Kevin Riley wrote: “While the change [--] … doubling the letter, placing
a dagesh within it, or any other device one can think of… [--] is unique to
Aramaic and Hebrew (or, at least, the marking of it is) among the Semitic
languages, it is a process that is familiar to most linguists. There is no
need for an external influence, especially for one that ceased to exist
centuries before we have any evidence of lenition existing in Hebrew and
Aramaic.
By natural, homegrown linguistic processes Hebrew and Aramaic came to have
lenited and unlenited consonants.”
Something seems seriously askew here.
1. Early Biblical Hebrew was born in the heart of beloved Canaan.
Aramaic, by sharp contrast, was born way out in eastern Syria. Why, then,
would
Hebrew and Aramaic be the only Semitic languages that have the dagesh
phenomenon of doubled consonants? What is the common denominator between
Hebrew and
Aramaic, which does not extend to the other Semitic languages? Could that
unique common denominator be the presence and influence of Hurrian at the
birth of each of early Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic, a presence that did not
apply to the birth of the other Semitic languages? I view the first Hebrews
as living in the mid-14th century BCE, which is precisely the time of the
short-lived dominance of many cities in Canaan by Hurrian princelings. Aramaic
was obviously born in the Hurrian heartland.
2. Moreover, given that Aramaic hails from far-away eastern Syria, while
Hebrew comes from beloved Canaan, with the one common denominator possibly
being birth in a Hurrian cauldron, how else can the following be the case?
“The similarity (amounting to almost identity) of the earliest attested
Hebrew spelling forms to Aramaic….” David Noel Freedman, “Studies in Hebrew
and Aramaic Orthography” (1992), at p. 5.
3. And speaking of possible Hurrian influences, what about the notoriously
controversial Gezer Calendar? A final -W is a Hurrian genitive case
marker, and just look at how some scholars view the perplexing final -W that
appears 4 of 8 times on YRX [making it YRX-W] in the Gezer Calendar:
“Albright,
and F.M. Cross and D.M. Freedman identify the waw as reflecting a dual noun
plus possessive suffix.” Carey Walsh, “The Fruit of the Vine” (2000), at
p. 38.
Am I reading that right? Is the final vav in the Gezer Calendar
functioning just like a Hurrian genitive case marker [a “possessive suffix”],
with
the vav being a pure consonant functioning as a pure consonant, per Hurrian?
And speaking of a vav following a noun as being a “possessive suffix”
/Hurrian genitive case marker, what about that mysterious interior vav in the
Patriarchs’ XBR-W-N?
4. How can Biblical Hebrew experts be so sure that “There is no need for
an external influence”? Both Hebrew and Aramaic have doubled
consonants/dagesh, like Hurrian; the spelling of Hebrew and Aramaic is
essentially
identical from day #1, even though the only common denominator between these
two
west Semitic languages from the opposite corners of the ancient near east
would seem to be that both were uniquely born in a Hurrian cauldron; and the
vav on the Gezer Calendar for all the world appears to be doing a good
imitation of the Hurrian genitive case marker, akin to several mysterious
interior
vavs in the Hebrew Bible that I have pointed out on recent threads. And in
addition to all that, I have also been noting in my recent threads many
words/names in the Hebrew Bible that seem to be Hurrian words, making no sense
as west Semitic words. So how then can we be so sure that “There is no need
for an external influence”? If it’s not Hurrian that’s causing these
peculiar features in Hebrew, then where are all these peculiar features of
Hebrew coming from? Why do all the Biblical Hebrew scholars seem to follow to
the letter Rev. Bryant J. Williams III’s stern injunction: “This list is
about BIBLICAL HEBREW, not HURRIAN.” Why is it that everyone but me seems to
be so sure that, without needing to do any investigation of a possible
Hurrian influence, we can be totally confident that “There is no need for an
external influence” to explain these peculiar features of early Biblical
Hebrew,
features which in every case bear an uncanny resemblance to Hurrian, and
seem inexplicable on any other basis?
Aramaic certainly didn’t have a virgin birth, being born in the Hurrian
cauldron. With early Biblical Hebrew being so similar to Aramaic, shouldn’t we
be asking whether the Hebrew language, like Aramaic, has a notable Hurrian
influence? What’s more exciting in life than the dagesh phenomenon and
those mysterious final and interior vavs?
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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