What seems fairly sure to me (ignoring any theological point of view) about the
redactor of Genesis is: (1) he regarded Abram as an Aramaean. (2) he
passes without comment on Abram and Sarai; (3) he can't explain
Abraham, hence the problematic etymologizing of name. The idea that
Abram and Sarai are Aramaic forms makes sense; that they won't appear in our
Aramaic sources is fixed by Genesis drawing the distinction,
forcing Targums etc. to treat them as distinct names.
RHM. Given the rather pastoral context of the Arabic rhm - rihma, drizzle or
continuous rain, mirham, place where rihma has fallen, rahām or ruhām,
emaciated (of a sheep or goat), 'arham 'more plentiful (of land watered by
rihma)' - why not assume a theophoric name abi-raham, perhaps with raham as an
epithet of the rain god (Ba'al as rkb ‘rpt?). Such a word might simply not
appear in the Biblical lexis.
I wondered also whether (as you've mentioned the possibility of a
differentiating development) whether raham as a differentiated form of raḥam
might be possible - there is evidence of rḥmn (Aram. rāḥmān?) being worshipped
in a Syrian pagan context in the first few centuries AD, and rhmnn appears in a
late South Arabian (monotheistic) context, according to John Healey's Religion
of the Nabateans(p.90) where he cites his own paper, "The Kindly and Merciful
God: On some Semitic Divine Epithets" in Dietrich and Kottsieper (eds) "Und
Mose schrieb dieses Lied auf": Studien zum Alten Testiment und zum Alten
Orielt(Münster: Ugatit-Verlag, 1998). Might it be worth a look? Indeed rēmēnū
appears in Akkadian as an epithet of the gods according to Solokoff's revision
of Brockelmann - CAD R 258 for anyone with access to the Chicago Assyrian
Dictionary. I wonder what period this epithet was used? Of course, most
renaming of
pagan deities tends to be negative (zəbūl --> zəvūv, ba‘al -->
bōšeṯ) but I suppose in the context of Abraham's name that's not going
to have been an option. Still, that also makes it less likely to me.
John Leake, Open University
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