what language did abraham speak?

[mrsonic]

hello


and is the name a hebrew name?

[SteveMiller]

Mr Sonic,
I don't know the answer, but forum rules are that you need to sign with your first and last names at least.
Add it to your signature under control panel and it will be automatic.

[Jim Stinehart]

Mr. Sonic:

1. Abraham’s Two Languages

(a) Pre-Hebrew/Canaanite

Abraham’s main language was pre-Hebrew/Canaanite. If we look at the Canaanite glosses in the Amarna Letters from the mid-14th century BCE (Late Bronze Age), 80% of them are instantly recognizable as being mere variants of Hebrew words. The main difference is that the cuneiform writing of the Amarna Letters purported to record each and every vowel, whereas Hebrew defective spelling omits almost all vowels. So the spelling is very different, but the underlying words are, in 80% of the cases, almost the same. Per the Hurrian factors analyzed below, the historical time period of Abraham must be the mid-14th century BCE, which is the time period of the Amarna Letters. (Abraham is not a Hurrian, but rather is a Semite, per patrilineal descent. The same is true of the other two Hebrew Patriarchs and of Abraham's father.)

(b) Hurrian

Abraham also knew Hurrian. Hurrian princelings were so prominent in Canaan in the mid-14th century BCE that Egyptians often referred to Canaan at that time as being “Hurru-land”. The Amarna Letters are replete with exotic non-Semitic names of Hurrian princelings.

The birth name of Abraham’s wife, Sarai, cannot be a west Semitic female name, because no west Semitic name of that general type of a female human is attested in the ancient world. That is to say, there is not a single west Semitic name of a human female attested outside of the Bible in the ancient world that consists of a (i) west Semitic root, plus (ii) -ai as a west Semitic feminine ending (archaic or otherwise). The closest scholars have come to that is that at Ugarit, there are some feminine common nouns (not proper names) that have an archaic -ai feminine ending. That’s it.

But per the way Hurrian names are recorded using Hebrew letters in the Patriarchal narratives, “Sarai” : שרי is an exact match to the following Hurrian name reported at p. 302 of Nozadze’s Hurrian dictionary: Šar-ri-ia. For a doubled Hurrian consonant, the Hebrew rendering consistently drops the first of the doubled consonants. So the first two syllables are treated as if they were Ša-ri, and then rendered (using Hebrew defective spelling, as always, that does not record vowels) as שר. In the Hebrew rendering of Hurrian names, Hebrew yod/י is used to represent either the Hurrian true vowel A as its own separate syllable, or the closely related Hurrian theophoric suffix that is spelled either -ia or -a-a or -a. (By contrast, Hebrew aleph/א is usually used prosthetically in the Hebrew rendering of Hurrian Biblical names.) So the expected Hebrew spelling of the Hurrian name Šar-ri-ia is exactly what we see in the received text for Sarah’s birth name: שרי.

Sarai was a Hurrian by birth. Pursuant to a Hurrian custom well-documented at Nuzi, Abram’s father Terakh (a Semite per patrilineal descent, who acted alone in this matter without his wife) adopted Sarai (whose blood parents were Hurrian), for the purpose of having Sarai marry Terakh’s blood son Abram. That is why when we are first introduced to Sarai at the end of chapter 11 of Genesis, she is referred to as being Terakh’s “daughter-in-law”, rather than his “daughter”. As Abraham (truthfully) asserts at Genesis 20: 12, Sarah indeed was Terakh’s daughter; but that is the case only in the sense of being Terakh’s adopted daughter. Since Sarai had been adopted for the precise purpose of marrying Terakh’s blood son Abram, it is not surprising that Terakh always thought of her as being his daughter-in-law, rather than his daughter.

Abram’s mother also spoke Hurrian. The primary meaning of the name of Abram’s middle brother, “Nahor”, is its Hurrian meaning: “[Hurrian] Dowry”. Nahor is the ancestor of the three successor Matriarchs, namely Rebekah, Leah and Rachel, each of whom had a Hurrian mother and grew to adulthood in the heart of Hurrianland east of the Upper Euphrates River. So Nahor’s essential role in the Patriarchal narratives is precisely to provide the successor Patriarchs with a “Hurrian dowry”.

