All tru e learning involves a m easure o f unlearning; in the field o f Biblical studies this is essential. Because the language o f the H e b re w Bible passed o u t o f c o m m o n usage som e tim e after the sixth o r fifth centuries B . C . , it is im possible to k n o w h o w it was originally pron ou nced and vocalised by the ancient people o r peoples w h o spoke it. N o r do w e k n o w anything o f its o rth o g ra p h y , g ram m ar, syntax or idiom . T h e vocabulary o f the H e b re w Bible, to the extent that it is k n o w n at all, is lim ited to the w o rd s w hich appear in the Biblical texts. T rue, rabbinical scholarship has p ro vid ed us w ith an extra-Biblical vocabulary, based partly on the existing Biblical vocabulary and partly on b o rro w in g s from A ram aic and other languages. W e m ust rem em b er, h ow ever, that rabbinical H eb rew was never actually spoken; it was, quite sim ply, a language o f learning. M oreover, m an y o f the w o rd s that do occur in the H e b re w Bible appear so infrequently that their m eanings are a m atter o f debate.1 Therefore, to read and understand the H ebrew Bible, one has either to g o by the rabbinical tradition, or refer to other, related Semitic languages w hich are alive today. I have taken the latter course, basing m y interpretation on Arabic and, on a few occasions, on Syriac, w hich is the m o d ern form o f ancient Aramaic. In short, I have treated H eb rew as a virtually u n k n o w n language to be deciphered afresh, rather than as a language w h ose basic m ysteries have already been resolved.
T h an k s to the im peccable honesty o f M asoretic or traditional Jew ish scholarship, the consonantal text o f the canonical H e b re w Bible has com e d o w n to us fro m antiquity alm ost intact. U n fo rtu n ately , m o d ern scholars have rarely appreciated
28 T H E BI BLE C A M E F R O M A RA BI A
this. O ften , w h ere they fail to m ake sense o f a given Biblical passage as it stands, because o f prejudices regarding its geo graphical context, they have assum ed textual corruptions w here n o n e exists, in m u ch the same w ay as a p o o r w o rk m an blames his tools. T ru e, som e books o f the H e b re w Bible are actually edited com pilations fro m earlier sources. T h at is beyond doubt. F or all one can tell, how ever, the various books o f the canonical Biblical text, m o re o r less as w e have them , already had their present fo rm before the passing o f ancient Israel, that is to say b y th e fifth o r fo u rth century B.C. at the latest. This is suggested by the fact th at the H e b re w Bible was already being translated as a w h o le into A ram aic (the T argum s) during the A chaem enid period, and into Greek (the Septuagint) starting in the Hellenis tic period. Incidentally, the D ead Sea scrolls, w hich have at tracted m uch attention in recent decades, are considerably y o u n g e r than either o f these translations. C onsequently, they m ay be relevant to the study o f Palestinian Judaism in R om an tim es, b u t are o f little use in helping to unravel the m ysteries o f the H e b re w Bible.
So, the H e b re w Bible in its early form was consonantal. It w as vocalised, w ith the use o f special vow el signs, by Palestinian and B abylonian M asoretes betw een the sixth and ninth or tenth centuries o f the C hristian era. In other w ords, those responsible for vocalising it w ere, in effect, reconstructing a language that had n o t been spoken for a thousand years or m ore. These M asoretes, w h eth er they w ere natural speakers o f A ram aic or A rabic, did w h a t they had to do to the best o f their know ledge. R evering the Bible as a sacred scripture, one m ust assum e they w ere careful n o t to tam p er w ith it, leaving its consonantal text as it stood, even w h en they discovered that a given passage did n o t appear to m ake sense. Actual o r supposed irregularities o f spelling o r g ra m m a r w ere noted w h erever they occurred or seem ed to occur, b u t it appears that there was no deliberate a tte m p t to introduce corrections. Ironically, had m odern Bibli cal scholars been as careful and circum spect as their M asoretic predecessors, m o d ern Bible Science w ould n o t have been as confused as it is today, and the process o f true learning in the field w o u ld n o t have necessitated so m uch unlearning.
Sacred texts, in general, are carefully preserved in their origi nal fo rm by the pious and faithful o f any religion, surviving virtually unchanged d o w n the generations. H anded d o w n by tradition, m u ch as sacred texts are, place-nam es also tend to rem ain unchanged, at least in fundam ental structure, no m atter h o w lo ng the passage o f tim e. Even in those rare cases w here they are deliberately altered, the old nam es m ore often than not survive in the folk m em o ry , in the m ajority o f instances reasserting them selves som e tim e later.
