Note 43 — Chapter I · THE HEBREW PATRIARCHS

A brilliant suggestion of Professor Hommel, however, may prove to be the true explanation of the mysterious name. In the Minæan inscriptions of Southern Arabia a long â is constantly denoted in writing by h; and Abraham, therefore, may be merely the Minæan mode of writing Abram. If so, this would show that the Hebrew scribes were once under the influence of the Minæan script, and that portions of the Pentateuch itself may have been written in the letters of the Minæan alphabet (Hommel, The Ancient Hebrew Tradition, pp. 275-277). Dr. Neubauer has suggested to me that this also may be the explanation of the name of Aaron (Aharôn), which, like Ab-raham, has no etymology. Aaron would be the graphic form of Âron, an Arabic name which appears as Aran in the genealogy of the Horites (Gen. xxxvi. 28).