Jim, Who in the world said that HALOT was perfect? But as Isaac said, etymologies of names is often problematic. The names you list below are obviously not Hebrew. If you are now going to tell us that in Hurrian they all make sense and that they are all pinpoint accurate in the fourteenth century BCE, please don’t bother. We believe you.
Yigal Levin -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2010 8:59 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [b-hebrew] HALOT Etymologies HALOT Etymologies We are often told that HALOT’s etymologies of Biblical Hebrew words and names are the finest that have ever been done in 3,000 years. Yet when I look in HALOT for etymologies of some of my favorite Biblical names, here is what I find: 1. (N-R at Genesis 14: 13: “n.m.” Is that the finest etymology ever done of this Biblical name? 2. QNZ-Y at Genesis 15: 19: “name of a tribe, meaning unexplained”. That ’s the finest etymology there is? 3. XTY at Genesis 15: 20: “cun[eiform] Xatti…Hittites in Palestine: earlier population of the land, after the Assyrian name for Syria and Palestine in a wider sense”. Did they really say “Hittites in Palestine”? Are they serious? 4. (PR-WN at Genesis 23: 8: “n.m. of a Hittite”. That’s the best etymology out there? 5. $N(-R at Genesis 14: 2: “$in(ar is the land of $anxar(a) in Syria, and was first used as a secondary expression for $umeru Sumer at a time when $anxar was not used as the name of a country”. Really? $N(-R is “Sumer”, but means “Syria”? 6. BR$( at Genesis 14: 2: “Arabic…ugly”. That’s the b-e-s-t etymology out there? 7. $M)BR at Genesis 14: 2: “the meaning of the personal name is not established”. How can university scholars consider HALOT to be the gold standard for etymologies regarding Biblical names like the above? Isn’t it clear that HALOT has no idea whatsoever what the actual etymology is for any of the above 7 names? Jim Stinehart Evanston, Illinois _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
