Salam aleikum everyone,
Being aware that the argument of Hira being mentioned in Isaiah 29:12, sooner or later, will have to face some criticism (especially from Christian apologists), I have figure out or typed several possible objections against this claim along with answers to each objection. I'll be insha'Allah gradually posting here my answers to these objections that will likely be posed by critics.
OBJECTION #1 The website’s inbuilt critical apparatus points to the originality of the sigma letter in the word χιρας
Some critics might say that the critical apparatus designed for the Codex Sinaiticus in the official website (attached to the transcription on the right window, see the link here:
https://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx) indicates that
sigma (ς), at the end of the word χιρας (chiras), is original and not a later insertion made by the corrector Cb3. This means that the previous form originally written by scribe B was χιρας (chiras), not χιρα (chira).
ANSWERFirst, it is important to ask: does
sigma at the end of χιρας represent a lowercase final form, or is it a result of the „letter compression”?
Second, even if
sigma was original (i.e. written by scribe B, not Cb3), it does not necessarily discredit the claim that χιρας (chiras) might still be reflecting a proper form name for Hira, and this is simply because in Ancient Greek the letter
sigma was usually added at the end of place names. There are many examples in the Septuagint of transliterated proper names with a typical Hellenized ending -ας (as). Perhaps a perfect example is
חִירָה (Ḥîrāh) from Genesis 38:1, a name of certain Adullamite person, which is transliterated in the Septuagint as Ιρας (Iras). Here, unexpectedly, for some unknown reasons, authors of the Septuagint chose
ι (iota) instead of χ (chi) despite the fact that e.g. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, for example, has transliterated this name as Hiras (applying H not I). Later, in OBJECTION #4, I will show that the Septuagint has, in fact, transliterated many Hebrew names with initial letter
ח (ha) using
χ (chi) not
ι (iota).
Now, as to the ending -ας added to place names, in the Book of Isaiah alone we find many examples: in Isaiah 8:4 we have
שׁמרון (Samaria) which is transliterated by Septuagint as
Σαμαρείας (Samareias), clearly having
sigma at the end. The Greek text of Isaiah 11:11 mentions three place names (though they do not occur in the Hebrew text):
Βαβυλωνίας (Babulonias = Babylon),
Αἰθιοπίας (Aithiopias = Ethiopia) and
Ἀραβίας (Arabias = Arabia), again having
sigma attached at the end. Another example is Γομορρας (Gomorras = Gomora) in Isaiah 1:10. For instance, in Isaiah 11:13, the Hebrew personal name
יהודה (Judah) is transliterated by the Septuagint as
Ιουδας (Ioudas), with the
sigma addition.
So yes, linguistically speaking, an ancient textual Greek form for the name Hira may well have had
sigma at the end since it was something characteristic for Koine Greek to add this particular letter at the very end of proper names. In other words, the name Hira might well be written in ancient Greek as χιρας (chiras) or even χειρας (cheiras) since, surprisingly, there are orthographical variations of the same proper names, e.g. Χιραμ (Hiram) vs. Χειραμ (Heiram), and these variants are detectable especially when we collate/compare the so-called four great uncial codices: Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, Ephraemi. Regarding the initially proposed text-form χιρα (without
sigma), it may be considered as its post-biblical “modernized” version, exactly as it appears in modern Greek literature about Islam, which I already demonstrated in my research here in the blog.
On the other hand, it is equally possible that the variant χιρας (with the
sigma ending) is just a declinable form since in Greek proper nouns changes depending on the gender, number, and case (inflection rules). Also, biblical scholars acknowledges certain instances where the Greek translator of the Septuagint employs declinable forms for some "obscure" place names he couldn't recognize.
Take care,
Idris