It is the persistent survival o f place-nam es that has m ade m y to p o n y m ic analysis possible, pro viding in som e instances greater insight into the geography o f the H e b re w Bible than ever archaeology could. In a w ay, the study o f place-names serves the sam e purpose as field archaeology, th o u g h w ith one im p o rta n t difference. W hile archaeological findings, unless they include inscriptions, are m ute, place-nam es are highly articu late. T h e y tell us n o t only w h a t they are, b u t also h o w they are p ron o u n ced, w h a t they m ean, and from w h a t language or type o f language they derive. In the absence o f inscriptions, archaeological findings are notoriou sly difficult to interpret, so m u c h so that contentions am on g archaeologists over the historical significance o f certain findings have often degenerated into personal feuds. W hile place-nam es do n o t perhaps yield as m u ch in fo rm atio n as archaeological excavation, w h at they do p rovide at least has the virtue o f absolute o r relative certainty.
Let m e offer an exam ple. I f one finds a set o f place-nam es in West A rabia w hich clearly derive fro m a language w hich is consonantally identical w ith Biblical H e b re w o r Biblical A ra maic, one m ay conclude th at languages identical or sim ilar to Biblical H e b re w or A ram aic w ere once spoken in W est Arabia, alth o u g h A rabic has been the c o m m o n speech there for about 2,000 years. Jfit can be fu rth er dem onstrated that a arge n u m b er o f Biblical place-nam es, w hatever their linguistic origin, have their living counterparts in W est Arabia, w hile only a very few such nam es have their counterparts in Palestine, then it is reasonable to ask: is the H e b re w Bible a record o f historical developm ents in W est A rabia rather than in Palestine?
In an effort to answ er that question, m y strategy in the pages
th at follow is to com pare sets o f ancient Semitic place-names, w hich the Bible presents in H e b re w spelling, w ith actual place- nam es in A sir and the southern Hijaz, w hich m odern gazetteers o f Saudi Arabia present in Arabic spelling. A period o f approx i m ately 3,000 years separates the Biblical form s o f these nam es fro m their present counterparts. In term s o f diachronic linguis tics, this is an extrem ely long period, in the course o f w hich m o re th an one language shift m u st have taken place in the lands o f the N ear East, n o t to speak o f dialectical shifts at each stage. Therefore, to m e, w h a t is surprising is n o t that the Biblical nam es have u n derg one som e distortion during this process; rather, it is that th ey rem ain, for the m ost part, so readily recognisable in their present Arabic form .
It is only natural that the Biblical place-nam es in W est Arabia should have und erg o n e som e changes in phon o lo g y and m o r p h o lo g y after the passage o f nearly three m illennium s. A t the start o f this book, a n o te called ‘C onsonantal transform ations’ indicates h o w given consonants in H e b re w can becom e different ones in Arabic, and vice versa. T h e same note calls attention to the frequency o f m etathesis (i.e., the transposition o f consonants in given w ords) betw een the Semitic languages, and even dialectically w ith in the same language. In addition to the changes caused by shifts o f language and dialect, one m ust consider the distortion caused by the w ritten presentation o f the place-nam es in question, both in Biblical H e b re w and in m o d ern Arabic. N o w ritte n language has the means (alphabeti cal o r otherw ise) o ther than to approxim ate the phonetics o f actual speech. This is w h y linguists resort to the use o f so m any extra-alphabetical sym bols in their w ork, k n o w in g well that even these intricate sym bols fall short o f the accurate represen tation o f actual sounds.
H o w place-nam es referred to in this chapter and elsewhere w ere actually p ro nounced in Biblical times cannot be k no w n . T o determ ine precisely h o w they are pronounced today w o u ld involve extensive field research. H ow ever, in com paring the w ritte n form s o f these names, both in Biblical H eb rew and in m o d ern Arabic, one m u st bear in m ind the nature o f the Semitic alphabet. O riginally, this alphabet recognised no m o re than
tw e n ty -tw o consonants (including the glottal stop w hich the Semitic languages recognise as a consonant, and the tw o sem i vowels w and y), although actual Semitic speech invariably used more. In rabbinical H ebrew , an extra consonant was added to the original alphabet by do ttin g the letter called sin, w hich could cither be vocalised as an s o r as the s. T hus the ® came to stand for the s, and the V for the s. Arabic, b o rro w in g its w riting from its Semitic siblings, used their basic 22-letter alphabet at first. In tim e, how ever, six m ore characters w ere introduced, again by adding dots to six characters w hich w ere already there. T h u s the t (o) received an extra dot to yield a t (>i>); the h (£) was d o tted to yield an h (£); the d (j) was dotted to yield a d (j); the 5 (u*) was d o tted to yield the d (J*); the f (J») was d otted to yield the z (J*); and the ‘ (the voiced pharyngeal) fricative, or
‘ayn (Q was dotted to yield th e ^ (£) (see the ‘K ey to H eb rew and
Arabic transliteration’ at the beginning o f the present study). In all six cases, the n ew letters introduced represented consonants phonologically related to those represented by the older ones receiving the extra dots.