Abram gave his favorite place to sojourn in southern Canaan a Hurrian nickname, “Hebron”, which means “Sky” or “Heaven” or “Nirvana” in Hurrian. חברון : ḫa-bu-ru-u[n]-ne : “Hebron”. The name “Hebron” is not attested in southern Canaan in the Bronze Age, and does not make good sense in any language other than Hurrian (the conventional west Semitic meaning of “alliance” or “united” does not fit well the role that Hebron plays in the Patriarchal narratives). The reason for that is because “Hebron” is a Patriarchal Hurrian nickname for the rural pastureland that was the Patriarchs’ favorite place to sojourn when in Canaan.

The only historical time period when all these Hurrian connections would make sense for people tending flocks of sheep and goats in Canaan is the mid-14th century BCE in the Late Bronze Age.

2. The Birth Name “Abram”

Just as the name “Nahor” makes good sense in both Hebrew (“Neighing [of horses]”, since Nahor lives most of his adult life east of the Upper Euphrates River in the heart of Hurrianland, with the Hurrians being world-famous for horse-drawn chariots), and in Hurrian (“[Hurrian] Dowry”), so also does the name “Abram” make good sense in both Hebrew and Hurrian.

(a) Hebrew Meaning of “Abram”

The conventional Hebrew meaning of “Abram” is correct: אברם : “[divine] Father Is Exalted”.

However, the conventional explanation of the name “Abram” rarely notes the following critically important fact. Outside of the Bible, and also in later books of the Bible, this name is almost always spelled with an interior yod/י, as follows: אבירם : “Ab -i- ram”. The reason why Abraham’s birth name has the peculiar spelling of “Abram”, with no interior yod, is precisely so that such name will then also make good sense in Hurrian.

(b) Hurrian Meaning of “Abram”

The name “Abram” in Hurrian is אברם : A-ba-ri -ma. A-ba-ri is an attested Hurrian name at Nuzi. Although the literal meaning of the Hurrian name A-ba-ri is “lord”, the necessarily implied meaning of this name in Hurrian is: “[God is] Lord” or, to a Hurrian, “[Teshup is] Lord”. -ma is a common Hurrian suffix, which can function as a theophoric suffix. So the Hurrian meaning of “Abram” : אברם : A-ba-ri -ma is: “God [is] Lord”.

3. The Divinely-Changed Name “Abraham”

The name “Abraham” is not attested in the ancient world. No satisfactory explanation of this name has been given by scholars. Prof. Alter probably reflects the majority view in claiming that “Abraham” is a mere lengthening of the name “Abram”. But if YHWH went to the effort of giving Hebrew Patriarch #1 a divinely-changed name, surely we should expect that it will be more than a mere lengthening of the birth name.

Although scholars have been unable to come up with a tenable explanation of the divinely-changed name “Abraham”, the scholarly community is oddly unanimous in insisting that the author of Genesis 17: 5 allegedly did not know what the name “Abraham” means. In fact, the early Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives created the name “Abraham”, he knew exactly what it meant, and Genesis 17: 5 is accurate in telling us exactly what this name means.

What is super-controversial here is that the resh/ר in the middle of the name “Abraham” needs to be viewed as being a theophoric. With R and L being the two liquids, on one level the R can be viewed as implying an L, which in turn implies El. Without discussing this super-controversial matter further at this point, let me simply point out that if the resh/ר in the middle of the name “Abraham” is taken as being a theophoric, then (i) the name is self-explanatory, and (ii) it has precisely the meaning that Genesis 17: 5 sets forth. (The last two letters, הם, can readily be viewed as being short for המון, and as such mean “multitude”, therefore implying “many nations”, as many scholars have duly noted.)

אברהם: “Abraham” = Ab -ra- ham = אב [human father] - ר [per El] - הם [of a multitude or many nations]. As Genesis 17: 5 accurately puts it: “Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father [אב] of many [המון] nations have I [implied “El”] made thee.”

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

[kwrandolph]

hello
What language did Abraham speak?

and is the name a hebrew name?

Mr. Sonic:

The evidence is that Abraham spoke Hebrew. Further, there’s evidence that he had written documents going back centuries from before he lived.

