Elkenah et al.

[William Schryver]

I'm glad that he's now taking the manuscripts into account. It has been interesting to see the apologists' triumphalism over finding Korash and Libnah in ancient sources, when in fact "Libnah" is a misreading of the manuscripts' "Zibnah", and "Korash" is not in the earliest text at all.

As it was related to me just recently, both Libnah and Zibnah are now known to be attested in ancient texts.

[David Bokovoy]

I'm glad that he's now taking the manuscripts into account. It has been interesting to see the apologists' triumphalism over finding Korash and Libnah in ancient sources, when in fact "Libnah" is a misreading of the manuscripts' "Zibnah", and "Korash" is not in the earliest text at all.

That's interesting, I had no idea! Of course this simply means we're going to have to look at the way Libnah is spelled, since the Akkadian sign zi (5) can also be read as li (2). So if Libnah is written in cuneiform as zi(5)bnah it would actually make it an even stronger link with the BofA.

[volgadon]

Actually, you would know more about these issues than any of us. I'm really not familiar with how modern Hebrew names are transliterated. Could the modern Hebrew name Kenah "to acquire" represent an Aramaic influence where vowel reduction leads to the verbal form ketab (with a shewa) as opposed to Hebrew katab? I honestly have no idea and would have to research the issue to figure it out.

Truth be told, I've never encountered the name Kenah, a facebook search gave no results, and only revealed three individuals by the name of Keinah, and their surnames all sound Amharic. I do know people with the surname Keinan (????), including Amos Keinan the satirist, but not personally, though it also appears as a given name, albeit very rarely.

I believe the name was formed during the early or mid 20th century, when creating Hebrew surnames was all the rage. As the Jewish Aramaic(s) for acquisition is qinyan, qinyana, qinyayin or qinyayina, I would suspect that Keinan is formed from Keini- the Kenite.

[William Schryver]

I'm glad that he's now taking the manuscripts into account. It has been interesting to see the apologists' triumphalism over finding Korash and Libnah in ancient sources, when in fact "Libnah" is a misreading of the manuscripts' "Zibnah", and "Korash" is not in the earliest text at all.

I suppose I should also mention that, although no one is disputing the reading of "Zibnah" in Ab2 (KEPA-2) and Ab3 (KEPA-3), Ab5 (KEPA-4) reads "Libnah," and there are reasons to believe the ur-text of the BoA also read "Libnah" instead of "Zibnah". So I believe it would be very premature for everyone to jump on the Zibnah bandwagon at this juncture. That is, it is not at all a given that Zibnah is the earliest reading.

[Zakuska]

Elkanah is also in the OT, the father of Samuel.

But of course... thats were Joseph stold it from! Da-huh-ha.

[Ron Beron]

In terms of Semitic etymology, I don't believe that there exists a connection between the OT name Elkanah and the BofA name Elkenah. The Biblical name is a combination of the Semitic word El and the tri-literal root qnh "to create" meaning, "God has created." The first letter "a" in the biblical Elkanah is a long vowel, which grammatically cannot be explained in terms of a vowel reduction to the "e" witnessed in the BofA name.

I had an opportunity to read a revised version of Kevin's article without realizing it was his. I hope it appears in print. It was in my estimate a very good analysis.

David, have you read Lundquist's explanation above? And, if so, what do you make of it?

[Chris Smith]

As it was related to me just recently, both Libnah and Zibnah are now known to be attested in ancient texts.

I'm sure they are. But then, I suspect that one could find virtually any off-biblical name somewhere in ancient Middle Eastern onomastica. And if there were a name one couldn't find, a plausible etymology could probably be constructed. The plethora of parallels and derivations that have been proposed for these four names in the BoA are a case in point.

[Glenn101]

I'm sure they are. But then, I suspect that one could find virtually any off-biblical name somewhere in ancient Middle Eastern onomastica. And if there were a name one couldn't find, a plausible etymology could probably be constructed. The plethora of parallels and derivations that have been proposed for these four names in the BoA are a case in point.

Chris, it is easy to dismiss the findings with such an airy assumption. It would be helpful if you would demonstrate to us just how easy it is to find extra-bibilical names in any ancient Middle Eastern omnomasticon. That would make your assertion a little more credible. You could be right or you could be wrong. I do not have ant training in the field, but I do like to see some type of rational basis for such a stance. There have been logical etymologies proposed. Do you have some rational basis for your assumptions that you could share with us?

