[b-hebrew] Abraham's origins: mwldt

JimStinehart at aol.com JimStinehart at aol.com
Fri May 29 10:16:43 EDT 2009


Kenneth Greifer:
 
I happened to ride on the bus yesterday with a university professor from 
Israel (whom I had never met before, and who’s in computer science).  I asked 
him your question.  Although he did not have an answer off the top of his 
head, as soon as he got to work he got out his Hebrew Bible and looked at 
chapter 27 of Genesis.  I was pleasantly surprised that (i) he sent me an E-mail 
less than an hour after he got off the bus, and (ii) he agreed with my view 
that Rebekah had more than two sons.
 
Of particular importance, that university professor from Israel cited 
Genesis 27: 37, where Isaac later tells Esau that in Isaac’s earlier blessing of 
Jacob, “all his brethren have I given him for servants”.  The phrase “all 
his brethren” is KL-)XYW.
 
The phrase “all his brethren”/KL-)XYW, when applied to Jacob, implies that 
Jacob had at least two full-brothers, and probably half-brothers as well.
 
The most natural reading of the two phrases “thy mother’s sons” and “all 
his brethren” is that Rebekah herself bore at least three sons, with at 
least one son being borne after the twins Esau and Jacob were born.
 
I am not insisting that that is the only possible reading.  But it sure 
seems to me that that is the most natural reading of those two key phrases.  If 
Rebekah only bore two sons, and Isaac never sired a son by a minor wife, 
then it would be odd for Isaac to tell a disguised Jacob that “thy mother’s 
sons” [in the plural] would bow down to Esau, and for Isaac later to say as 
to Jacob that “all his brethren” [in the plural] have been given to Jacob as 
Jacob’s servants.
 
It was a nice change of pace for someone from Israel who knows Hebrew well 
to agree with one of my controversial interpretations of the Patriarchal 
narratives.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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