Now the question is: how much did Moses update the language when he compiled Genesis, or if he did any updating? We don’t know, so we don’t know the exact form that Hebrew had at Abraham’s time.

What we know is that Abraham lived about 2000–1800 BC, and already there’s evidence that there were several similar languages to Hebrew. There’s no reason to claim that Hebrew was not spoken at that time. Secondly, there’s evidence that languages changed at a slower rate than they change today, so there’s no reason to insist that the Hebrew of Abraham’s day varied significantly from the Hebrew of Moses’ day.

Karl W. Randolph.

[Jim Stinehart]

Mr. Sonic:

As to the language that Abraham spoke, one key aspect of the analysis is as follows.

Noted Hebrew linguist Robert Polzin argues that most of the prose of the Patriarchal narratives (excluding chapter 14 of Genesis and whatever else he takes not to be the J and E portions of Genesis), and much of II Samuel (which is often viewed as being composed in the 7th century BCE, though its final editing may have occurred in the 6th century BCE), show a “remarkable grammatical/syntactical homogeneity”. “Late Biblical Hebrew: Toward an Historical Typology of Biblical Hebrew Prose” (1976), p. 20.

Does that mean that Abraham spoke Hebrew that was little different than the Hebrew spoken in Jerusalem in the 7th century BCE? I don’t think so.

One mainstream scholarly view of this matter (not my view) is that the first written text of the Patriarchal narratives (as opposed to an oral tradition, which may be much older) came into being in 7th century BCE Jerusalem. If so, that would then account for most of the prose of the Patriarchal narratives being similar to the prose of II Samuel. In my opinion, the main proof that such scholarly theory is wrong is the key fact that the substantive content of the Patriarchal narratives tracks with incredible accuracy what we know from non-biblical history happened in Canaan, Syria, the northern Transjordan, and Egypt in Year 13 of Akhenaten’s 17-year reign in the mid-14th century BCE. (See below for three quick examples of that.)

An alternative view, not favored by university scholars but being a traditional view that deserves consideration, is the following analysis by Karl W. Randolph: “[T]here’s evidence that languages changed at a slower rate than they change today, so there’s no reason to insist that the Hebrew of Abraham’s day [in the early 2nd millennium BCE] varied significantly from the Hebrew of Moses’ day.” My own opinion as to that is that virtually nothing known in the non-biblical history of the early 2nd millennium BCE appears in the Patriarchal narratives, which rather tracks with incredible accuracy what we know from non-biblical history happened in the mid-14th century BCE Amarna Age. For example, there were no Hittites or Hurrians in the early 2nd millennium BCE, whereas “Tidal” in chapter 14 of Genesis is a bona fide Hittite kingly name, and most of the other participants in the “four kings with five” (including “Arioch”) have Hurrian names. As to climate, Canaan had a normal climate (similar to today’s climate) in the early Middle Bronze Age, whereas the mid-14th century BCE in the Late Bronze Age witnessed some of the driest and worst years ever recorded in Canaan’s long history. Note that the text of the Patriarchal narratives dramatically portrays: (i) Abram experiencing a drought-famine in Canaan, that requires Abram to leave Canaan and go to Egypt; (ii) Isaac experiencing a drought-famine in Canaan, that requires Isaac to leave his home in southern Canaan; Isaac’s first thought had been to go to Egypt (as Abraham had done); and (iii) Jacob experiencing such a terrible drought-famine in Canaan that Jacob must lead all the Hebrews o-u-t of the beloved Promised Land of Canaan into Egypt, in order to avoid all the Hebrews starving to death in Canaan. Those stories in the Biblical text make perfect historical sense in the ultra-dry mid-14th century BCE; Canaan was plagued by semi-drought conditions almost continuously in the Late Bronze Age, before finally returning to a normal climate in the early Iron Age. Such stories of drought-famine plaguing each of the three Hebrew Patriarchs do not ring true, however, in the early 2nd millennium BCE, when Canaan had a perfectly normal climate not characterized by drought-famines. A third example is that the “Abimelek” in chapters 20-21, 26 of Genesis is one and the same person as the “Abimelek” in Year 13 in the Amarna Letters. Each such Abimelek is the only person in the Bible or the Amarna Letters that frets (and he constantly frets) about contested access to valuable water wells.