Thanks,

Glenn

[Chris Smith]

Chris, it is easy to dismiss the findings with such an airy assumption. It would be helpful if you would demonstrate to us just how easy it is to find extra-bibilical names in any ancient Middle Eastern omnomasticon. That would make your assertion a little more credible. You could be right or you could be wrong. I do not have ant training in the field, but I do like to see some type of rational basis for such a stance. There have been logical etymologies proposed. Do you have some rational basis for your assumptions that you could share with us?

Hi Glenn,

One of several quantitative projects that I intend to undertake when time permits is to estimate the probability of correctly "guessing" ancient Semitic names.

I suspect that this is not as difficult as it might seem. Since the ancient Semitic languages did not employ vowels, we have substantial leeway in fitting English to Semitic names. Apologists also regularly employ linguistic "rules" that allow them to fudge the consonants a bit, too. Thus an English "h" can be either he or het. An English "z" can be tsadeh or zayin. An English "k" can be one of four Hebrew consonants. One Hebrew consonant doubles as a vowel, and two are silent vowel placeholders. If we still can't fit our Book of Mormon name to a Hebrew one despite all this fudge-room, then "semantic shifts" are sometimes posited in order to fix a consonant or two. And if all else fails, then the apologists resort to one of several other Semitic languages in the vicinity of Palestine, such as Arabic, Ugaritic, Egyptian, and Akkadian. Suffice to say, there's quite a lot of room to play around to make things fit.

Like I said, I'd like to try to create a quantitative methodology to test whether the Book of Mormon gets "hits" at a higher rate than we would expect given random off-biblical guessing, but I don't expect to have leisure to undertake such a study for several years. In the meantime, I think it's enough that we can get several different etymologies and parallels for the same few names. That illustrates what a determined investigator can do given the vagaries of ancient Semitic tongues.

Peace,

-Chris

[David Bokovoy]

David, have you read Lundquist's explanation above? And, if so, what do you make of it?

It certainly is a direct linguistic parallel. In Akkadian, the gi sign can also be read as ki. The problem, however, is that this deity EI Kina is such a minor god that no one really knows anything about the deity. Barney has suggested that it may be a cognate for the Northwest Semitic El Kinahhi, which is an interesting proposal, but unless we acquire more information it remains an interesting, albeit speculative analysis.

[David Bokovoy]

One of several quantitative projects that I intend to undertake when time permits is to estimate the probability of correctly "guessing" ancient Semitic names.

Well, you had better first learn a little bit about Semitic languages and the history of transliteration before producing such a study.

I suspect that this is not as difficult as it might seem. Since the ancient Semitic languages did not employ vowels, we have substantial leeway in fitting English to Semitic names.

The first thing to learn is that ancient Semitic languages most certainly did employ vowels.

Just to give you an idea, Akkadian, the earliest attested Semitic language, was written with a syllabic script that most certainly preserves the Akkadian short vowels, a, e, i, u, and the four corresponding long vowels. Though not attested in the script, in transliteration, long vowels appear marked with a macron, or with a circumflex, depending upon the length.

Ethiopic exhibits two short vowels, a and e, and five long vowels, a, e, i, o, u.

In terms of vocalization, classical Arabic retains the original reconstructed Proto-Semitic vowels as distinct phonemes, the only development is the special treatment of triphthongs in forms from roots III-w and III-y.

Of course Phoenician, like all other languages, employed vowels,even though the script appears without specific vowel indication until late Punic. However, some evidence exists to determine the nature of Phonecian vocalism through transcriptions, often of personal names, in Neo-Assyrian, Biblical Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.

In terms of Biblical Hebrew, two vocalization systems exist side by side. The use of vowel letters or matres lectionis evolved historically during the first millennium BCE for representing first final, then also long medial vowels. Secondly, the famous Masoretic system of diacritical markings appears in the ninth/tenth centures CE.

Aramaic followed a series of complex ordered vocalization changes from the Proto-Aramiac period since they appear in all forms of the later Aramaic dialects, including the loss of short final vowels (except in triphthongs), with the development of an anaptyctic vowel to separate final consonant clusters.

And I could go on and on and on. This should be enough, however, to illustrate that in reality, Semitic languages most certainly employed vowels according to complex, historical developments and that we really don't have substantial leeway in terms of fitting English to Semitic names.

