Nir Cohen:
You wrote: “SULAM is used in modern hebrew. your logic seems to imply that
we still
live in the 14th century BC because we use a word of (supposedly) hurrian
origin.”
No, my logic is that if and to the extent the Patriarchal narratives
contain several mysterious hapax legomenon like SLM that seem inexplicable on
Semitic grounds but make perfect sense as Hurrian loanwords, then that is one
important indication that the Patriarchal narratives likely were composed
in the mid-14th century BCE. Only in the Amarna Age did Hurrian
princelings dominate the ruling class of Canaan, so that is the only time when
Hurrian
common words would likely slip over into Hebrew.
Likewise, no west Semitic name Sarai is attested, nor is there even a west
Semitic woman’s name attested that has the format of (i) west Semitic root
+ (ii) -ai as an archaic west Semitic feminine ending. But $aru-ya is an
attested Hurrian woman’s name, and that Hurrian woman’s name would come
over into Hebrew as $RY. Logically, that means that Sarah’s biological
parents were Hurrian, with Sarah being adopted by Terah in order to marry
Terah’
s blood son Abram. That particular type of marriage is well-attested in the
14th century BCE, and in no other time period, which is another indication
that the Patriarchal narratives were composed in, and accurately reflect,
the Amarna Age. The scholarly claim that Sarah’s birth name is allegedly
a Canaanite name is simply false. Each of Abraham and Isaac explicitly
reams out Canaanite brides in no uncertain terms, yet each of Abraham and Isaac
truly loved dear Sarah. There’s no contradiction there at all, because
Sarah was not a Canaanite bride: Sarah was a Hurrian by birth with a
vintage Hurrian woman’s name.
Finally, that in turn makes it sensible that the Patriarchs would call
their beloved “valley”/(MQ [Genesis 37: 14] by a Hurrian name that means “
nirvana”: xa-bu-ru-u-ne : XBRWN [“Hebron”]. Instead of none of SLM and $RY
and XBRWN making good sense on a Hebrew linguistic analysis, all three make
perfect sense on a Hurrian linguistic analysis.
Please understand that I have little interest in Hurrian culture, nor do I
see Judaism as borrowing much of anything from Hurrian culture. Rather,
my only real interest in Hurrian is to seek to document the true antiquity,
and the pinpoint historical accuracy in a Years 12-14 historical time
period, of the Patriarchal narratives. The Hurrians basically went extinct
at
the end of the 13th century BCE, so to the extent the Patriarchal
narratives exhibit many Hurrian elements, that is testament to the Biblical
text’s
true antiquity and Late Bronze Age historical accuracy.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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