My own view as to Abraham’s language, as opposed to the scholarly and traditional views noted above, is as follows. In the Patriarchal Age, Abraham spoke pre-Hebrew/Canaanite, which was (i) identical to the Canaanite in the Canaanite glosses in the Amarna Letters, and (ii) which was fairly similar in terms of vocabulary to standard Biblical Hebrew as of 7th century BCE Jerusalem. Although the Patriarchal narratives started out as an oral composition, it is my opinion that the fateful decision was made, at the end of the Amarna Age, to have one of the many low-level scribes in Canaan at the time (who wrote Amarna Letters) come out to the Hebrews’ tents for several weeks and record in cuneiform writing on clay tablets, using Canaanite words (not Akkadian words or Sumerograms as in the Amarna Letters), the Patriarchal narratives. Those original clay tablets, whose Canaanite prose (written in cuneiform) had not changed one whit over 700 years, were then later discovered in the Temple in Jerusalem in the 7th century BCE. A garbled account of this great discovery (though unfortunately not specifically referencing the Patriarchal narratives per se) is found at II Kings 22: 8-10. Note that neither the king nor the priest in Jerusalem could read what was written on the discovered tablets. That’s because those tablets were written in cuneiform. Only the scribe, who had to know cuneiform in order to communicate with hated Assyria (earlier) and hated Babylonia (now), could read cuneiform at sight:

“ 8 And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. …10 And Shaphan the scribe shewed the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath delivered me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king.”

The same scribe who wrote II Samuel may have transformed the archaic pre-Hebrew/Canaanite written in cuneiform on those original clay tablets into alphabetical Hebrew. The decision was sensibly made not to try to mimic the archaic Canaanite spelling and grammar of common words, but rather to use standard Biblical Hebrew (that is, the Hebrew spoken in 7th century BCE Jerusalem) as to all Hebrew common words in the Patriarchal narratives.

On my theory of the case, (i) the substantive content of the Patriarchal narratives is truly ancient, going all the long way back to the mid-14th century BCE as a w-r-i-t-t-e-n text (in cuneiform), but (ii) the spelling and grammar of Hebrew common words in the Patriarchal narratives is virtually worthless in trying to reproduce the Hebrew that Abraham had spoken, because instead of trying to reproduce archaic Canaanite features in common words, the sensible decision was made to transform the Canaanite in the mid-14th century BCE cuneiform clay tablets into alphabetical Hebrew using the standard Biblical Hebrew that then prevailed in 7th century BCE Jerusalem.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

[Jim Stinehart]

In order to figure out Abraham’s language, it is important to note that the vocabulary of Canaanite (per the Canaanite glosses in the Amarna Letters) is remarkably similar to the vocabulary of standard Biblical Hebrew (in 7th century BCE Jerusalem, and in the common words in the prose of the received unpointed Hebrew text of the Patriarchal narratives).
Here are four examples of that:

1. Amarna Letter EA 366: 13: “elevated” = našša’a or na-aš-ša-a.

This is obviously the standard Biblical Hebrew word נשא, having this same meaning, which we see for example at Genesis 37: 25.

As to Hebrew spelling, we would expect a vowel in a consonant-vowel syllable to drop out. We would also expect the first of doubled consonants (where there is no intervening vowel) to drop out as well. So in this case, if we start with našša’a, that is, na[š]-ša-’a, the Hebrew spelling is e-x-a-c-t-l-y what we would expect! Not all Canaanite words have such an exact match to standard Biblical Hebrew, but this is one case where there’s a perfect match.

This word is frequently found in the Patriarchal narratives, usually functioning as a verb. As an adjective (which is the way this word is used here in Canaanite), at Genesis 37: 25 the initial nun/נ is present and has not assimilated. By contrast, in the ordinary case, namely when this word is used as a verb, the initial nun/נ always assimilates in the Bible. (I don’t know if it assimilates in Canaanite when used as a verb.)

2. Amarna Letter EA 292: 29: “I built” = ba-ni-ti.

This is obviously the standard Biblical Hebrew word בנה.

This verb is frequently found in the Patriarchal narratives, but not in first person. We see first person at I Samuel 2: 35: בניתי.

