Prof. Yigal Levin: 1. You wrote: “[D]oes anyone know of any other place in the Bible in which the noun mishkan is used to refer to a human dwelling?”
Per Gesenius: (1) “Surely such [are] the dwellings [M$KNWT] of the wicked, and this [is] the place [of him that] knoweth not God.” Job 18: 21 (2) “The LORD loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings [MSKNWT] of Jacob.” Psalms 87: 2 And figuratively here: (3) “What hast thou here? and whom hast thou here, that thou hast hewed thee out a sepulchre here, [as] he that heweth him out a sepulchre on high, [and] that graveth an habitation [M$KN] for himself in a rock?” Isaiah 22: 16 2. Numbers 16: 24 that you reference features )BYRM, Ab-i-ram, a west Semitic name that is well-attested non-biblically in the ancient world, and that is easy for native Hebrew speakers to say. By contrast, the famous )BRM of Genesis has a birth name that is rarely attested, if attested at all, as a west Semitic name non-biblically in the ancient world. And as a west Semitic name, isn’t it a tongue-twister for native Hebrew speakers who cannot pronounce consonant clusters? Why does Abraham have such an unusual birth name? Whereas )BYRM is like “Joe Smith” in English, a well-attested west Semitic name that is generic and easy to pronounce, )BRM is like “Joes-Mith” in English: an unattested tongue-twister as a west Semitic name. Don’t you find the birth names of Abraham and Sarah ultra-exciting? In my opinion, they’re utterly redolent of the Bronze Age, being incomprehensible to 1st millennium BCE authors like JEP. Jim Stinehart Evanston, Illinois _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