T h u s in Arabic, as originally w ritten, n o t all the consonants w hich w ere heard in actual speech had independent characters in the alphabet to represent them . T he same was no d o u bt true o f Biblical H ebrew , w here the spoken language in its various dialects m u st have recognised consonants w hich, in w riting, w ere represented by characters standing for other consonants, but w h ich w ere instinctively recognised as being phonologically related. For example, there is no reason to assume that ancient H e b re w speakers in W est Arabia or elsewhere did n o t p ro nounce the h as well as the phonologically-related h, while m aking the h stand for b o th consonants in w riting. In the rabbinical vocalisation o f Biblical H eb rew (which reflects the influence o f Aramaic), the b can be pronounced as both a b and a v\ the £ as a g and a g\ the k as a k and a h; the p as a p and a p ( o r / ) ; the t as a t and a t. It is entirely possible that ancient H eb rew speakers (at least in som e dialects) also pronounced such consonants as the d, d and z for w hich also the H ebrew alphabet has no special characters. H o w ancient H ebrew speakers differentiated in speech betw een their 5 ( ® , or sin) and
their s (0, or samek) is an outstanding question. Possibly, the s represented a cross betw een the s, s and ar sounds.
B earing all this in m ind, the resem blance betw een ancient H e b re w pronunciations o f W est A rabian place-names and their present Arabic fo rm m ay have been closer than one supposes. A p ro p er field stu d y o f h o w the w ritte n Arabic nam es are actually pro n o u n ced today w ould no d o u b t shed fu rther light on this m atter. W hat is certain, how ever, is that the Arabic alphabet, w ith its six extra consonantal characters, is equipped to yield a closer ap proxim ation o f the original consonantal stru ctu re o f the nam es than the H ebrew .
O f course, a dem onstrable correspondence betw een Biblical and W est A rabian place-nam es w o u ld n o t in itself be sufficient to p ro v e that W est Arabia was the true land o f the H e b re w Bible. T o begin w ith, one m ust m ake certain that the same to p o n y m ic correspondence does n o t exist in other areas o f peninsular A rabia o r in other parts o f the N ear East. O n ce this is ascertained, one m u st try to discover w hether or n o t the Biblical co-ordinates given to places w hose nam es survive, o r appear to survive, in W est Arabia fit their W est Arabian counterparts. T o p u t it another w ay, i f one identifies a place in W est A rabia w ho se nam e seems to correspond w ith that o f the Biblical B eer-lahai-roi (b’r Ihy r’y), one m ust then determ ine w h eth er this place is located along a road leading to a Shur
(swr), betw een a Kadesh (qds) and a Bered (brd) (see Genesis
16:7, 14).2 F ro m this point, one m ig h t assume, archaeology could take over, seeking to discover w hether the W est A rabian site carrying the Biblical nam e could have been inhabited at the appropriate Biblical period, and w ith w hat sort o f m aterial culture it was associated. T h e present w o rk is alm ost entirely based on toponym ies. Before the thesis it advances m ay be regarded as definitive, how ever, one m ust assume that archae ology w o u ld have to corroborate the findings on w hich it is based.
In addition to archaeology, there are other w ays to ascertain w h eth er o r no t Biblical history could have run its course in W est A rabia rather than in Palestine. M atters relating to topograp hy , g eology and minerals, h y drology, flora and fauna m u st be
considered. In o th er w ords, i f one finds a W est Arabian river
o r stream called the Pishon, for exam ple, it is unlikely to be
the Biblical Pishon unless it skirts an area w here gold can be found, o r could once have been found (see Genesis 2:11-12). O n e clear indication th at the Biblical S odom and G o m o rrah could n o t have been ancient tow ns in the vicinity o f the D ead Sea is that there are no volcanoes there w hich could once have destroyed th em (see Genesis 19:24, 28). If one finds a Sodom
o r a G o m o rra h in W est Arabia, one m ust look for a volcano or
f o r volcanic debris nearby. Likewise, i f K ing S olom on had his
palace built o u t o f ‘costly stones’ w hich w ere ‘hew n according
to m easure, saw ed w ith saws, back and fro n t’, and w ere also ‘huge stones, stones o f eight and ten cubits’ (1 Kings 7:9-10), the building m aterial indicated could hardly have been the c o m m o n lim estone o f Palestine. M o re likely, it was granite, which is still found and quarried in W est Arabia. T h e sam e material m u st have been used in building the structure ro u n d the walls o f S o lo m o n ’s tem ple, considering that this structure was m ad e ‘w ith stone prepared at the q u a rry ’, so that ‘neither h am m er n o r axe n o r any tool o f iron was heard in the tem ple, while it w as being b u ilt’ (1 Kings 6:7).3 A lthough the ‘s n o w ’
o r slg o f the Bible is in som e instances a reference to the herb
so a p w o rt (not the Saponaria officinalis, o r bouncing bet, but probably the Gypsophila arabica, see note i ) , 4 in other instances
it clearly refers to actual snow . U n d e r these circumstances, one m ust m ak e certain that sn o w does fall and hold on the W est Arabian m ountains - w hich it does - before venturing the suggestion that the Bible land could have been th ere.5 T h e Biblical oil could have been sesame rather than olive oil, con sidering th at sesame rem ains one o f the m ain products o f Asir.
