Kirk Lowery:
You wrote: “To my knowledge, the consonant [heth/X] never occurs in the
semitic languages as an inflectional morpheme. It is always part of a lexical
stem or root.”
Thank you so much for confirming what my own research had strongly
suggested.
One practical application of that key linguistic fact is as follows.
The mysterious name $RX [or %RX] at Genesis 46: 17 cannot be analyzed as
being $R or %R, plus suffix heth/X, if $RX is a Semitic name. Thus the
well-documented existence of the Semitic root $R is of no use if $RX is a west
Semitic name [as ordinarily thought], because no Semitic name could have a
heth/X as a suffix.
That is why analysts change the first consonant of this name to a
samekh/S. $RX [or %RX] is then viewed as being a west Semitic name that is a
bollixed-up version of SRX, with the initial consonant samekh/S having become
confused with the initial consonant shin/$ or sin/%.
But excluding Aramaic, samekh rarely is confused with sin in Biblical
Hebrew, despite the apparent similarity of their sounds. Even more rarely is
samekh confused with shin in Biblical Hebrew [where the sounds are markedly
different]. Thus although it is possible that the name $RX or %RX at
Genesis 46: 17 could be a bollixed-up version of SRX, to me that does not seem
very likely.
My own view is that the spelling at Genesis 46: 17 has pinpoint accuracy,
that the name should be analyzed as being $R plus suffix heth/X, and that
accordingly $R-X is like $R-Y at Genesis 11: 29: there is no known Semitic
name for a human being of this type. The early Hebrews knew many
non-Semitic peoples, and tent-dwelling people just like the early Hebrews are
attested as sometimes recording their thoughts in writing [per Amarna Letter
EA
273], so in my controversial opinion we should not be shocked to find
non-Semitic proper names, with proper Late Bronze Age spellings, in Genesis.
Moreover, we know that $R-Y cannot possibly be a Canaanite name, because both
Abraham and Isaac loathe Canaanite brides. Genesis 24: 3; 28: 1. Thus
the conventional view that $RY is an archaic form of a west Semitic name from
an unattested Canaanite dialect is simply not possible textually. Plus,
no such west Semitic name of a human being has ever been found in the
ancient world. $R-X almost certainly cannot be a Canaanite wife either,
because
per Genesis 46:10 we would expect to be told if any wife in this list were
a rare Canaanite wife. Indeed, one suspects that $R-Y and $R-X were
brought into the Hebrew family in the identical manner, for the same reason,
with
the presence of $R-X thus re-validating, as it were, the process by which
$R-Y became Abram’s wife/sister. T-h-a-t is why, you see, $R-X as a woman
is listed and counted as one of the 70 Hebrews who migrate to Egypt from
Canaan with Jacob. The scholarly view is that $R-Y and $R-X must somehow be
thought of as being unattested west Semitic names; but not only does that
scholarly view appear to be linguistically impossible [if one doesn’t
change the letters in the received text], but also then there is no
explanation
either as to (i) why $R-Y’s biological parentage is not mentioned at the
end of chapter 11 of Genesis, or (ii) why $R-X is counted as one of the 70
Hebrews who move to Egypt. In my view, it is not a mere “coincidence” that
Sarah, whose birth name is $R-Y, is said to be Abraham’s “sister” at
Genesis 20: 12, and $R-X is likewise said to be Beriah’s “sister” at Genesis
46: 17.
If the very first female name in the Patriarchal narratives, and one of
the last female names, are both non-Semitic, and both of these non-Semitic
women are expressly said to be a man’s “sister”, that would be telling us
something important about the antiquity and historicity and basic meaning of
the Patriarchal narratives. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if an historical
linguist were someday to a-s-k if $R-Y and $R-X are non-Semitic names coming
straight out of the Late Bronze Age?
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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