ʿApiru

Habiru also Hapiru (Egyptian Apiru) was the term by which Akkadian sources refered to a wandering caste of Hetto-Iberians from the Northeast-Mesopotamian Northwest-Iranian & Caucasus areas.

Early on, Hetto-Iberian mercenaries for the hittites had infiltrated south into Canaan as far as Egypt, where they were known as 'prw or Apiru, from the messopotamian Habiru or Hapiru (also Hapiri, Haberi), and Sumeria where they were known perhaps by the Logogram SA.GAZ (or perhaps Gub-Iru).

The Habiru name list on the "Tigunani prism" (reference to come) indicates they hey might have originally been nothing more than a wandering tribal cast of Hurrians, but it is suspected this social cast soon became culturally non-exclusive. Like the 17thC CE Cossack bands of Eastern European Steppes it is thought they were formed out of outlaws and drop-outs from neighbouring agrigulturalist societies.

As a social caste rather than an ethnic group it seems they were joined by peasants who had fled the increasingly oppressive economic conditions of the Assyrian & Babylonian kingdoms. They gave their name to Iranian Kabira, the Khabur valley of the Northern Euphrates and perhaps also the Hebron valley. Some settled in Avaris from whence the Israelites emmerged.

Ironically arguments both promoting & denouncing the Hebrew connection with the Habiru may be traced to Greenberg's work. The major opposition is that the recorded Habiru names are non-Afroasiatic while the option that the proto-hebrews were not originally Afroasiatic speakers is rarely considered by religious researchers.

The Oxford History of the Biblical World, citing the Amarna texts, characterizes a "troublesome group of people found in ancient Syria-Palestine called the 'Apiru/'Abiru or Hapiru/Habiru. Scholars eagerly equated these Apiru with bibliclal ibri , or "Hebrew", and at first thought that they had found confirming, independent evidence of the invading Hebrews under Joshua. As more texts were uncovered througout the Near East, however, it became clear that these Apiru were found throughout most of the Fertile Crecent" The Oxford History 's scholars conclude that the "Habiru" had no common ethnic affiliations, that they spoke no common language, and that they normally led a marginal and sometimes lawless existence on the fringes of settled society. Oxford characterizes the various Habiru/Apiru as a loosely defined, inferior social class composed of shifting population elements without secure ties to settled communities. Apiru are frequently encountered in texts as outlaws, mercenaries, and slaves.

Scholarly opinion remains divided as to whether there is an etymological relationship between Apiru and 'ibri, though many scholars think that the Apiru were a component of proto-Israel"

Georgian historians believe those that what were later known by the Greeks as "the sons of noble Iberes" descended from those that remained in the vicinity of the Caucasus.

References

• Moshe Greenberg The Hab/piru, American Oriental Society, New Haven, 1955.
• Oxford History of the Biblical World, page 72. ISBN 0195139372