I have no doubt to someone unfamiliar with these grammatical nuances, the process may appear like "guess" work, but it's actually a very scientific process. So whatever project you eventually develop to estimate the probability of "guessing" ancient Semitic names correctly, it would need to take into consideration the fact that ancient Semitic languages most certainly did employ vowels, and if one understands the grammatical rules of comparative Semitics, there's not nearly the leeway a lay person assumes in terms of correctly fitting English and Semitic words together.

[maklelan]

The first thing to learn is that ancient Semitic languages most certainly did employ vowels.

In addition to your comments, Dave, I would add that Latter-day Saints scholars don't manipulate the limited ambiguities of Semitic philology to the degree of arbitrariness that Chris seems to think. His assumption would be the result, of course, of not knowing a great deal about how these principles work.

[Ron Beron]

It certainly is a direct linguistic parallel. In Akkadian, the gi sign can also be read as ki. The problem, however, is that this deity EI Kina is such a minor god that no one really knows anything about the deity. Barney has suggested that it may be a cognate for the Northwest Semitic El Kinahhi, which is an interesting proposal, but unless we acquire more information it remains an interesting, albeit speculative analysis.

I've been reading Jan Assmann's book, Of God and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism, and he argues that sometimes gods were essentially hyphenated to give them far greater powers, e.g., Amun-Re, etc. Could the same be true with El-Kenah where El or Enki is one god conflated with the powers of the lesser deity?

[USU78]

One of several quantitative projects that I intend to undertake when time permits is to estimate the probability of correctly "guessing" ancient Semitic names.

I suspect that this is not as difficult as it might seem. Since the ancient Semitic languages did not employ vowels, we have substantial leeway in fitting English to Semitic names. Apologists also regularly employ linguistic "rules" that allow them to fudge the consonants a bit, too. Thus an English "h" can be either he or het. An English "z" can be tsadeh or zayin. An English "k" can be one of four Hebrew consonants. One Hebrew consonant doubles as a vowel, and two are silent vowel placeholders. If we still can't fit our Book of Mormon name to a Hebrew one despite all this fudge-room, then "semantic shifts" are sometimes posited in order to fix a consonant or two. And if all else fails, then the apologists resort to one of several other Semitic languages in the vicinity of Palestine, such as Arabic, Ugaritic, Egyptian, and Akkadian. Suffice to say, there's quite a lot of room to play around to make things fit.

Like I said, I'd like to try to create a quantitative methodology to test whether the Book of Mormon gets "hits" at a higher rate than we would expect given random off-biblical guessing, but I don't expect to have leisure to undertake such a study for several years. In the meantime, I think it's enough that we can get several different etymologies and parallels for the same few names. That illustrates what a determined investigator can do given the vagaries of ancient Semitic tongues.

Grimm's Law = fudging.

Got it.

[volgadon]

David, there is a recent book by Yoel Elitzur (son of the late Yehuda), in which he examins the preservation of ancient toponyms in Israel, attempting to establish systematic rules for the identification of Arab place names with biblical and postbiblical ones. This was done very haphazardly in the past.

A lot of the study has to do with vowels. This is actually a monumentally important work with applications that extend beyond geography.

[David Bokovoy]

David, there is a recent book by Yoel Elitzur (son of the late Yehuda), in which he examins the preservation of ancient toponyms in Israel, attempting to establish systematic rules for the identification of Arab place names with biblical and postbiblical ones. This was done very haphazardly in the past.

A lot of the study has to do with vowels. This is actually a monumentally important work with applications that extend beyond geography.

That's awesome! I had no idea! I'm going to pick it up ASAP. Many thanks!

[Chris Smith]

David,

I'm aware that Akkadian is a somewhat different matter than Hebrew. I was thinking specifically of the latter in my comment about vowels.

While you're right that later Hebrew texts (as in the Masoretic tradition) are vowelized, the apologists do not generally follow those vowelizations. And if there are rules for determining how to vowelize ancient Hebrew, I don't see the apologists employing them. It would be quite valuable if an expert such as yourself could explain how the Book of Mormon vowelization of something like, say, irreantum is demanded by scientific rules of transliteration. And when you're done with that, I'd be interested to see you apply the same science to Tvedtnes, et. al.'s classic JBMS study on Hebrew names in the Book of Mormon.

-Chris

[Brent Metcalfe]

Interesting...

