Prof. Yigal Levin:
1. You wrote: “Jim, even if Sulam were a foreign loanword, that in
itself would not be proof of how old the story is.”
If SLM is a Hurrian loanword, that would tend to indicate an Amarna Age
composition date for the Patriarchal narratives, because we know from the
Amarna Letters that that was the only time period when Hurrian princelings
dominated the ruling class of Canaan.
2. Now consider whether the scribe of Hurrian princeling ruler IR-Heba of
Jerusalem may have been the very person who, after IR-Heba was gone, the
first Hebrews retained to record in writing an outline of the Patriarchal
narratives, using cuneiform to write pre-Hebrew west Semitic words. We know
from Amarna Letter EA 273, which deals with the identical succession crisis
that threatened the first Hebrews’ continued ability to live in their
beloved homeland, that tent dwellers in the valley in Year 14 sometimes
retained scribes to record their thoughts in writing. Now consider the
following
truly s-t-u-n-n-i-n-g similarities in the peculiarities of the writing
style of IR-Heba’s scribe and the peculiarities of the writing style in the
received text of the Patriarchal narratives:
(a) These are the only texts from Canaan that use xireq compaginis in
common words.
(b) These are the only texts from Canaan that routinely use Hurrian
common words in a positive manner. [The hapax legomenon SLM has been the focus
of this thread.]
(c) These are the only ancient texts from Canaan that refer to northern
Mesopotamia as “Naharim”. Genesis 24: 10. Amarna Letter EA 287: 35.
(d) These are the only texts from Canaan that refer to southern
Mesopotamia as “Kassite land”. Genesis 11: 28, 31; 15: 7. Amarna Letter EA
287:
36.
(e) Each of these texts refers to the most important princeling in the
lives of the first Hebrews, using the same spelling of his historical name:
Milk-i-Ilu. Genesis 46: 17. Amarna Letter EA 287: 29.
If IR-Heba’s former scribe was retained by the first Hebrews, shortly
after Akhenaten’s death, to record in writing an abbreviated outline of the
Patriarchal narratives, that would nicely explain both (i) the foregoing
remarkable similarities in the writing peculiarities of the received text of
the
Patriarchal narratives as compared to IR-Heba’s Amarna Letters, and (ii)
the p-i-n-p-o-i-n-t historical accuracy of the Patriarchal narratives
regarding all the many historical details of the traumatic events that
happened
in the first Hebrews’ valley [Genesis 37: 14] in Years 12-14.
Do you see how very important it is to identify various hapax legomenon
like SLM in the Patriarchal narratives as being Hurrian loanwords?
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
_______________________________________________
b-hebrew mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
