Hi Gad, As I just noticed that besides coming down on you for not signing your full name, no-one actually answered your question, I'll give it a shot.
Av-ram (and Aviram as well) falls into a well-documented type of Western Semitic "theophoric" names (that is, names that include a divine name or title, usually with a verb or adjective), in which the divine is expressed in terms of kinship: "My father (the god) is high/exalted". Abi-melekh: "My father is king". Compare the well-known Phoenician "Ahiram" - "My brother is high". As such, Abram is a fairly common name. Av-ra-ham is more complicated. As such, it is not known outside of the Bible. Scholars are divided over whether it is a by-form of Avram, perhaps reflecting a dialect or a spelling convention, or whether the element "raham" actually means something. We do not know of "raham" meaning "multitude" in Hebrew or any related language. Sarah simply means "ruler/officer" in the feminine, and is occasionally attested as a personal name in ANE languages. "Sarai" seems to simply be a by-form, with no specific different meaning. It is interesting to note that Sarah's sister-in-law Milkah, wife of Nahor Abraham's brother, has a name that means basically the same thing. Of course the whole idea of God "changing" their names is a sign of their "belonging" to God. God also names Isaac and Ishmael, and changes Yeshua bin-Nun to Yehoshua (Joshua). Necho and Nebuchadnezzer do the same to their vassals the kings of Judah. And God commands Adam to name the animals as a sign of his mastery over them. Hope that helped. Yigal Levin -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Zack . Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2011 9:46 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [b-hebrew] Addition of Heh to names The Bibles tells us that with the move to monotheism the names of Avram and Sarai were changed to Avraham and Sarah. I wonder whether other than the biblical explanation and story, were the heh-less names of Avram and Sarai typical in the region at large and has the addition of hehs to names been a convention seen elsewhere or having a significance other than that of the biblical context? Would it have a known semantic evolution, characteristic or significance of no religious conotation or explanation? Gad Canada _______________________________________________ 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