I suppose I should also mention that, although no one is disputing the reading of "Zibnah" in Ab2 (KEPA-2) and Ab3 (KEPA-3), Ab5 (KEPA-4) reads "Libnah," and there are reasons to believe the ur-text of the BoA also read "Libnah" instead of "Zibnah". So I believe it would be very premature for everyone to jump on the Zibnah bandwagon at this juncture. That is, it is not at all a given that Zibnah is the earliest reading.

Only for those who lack clarity on the nuances of the text-critical evidence.

Will, your BoAbr sigla is nonsensical, please elaborate.

My best,

</brent>

http://mormonscripturestudies.com

(

[William Schryver]

Only for those who lack clarity on the nuances of the text-critical evidence.

Will, your BoAbr sigla is nonsensical, please elaborate.

Charming, as usual.

[Brent Metcalfe]

??

Charming, as usual.

Well, at least candid.

My points are rather simple:

You've not presented

[William Schryver]

My points are rather simple:

You've not presented

[David Bokovoy]

I'm aware that Akkadian is a somewhat different matter than Hebrew. I was thinking specifically of the latter in my comment about vowels.

In terms of the physical attestation of vowels, Akkadian is only different from some forms of Northwest Semitic languages via the fact that Akkadian appears written syllabically. Of course all Semitic languages used vowels and the vocalization of languages such as Phoenician and Ugaritic follows a very complex historical pattern based upon comparative Semitic analysis.

While you're right that later Hebrew texts (as in the Masoretic tradition) are vowelized,

Again, in terms of Hebrew, it's not just the Masoretic tradition which presents a vocalized text. The use of vowel letters or matres lectionis evolved historically during the first millennium BCE for representing first final, then also long medial vowels and these consonants which represent vowels appear as part of the actual biblical text.

the apologists do not generally follow those vowelizations.

Are you sure?! It's been many years since I've looked at any of these studies, so I should perhaps revisit them, but I don't remember seeing any JBMS and/or John Tvedtnes etymological analysis that ignored Semitic vocalization rules. I'm going to have to go back and look at these studies when I have some free times, but Tvedtnes understands Semitic grammar.

Now granted, deciphering the correct Semitic meaning behind a name in and of itself does not establish historical authenticity. I remember David Wright telling me once that as an experiment, he asked his kids to make up a bunch of biblical sounding names and Wright was able to successfully provide an impressive Semitic analysis for all of these fictitious creations, but that wouldn't mean that Wright's analysis wouldn't have followed very specific grammatical rules.

Of course the discovery of a BofA and/or BofM proper noun in an ancient text, or the use of that noun in LDS scripture together with an apparent word play and/or pun is a step up beyond simply deciphering a proper Semitic meaning for a biblical sounding name.

[volgadon]

I think Tvedtness is mistaken in transliterating Zarahemla as Zerahemla.

Of course, it could still mean seed, zara does appear as well as zera, but unless names simply weren't formed from past tense verbs, I think the etymology is actually sowed compasion.

[Chris Smith]

David,

It sounds like you're just saying that there are limits to the vocalizations that we can choose, not that there are strict scientific rules for obtaining the "correct" vocalization in every case. I don't deny that there are some rules we have to follow. And obviously I would make every effort to incorporate those rules into my study.

The method you attributed to David Wright is one of the approaches to the subject that I've been toying with. I have a couple other methods I'd like to try as well. None of them would be easy, obviously. But I'm convinced such an assessment is possible, and I strongly suspect that it would illustrate that "guessing" authentically ancient Hebrew names is rather less difficult than one might think.

But this project is only number 2 on my list, after my quantitative analysis of Book of Mormon chiasmus. :-)

-Chris

[Olavarria]

David,

It sounds like you're just saying that there are limits to the vocalizations that we can choose, not that there are strict scientific rules for obtaining the "correct" vocalization in every case. I don't deny that there are some rules we have to follow. And obviously I would make every effort to incorporate those rules into my study.

The method you attributed to David Wright is one of the approaches to the subject that I've been toying with. I have a couple other methods I'd like to try as well. None of them would be easy, obviously. But I'm convinced such an assessment is possible, and I strongly suspect that it would illustrate that "guessing" authentically ancient Hebrew names is rather less difficult than one might think.

It would be interesting to see if you could pull off such a feat. Such a project could very well extend beyond BoM studies and into the study of other ancient religious works. For example some scholars argue that the Gospel of Thomas has a "Aramaic substratum" based on Semiticisms in the text.