Note how easy it is to match this Canaanite verb with its standard Biblical Hebrew counterpart in 7th century BCE (or thereabouts) Jerusalem.

3. At Amarna Letter EA 74: 20, the purpose of the Canaanite gloss is to clarify the meaning of a logogram:

logogram: HUR.SAG

Canaanite gloss: ḫa-ar-ri

This Canaanite gloss clarifies that the logogram means “mountains” (or “mountainous region”).

This is obviously a slight variant of the standard Biblical Hebrew word for “mountain” or “mountains”, which in the singular is: הר. The most obvious difference is that the first letter in Canaanite is a heth/ח, whereas in Biblical Hebrew the first letter is a he/ה. That is not a big surprise. (For one thing, cuneiform could not distinguish between heth/ח and he/ה.) The second difference is that different endings apply (which also is not a big surprise): in Canaanite, plural is indicated by -i, whereas that would be construct form in Biblical Hebrew [י-], where the plural ending instead is ים-.

4. Amarna Letter EA 138: 126: ḫa-mu-du = “desirable thing, nice thing, beautiful thing”.

At Job 20: 20 we see this Biblical Hebrew word with the same meaning: חמודו.

Note the exact match, virtually on a letter-for-letter basis.

* * *

Per the foregoing, we see that a scribe in 7th century BCE Jerusalem who knew cuneiform well, and whose native language was Hebrew, could easily read a cuneiform version of the Patriarchal narratives that used mid-14th century BCE Canaanite.
On the other hand, when such scribe transformed those cuneiform clay tablets into alphabetical Hebrew writing, it made sense to use the spelling conventions of 7th century BCE Jerusalem, rather than the archaic Canaanite spelling conventions, for common words. For example, “mountain” would not be spelled with a heth/ח, as it may have been (though this is not certain, since cuneiform is inherently ambiguous as to this issue) in the Canaanite original in cuneiform. No, naturally “mountain” was spelled the 7th century BCE Jerusalem way: with a he/ה, per standard Biblical Hebrew.

Please note that there is no technical impediment whatsoever to the transmission process I have proposed for the Patriarchal narratives:

1. In the mid-14th century BCE, the Patriarchal narratives were recorded, by a scribe hired for the occasion by the tent-dwelling first Hebrews (who were tending sheep and goats and sojourning in a lovely valley in southern Canaan), in cuneiform, using Canaanite words (including Canaanite spelling, Canaanite grammar, etc.). This is the language that Abraham spoke: pre-Hebrew/Canaanite.

2. 700 years later, upon those original cuneiform clay tablets being discovered in the Temple in Jerusalem, the Patriarchal narratives were transformed into alphabetical Hebrew. As to common words, the sensible decision was made at that time not to try to mimic archaic Canaanite spelling or grammar, but rather to use standard Biblical Hebrew spelling and grammar: that is, the Hebrew that was spoken and written in 7th century BCE Jerusalem.

3. On that theory of the case (being my theory of the case), with the sole exception of a relative handful of editorial glosses (most of which are extremely short and geographically-oriented) that were added (perhaps by Ezra) in the 6th century BCE, well over 90% (perhaps being as much as 99%) of the received unpointed Hebrew text of the prose portions of the Patriarchal narratives is exactly what was w-r-i-t-t-e-n down (in cuneiform) at the behest of, and subject to the close supervision of, the original early Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives, who lived in tents in southern Canaan during the Amarna Age. (Of course, the archaic spelling and grammar of Canaanite was jettisoned, but the substantive content was not changed at all.)

On that basis, my theory of the case is tenable that the substantive content of the Patriarchal narratives (always excluding the relative handful of 6th century BCE editorial glosses) has p-i-n-p-o-i-n-t historical accuracy in recalling the dire predicament of the first Hebrews living in southern Canaan in Year 13 of the Amarna Age.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

[kwrandolph]

hello
What language did Abraham speak?

and is the name a hebrew name?

Mr. Sonic:

The evidence is that Abraham spoke Hebrew. Further, there’s evidence that he had written documents going back centuries from before he lived.

