Begin forwarded message:
From: Samuel Nunez <[email protected]>
Date: December 17, 2012 10:28:02 AM PST
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] [amarna] Old West Semitic Words
Jim,
I think there is evidence that the Torah could have been written by
using a type of Paleo-Hebrew alphabetic script.
See Freedman, D. N., and K. A. Mathews. The Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus
Scroll. Winona Lake, Indiana, 1985.
Samuel Nunez
Carlsbad, CA
On Dec 17, 2012, at 7:50 AM, [email protected] wrote:
Nir Cohen:
1. You wrote: “it is very difficult for me to accept a conjecture
that the law of moses was written in any language but hebrew”
It’s Hebrew, in the sense of west Semitic words that for the most
part fit classic Biblical Hebrew perfectly. But it’s such west
Semitic words written in cuneiform, not using an alphabet.
If you’re saying that the Patriarchal narratives were recorded in
alphabetical Hebrew in the Bronze Age, that’s not possible. Just
look at how rudimentary the Qeiyafa Ostracon is. There’s no way
that the Qeiyafa Osatracon alphabet could have been used to record
any significant portion of the sophisticated, complex Torah. But
if, on the other hand, you’re saying that the Patriarchal
narratives weren’t recorded in writing at all until the Iron Age,
that won’t work either, because of the pinpoint historically
accurate details of the first Hebrews’ struggles in Years 12-14 of
the Amarna Age that are faithfully recorded in the received text.
The Amorite princeling ruler in Years 12-13 of the valley where the
Patriarchs sojourned is given the apt Patriarchal nickname of
“Mamre the Amorite”, and his historical name is honored and set
forth in full at Genesis 46: 17: MLK -Y- )L [Milk-i-Ilu].
There’s no way that anyone in the exilic or post-exilic era could
come up with details from Years 12-14 like that.
No, all those details must have been recorded in the mid-14th
century BCE by a contemporary, in cuneiform, using west Semitic
words. 50 cuneiform tablets, weighing only about 15 pounds or so
in total, would be sufficient to record the Patriarchal
narratives. One of the very earliest Hebrew traditions, then,
dating all the long way back to the Late Bronze Age, would be that
the Hebrews carted along with them those 50 tablets of sacred
Hebrew scripture in a sacred chest, wherever they went. No, we
don’t have those 50 cuneiform tablets today, but we do have in the
received text of the Patriarchal narratives how they were
transformed into alphabetical Hebrew in the early 7th century BCE
[with the poetry of Jacob’s Blessings having been put into
alphabetical Hebrew earlier, as noted in #3 below]. The numbers,
proper names, and substantive content in the received text of the
Patriarchal narratives are all redolent of the first Hebrews’
struggles to survive and maintain their homeland in the Amarna Age.
2. In a later post you wrote: “jim, the queiyafa ostracon is NOT
in cuneiform.”
That’s for sure! And that, my good friend, is the point. If you
would look at Rollston’s fine article that I cited, you would see
how rudimentary the alphabetic system of the Qeiyafa Ostracon was
as of 1000 BCE. Neither the Hebrew author of the Patriarchal
narratives, nor Moses, could use such an inadequate writing system
to record any substantial portion of the Torah. Not. Meanwhile,
the most sophisticated and best writing system known to the ancient
world was readily available to the early Hebrews: cuneiform. And
we know from the Amarna Letters that cuneiform could easily be used
to record west Semitic words.
Forget the alphabet. Think cuneiform! That is, cuneiform used to
record west Semitic pre-Biblical Hebrew words. Cuneiform worked
equally well to record west Semitic words, or Hurrian words, or
Akkadian words.
3. You wrote: “cuneiforms were used in the entire region between
egypt, turkey and the persian gulf as a means of diplomatic and
logistic communication. most probably, they were legible (in
canaan) only by a handful of scribes. it is even doubtful whether
the local rulers who sent them could read them directly without the
scribe's help. quite on the contrary, religeous texts have always
been written in the language of the people, so as to be understood
by a large number of people.”
Hello, hello? King David’s scribe was of Hurrian ancestry, though
his family had lived in Jerusalem for many generations. His
Hurrian ancestry meant that he knew cuneiform [the writing method
in which Hurrian was recorded], but since he lived his whole life
in Jerusalem he was bi-lingual in Canaanite/pre-Hebrew. His name,
$RYH, tells us the whole story. In a Jerusalem dominated by
Hurrians/“Jebusites”, King David had inherited a scribe of Hurrian
ancestry whose family had lived in Canaan for many generations.
His name, $RY-H at II Samuel 8: 17, is based on the following
frequently-attested Hurrian man’s name: $ar-ri-ia. That would be
recorded in early alphabetical Biblical Hebrew as $RY. To that
Hurrian base name is added a Semiticized -H ending, as with the
names Araunah and Uriah. In all three cases, that Semiticization
shows that the man’s family, though of Hurrian origin, had long
lived in Canaan.
King David’s scribe $ar-ri-iah may indeed have been the scribe who
advanced the alphabet enough, a mere 50 years or so after the
dreadful Qeiyafa Ostracon, to be able to record Jacob’s Blessings
[chapter 49 of Genesis] in alphabetical Hebrew. By contrast, the
non-poetical portions of the Patriarchal narratives were not
transformed from cuneiform writing of west Semitic words into
alphabetical Hebrew until the early 7th century BCE, when (i) the
alphabet had greatly improved, (ii) there was more literacy, and
(iii) most importantly, King Hezekiah desperately needed a
religious boost for his devastated kingdom. That’s why scholars
tell us that the writing style, as to spelling and grammar, of
Jacob’s Blessings is 11th-10th century BCE, whereas the writing
style, as to spelling and grammar, of the rest of the Patriarchal
narratives is 7th century BCE.
See how everything makes logical sense? Just think cuneiform, with
cuneiform being used to write west Semitic words, and then
everything falls right into place, just as it should. The first
written version of the Patriarchal narratives was really old,
dating all the long way back to the mid-14th century. It was
written in cuneiform, using west Semitic/pre-Hebrew words that for
the most part have a direct equivalent to Biblical Hebrew words.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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