a lamed, and historically there never was an “Ur of the Chaldeans”, since Ur was a ghost town by the time the Chaldeans became a force in southern Mesopotamia. The phrase באורכשדים makes perfect sense in a Late Bronze Age historical context as meaning “in Ur of the Kassite people”, while making no sense outside of a Late Bronze Age historical context.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

[Jim Stinehart]

As noted in my first post on this thread, I see Kašdym : כשדים : KŠDYM at Genesis 11: 28 as being based on the following Kassite-based Hurrian name at Nuzi: Ka-ši-du. As such, Ur of Kašdym : כשדים : KŠDYM at Genesis 11: 28 means Ur of the Ka-ši-du -people, that is, Ka-ši-du -YM, thus referring to Ur in the Late Bronze Age time period of the Kassites.

Let me add the following very brief supplement to that linguistic analysis. At Nuzi, 2.4% of the attested names are Kassite names.

It is my considered opinion that most of the 25 men’s names of Hurrians at Genesis 36: 20-30 are very similar to names attested at Nuzi. Those 25 names break down as follows: (i) 18 Hurrian-based Hurrian names (72%, compared to 67% of the names at Nuzi being Hurrian-based Hurrian names); (ii) 1 Sanskrit-based Hurrian name (4%, compared to 5% of names at Nuzi being Sanskrit, Kassite or Sumerian); and (iii) 6 names based on Akkadian (24%, compared to 28% of names being based on Akkadian).

The early Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives seems very familiar with the types of names that are attested at the Late Bronze Age Hurrian province of Nuzi in eastern Syria. When he lists 25 names of Hurrians at Genesis 36: 20-30, he even follows the approximate breakdown of names at Nuzi as between (i) Hurrian-based Hurrian names vs. (ii) Sanskrit-, Kassite- or Sumerian-based Hurrian names vs. (iii) names based on Akkadian.

The point is that since 2.4% of the names at Nuzi are Kassite names, and include the Kassite-based Hurrian name Ka-ši-du, it is not particularly surprising that the early Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives both would know the Kassite-based Hurrian name Ka-ši-du that means “Kassite”, and would use it in referring to Ur of the Kassite-people at Genesis 11: 28.

Kašdym : כשדים : KŠDYM is a Late Bronze Age reference to the Kassites, and is not a late, embarrassing, impossible reference to Ur of the Chaldeans. There never was an Ur of the Chaldeans. Moreover, Kašdym : כשדים : KŠDYM does not come close to being a linguistic match to “Chaldeans”.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

[Em3ry]

And it cometh to pass after these things that it is declared to Abraham, saying, `Lo, Milcah hath borne, even she, sons to Nahor thy brother:
21 Huz his first-born, and Buz his brother; and Kemuel father of Aram,
22 and Chesed, and Hazo, and Pildash, and Jidlaph, and Bethuel;
23 and Bethuel hath begotten Rebekah