… What we know is that Abraham lived about 2000–1800 BC, … Secondly, there’s evidence that languages changed at a slower rate than they change today, so there’s no reason to insist that the Hebrew of Abraham’s day varied significantly from the Hebrew of Moses’ day.

Two things I want to add to what I wrote above:

Abraham was a wandering shepherd, following the flocks. So the library that he brought with him was both small and portable, namely ink on parchment. As a result, we should expect to find almost no surviving examples of Hebrew writing from his time. Even so, archaeologists have found some writing in Hebrew alphabet as graffiti carved in rock along a road dated to about 1600 BC, i.e. a couple of centuries later.

Secondly, because he had writings dating to centuries prior to his time, that would tend to freeze the language he used, so that it would change more slowly. Just as American English, influenced by Shakespeare and the KJV, changed more slowly than did British English, so Abraham when he read his library would have kept closer to older language.

Karl W. Randolph.

[Jim Stinehart]

Karl W. Randolph wrote:

“Abraham was a wandering shepherd, following the flocks. So the library that he brought with him was both small and portable, namely ink on parchment. …[A]rchaeologists have found some writing in Hebrew alphabet as graffiti carved in rock along a road dated to about 1600 BC, i.e. a couple of centuries later. …Abraham when he read his library would have kept closer to older language.”

1. In the Middle Bronze Age, alphabetical writing in Canaan (which is evidenced only by rare graffiti, not any written texts) was not nearly advanced enough to be able to write down the Patriarchal narratives, which constitute 40 chapters of sophisticated Biblical text. That’s a technical impossibility. By contrast, in the Late Bronze Age, it would have been child’s play for a scribe in Canaan who could write Amarna Letters to have recorded in cuneiform writing on clay tablets the Patriarchal narratives, using Canaanite/pre-Hebrew words (not Akkadian words, as in the Amarna Letters); per the Canaanite glosses in the Amarna Letters, we know that many, many scribes in Canaan knew how to record Canaanite words in cuneiform.

2. Abraham, being “a wandering shepherd, following the flocks”, was illiterate. But in Late Bronze Age Canaan, a scribe could easily be hired for a day, once a year or so, to read to the first Hebrews the Patriarchal narratives, which were written in cuneiform on clay tablets. Nothing in the Patriarchal narratives suggests that any Patriarch was literate. However, we do know that Judah used a cylinder seal on a regular basis to “sign” cuneiform written documents:

(a) “The most common use of the [cylinder] seal was to authenticate written documents, letters, bills of sale, or receipts for goods or money. After incising the cuneiform message in the soft clay, the scribe had the sender and witnesses remove from their necks their own cylinder seals and roll them over the still wet clay to make their signatures. Judah had to give his seal to Tamar as a pledge (Gen. 38: 18); he apparently wore it attached with a cord around his neck.” Merrill C. Tenney, “The Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible, Volume 5” (2010).

(b) The Patriarchs are portrayed as being shepherds who lived in a world where, as was commonplace for example in the 14th century BCE, they interacted with cuneiform documents on a regular basis (though only trained scribes could read or write cuneiform). Judah’s “signet” or cylinder seal at Genesis 38: 18, 25 is portrayed in the text as being used by tent-dwelling Judah on a regular basis to mark his seal on cuneiform documents (even though Judah himself could not read or write cuneiform, and such a seal might or might not itself contain any letters written in cuneiform). E.A. Speiser, “Genesis”, p. 298.

3. There is a strong tradition in the Bible of the Hebrews carrying tablets (not parchment) in a small chest. The Patriarchal narratives, written in cuneiform, would fit on approximately 50 clay tablets. It would be roughly equivalent to carrying 50 music CDs today (though a little heavier): they would fit in a small chest, and would not be too heavy to be toted around by shepherds living in tents.

4. The spelling and grammar of common words in the Patriarchal narratives cannot be used to date this Biblical text, because in the 7th century BCE the cuneiform originals of the Patriarchal narratives were transformed into alphabetical Hebrew, using the spelling and grammar of 7th century BCE Jerusalem for common words. Rather, in order to date the Patriarchal narratives, we need to examine (i) the proper names in the text, and (ii) the substantive content of the text. Here, let’s look at how the proper names in the Patriarchal narratives date this text (as a written text) to the 14th century BCE in the Late Bronze Age.

