Prof. Yigal Levin: I agree with virtually everything you say in your post. Your post then concludes: “Now please, what's your point?” The scholarly view of the name of King David’s scribe, $RYH,is in error. The majority scholarly viewis that it’s a Hebrew name of a Hebrew, and a minority scholarly view holdsthat although King David’s scribe was an ethnic Hurrian, he changed his name toa Hebrew name. It’s true that often inthe Bible, $RYH is a Hebrew name of a Hebrew, namely $R-YH. But scholars have failed to realize that,linguistically, $RYH works just as well as a Semiticized Hurrian name of aHurrian: $R -Y [-H] : $ar-ri -ya Semiticized. $ar-ri -yais an attested Hurrian man’s name. Infact, conceptually it’s virtually identical to a name that most scholarsrecognize as being a Semiticized Hurrian name: )W-R -Y [-H] : Ev-ri-ya Semiticized [“Uriah”]. This thread has shown one important factor that arguesagainst the scholarly view. Prior toKing David’s sons, very few Hebrews in the Bible are portrayed as having westSemitic names ending in -YH that honor YHWH. Yes, I am largely ignoring Chronicles, which is a special case, but I amtaking into account all other books in the Bible. It simply does not make sense to argue, as the majorityscholarly view does, that the un-named father of King David’s obscure scribe wasone of the first people in the Bible to give his son a west Semitic name endingin -YH that honors YHWH. The scholarlyminority view is correct in realizing that King David’s scribe should be aHurrian, since Jerusalem at that time was dominated by several families ofHurrian ancestry, having names such as “Uriah” and “Araunah”. But the scholarly minority view errs indreaming that King David’s scribe was born with a Hurrian name but changed itlater to a Hebrew name ending in -YH that honors YHWH. Neither in the Bible nor outside of the Bibleis there a single documented case of a Hurrian changing his name to a Hebrewname that honored YHWH. The answer is that King David’s scribe has a vintage Hurrianname, that has been Semiticized, just like his contemporaries “Uriah” and “Araunah”in King David’s Jerusalem. The expectedBiblical Hebrew spelling of the attested Hurrian man’s name $ar-ri -ya is $R-Y, and per the names “Uriah”and “Araunah”, we know that the way to Semiticize a Hurrian man’s name was toadd a final -H at the end. ThatSemiticization is important in showing that these three individuals came fromfamilies that had dominated Jerusalem since the Late Bronze Age, when mostHurrians went extinct. “My point” is that the rarity in the Bible of Hebrew namesending in -YH that honor YHWH, prior to King David’s sons, strongly arguesagainst the majority scholarly view that the name of King David’s scribe shouldbe viewed as being the Hebrew name $R-YH of a Hebrew. Rather, in context, that name shoulddefinitely be viewed as being the Semiticized Hurrian name $ar-ri -ya : $R -Y [-H] of aHurrian. This is a big deal for me, for I have to have someexplanation for the fact that, contra university scholars, (i) the received textof the Patriarchal narratives has dozens of bona fide Hurrian names, and (ii)the rest of the Bible has a fair number of Hurrian names as well, in each casewith such Hurrian names being spelled correctly. Since the Hurrians for the most part wentextinct at the end of the 13th century, how can that possiblybe? One big part of the answer is thatJoshua 15: 63 is spot-on historically accurate in asserting thatHurrians/Jebusites remained in Jerusalem “until this very day”. If Jerusalem had not happened to be the onlyplace in greater Canaan that had prominent Hurrian families in the 1stmillennium BCE, then (a) there’s no way that the Hurrian names in thePatriarchal narratives, written in cuneiform in the Amarna Age, could have comeout with letter-for-letter spelling accuracy in the received alphabeticalHebrew text of the Patriarchal narratives, or that (b) later books in the Biblecould manage, consistently, to come up with bona fide Hurrian names whenever aBiblical text needs a Hurrian name. Thus it’s very important for my theory of the case, whichholds that the Patriarchal narratives were written down in cuneiform using westSemitic common words in the mid-14th century BCE on 50 tablets thatwere in the Temple in Jerusalem until the sacking of Jerusalem by theBabylonians, to be able to point to there being Hurrian scribes in 1stmillennium BCE Jerusalem. The antiquityand historical accuracy of the Patriarchal narratives are on the linehere. I must be able to show Hurrians inKing David’s Jerusalem. That’s why it’sso important to realize that even though the names “Uriah” and “Seraiah” end in-YH, they nevertheless are not Hebrew names of Hebrews that honor YHWH. Rather, both such names are SemiticizedHurrian names of Hurrians in King David’s Jerusalem. One key to seeing that, being “my point” onthis thread, is to realize that west Semitic names ending in -YH that honorYHWH are very rare in the Bible prior to King David’s sons, so King David’sscribe in Jerusalem should not be expected to have such a rare Hebrew name. That’s my point. Jim Stinehart Evanston, Illinois
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