The fact that a w ild olive still grow s in W est Arabia, how ever, indicates that the Biblical olive could easily have been cultivated there in antiquity, to gether w ith the fig, alm ond, pom egranate and vine, all o f w hich are m entioned in the H eb rew Bible and are still cultivated in the area. Additionally, the olive is still to be fo u nd in tw o parts o f peninsular Arabia, n o rth ern Hijaz and O m an . Therefore, it seems reasonable to assum e that w h a t is referred to is olive oil rather than sesame. In Leviticus 11:29,
the ‘great lizard’ (sb) is listed am ong the reptiles held in abom ina tion as food. T h e ‘great lizard’ or m o n ito r o f southern Palestine and Sinai is called the waral (wrl) or waran (wrn). T h e Biblical
sb is clearly the A rabian desert m o n ito r or dabb (db).6 O n the
o th er hand, while the H eb rew Bible speaks o f m any different kinds o f birds, it n o w here seems to m ention geese o r chickens. A ccording to the ancient geographer Strabo (16:4:2), the parts o f Arabia across the Red Sea from Ethiopia are peculiar in that they have ‘birds . . . o f every kind, except geese and the gallinaceous trib e ’.
All this argues well for a reconsideration o f the geographic location o f the Bible land, especially as it tends to su p po rt other relevant evidence.
R etu rn ing to the som ew hat m ore arid science o f toponym ies, on w hich the a rg u m e n t o f the present volum e m ainly depends, it should be observed that a proper identification o f Biblical place-nam es can deepen and in som e cases revolutionise existing k n o w led g e o f the H e b re w language. Place-names to Biblical H eb rew , if one treats it as a language to be redeciphered, are very sim ilar in nature to royal or divine names in cartouches in ancient E gyptian: they provide clues for the decoding o f w hat is, in fact, a dead language.7 Recognise a Biblical place-nam e for w h a t it is, and the w hole passage in w hich it occurs begins to unfold its m y stery and m ake new sense. T he plain fact is that m an y ordinary w o rd s (verbs, nouns, adverbs and adjectives, som etim es w ith a prepositional b, I or m attached) have tra ditionally been m isread in their Biblical context as place-names. O n the other hand, there are countless unsuspected Biblical place-nam es w hich have traditionally been taken to be verbs, adverbs, nouns or adjectives. T h e proper distinction betw een w h a t is actually a place-nam e and w hat is n o t in a given Biblical text can turn m any a traditional reading (and hence standard translation) upside-dow n.
T h e ancient E g yptian and M esopotam ian records, if their reading is reconsidered (as it should be, see C hapter 1), can th ro w m uch light on the true setting o f Biblical geography. In these records, Biblical place-nam es are often cited w ith other place-nam es w hich one still finds in W est Arabia. Also helpful
.ire the w o rk s o f the Classical historians and geographers. In the preceding chapter, evidence from the w o rk o f H erodotus was cited in connection w ith the em igration o f the Philistines
.md th e Canaanites fro m W est Arabia to the Syrian coast; in ( chapter 4, evidence from the geography o f Strabo will be used
to identify the exact location o f the W est A rabian as distinct from the Palestinian Beersheba. W hat the K oran has to say
about m atters relating to Biblical geography and history, w hich
is considerable, m ust also be taken seriously into account, w hich has n o t been the case so far.
The tex t o f the K oran was com piled and redacted at about the sam e tim e as the M asoretes w ere beginning to vow el and
collate the text o f the canonical H eb rew Bible. A ccording to
Islamic tradition, the definitive edition o f the Koran, as it survives to this day, w as m ade during the reign o f the caliph
‘U th m an , i.e. betw een a.d. 644 and 656. W here it speaks o f the
I lebrew patriarchs, o f Israel, o r o f the Jew ish prophets, the
Koran cites a n u m b er o f place-nam es w hich are distinctly West Arabian. T h e correspondence betw een the K oranic place-names
111 a given context, and the Biblical nam es in the same context, is som etim es highly intriguing. For exam ple, w here the Bible gives the n am e o f a W est A rabian m ountain, the K oran does
not, b u t refers instead to a valley, a to w n or to som e oth er