At Genesis 36: 21, 29-30, certain of Esau’s in-laws are described by the following two-word phrase: (i) החרי, plus (ii) אלופי. The singular form of this term (leaving out the Hebrew word “the” [ה]) would be the following two-word phrase: (i) חרי, plus (ii) אלוף. Strikingly, the identical term was used in Ugarit in the Late Bronze Age (ca. the 14th century BCE) to reference Hurrian princelings: ulp.ḫry. Cyrus H. Gordon, “Ugaritic Textbook” (1965), p. 62.

Of critical importance, and dating the Patriarchal narratives to the 14th century BCE when Hurrian princelings dominated Canaan (as we know from the Amarna Letters), are the following key facts as to the 25 men’s names at Genesis 36: 20-30: (a) all 25 names are typical of names of Hurrian men; (b) 22 of 25 such names have close matches to names attested at the Hurrian province of Nuzi in Late Bronze Age eastern Syria; (c) 18 of those 25 names are Hurrian-based Hurrian names (with the rest being 6 Akkadian names and 1 Sanskrit name); (d) not a single one of those 25 names is a west Semitic name; and (e) all 25 men’s names have sensible meanings that are typical for names attested at Nuzi in the Late Bronze Age.

The o-n-l-y tenable explanation for why the 25 men’s names at Genesis 36: 20-30 have the above specific characteristics is that such 25 names are foreign names of Hurrians that were written down in cuneiform on clay tablets, in 14th century BCE Canaan during the Late Bronze Age when Hurrian princelings dominated Canaan, the northern Transjordan, and Syria.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

[kwrandolph]

Karl W. Randolph wrote:

“Abraham was a wandering shepherd, following the flocks. So the library that he brought with him was both small and portable, namely ink on parchment. …[A]rchaeologists have found some writing in Hebrew alphabet as graffiti carved in rock along a road dated to about 1600 BC, i.e. a couple of centuries later. …Abraham when he read his library would have kept closer to older language.”

1. In the Middle Bronze Age, alphabetical writing in Canaan (which is evidenced only by rare graffiti, not any written texts) was not nearly advanced enough to be able to write down the Patriarchal narratives, which constitute 40 chapters of sophisticated Biblical text. That’s a technical impossibility.

What a laugh! Jim Stinehart, as a lawyer, should know better. After all, the same alphabetic system used by a first grade student to write simple statements is sophisticated enough for him to use to write his legal opinions.

In contrast, an ancient Hebrew writer would have had advantages over a person writing modern English: except for some loan words, his language was mostly from one background; he wrote phonetically, which is difficult to do in English as we have more than one set of spelling rules from different languages competing for ascendency; and for the writers of Genesis, most of what they wrote was narrative, about the simplest form of writing around.

By contrast, in the Late Bronze Age, it would have been child’s play for a scribe in Canaan who could write Amarna Letters to have recorded in cuneiform writing on clay tablets the Patriarchal narratives, using Canaanite/pre-Hebrew words (not Akkadian words, as in the Amarna Letters);

In contrast, cuneiform is a very complex writing system, much more complex than Hebrew. Therefore, there are two strikes against the use of cuneiform: its complexity and that it was specifically designed to use with clay tablets. Does it even make sense to claim that Abraham the nomadic shepherd would have schlepped around a library of heavy clay tablets with complex cuneiform? Or does it make more sense that he had relatively light parchments with simple yet sufficient Hebrew alphabet?

Jim Stinehart with his doctorate in law degree thinks he can snowjob us with his sophisticated sounding claims as he tries to pretend he’s Perry Mason, but when compared to reality, they just make him look ridiculous. And that’s before we cite the historical and archaeological evidences that the Amarna letters were iron age, about 800 BC.

I usually ignore Jim’s essay, because they’re so ridiculous. This one I made the mistake of reading the first half paragraph, as far as I quoted above, then quit.

Karl W. Randolph.

[Kirk Lowery]

Jim Stinehart with his doctorate in law degree thinks he can snowjob us with his sophisticated sounding claims as he tries to pretend he’s Perry Mason, but when compared to reality, they just make him look ridiculous.

Moderate your rhetoric, Karl. Ad hominem is not allowed.

Thanks!