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  • From: "George Athas" <gathas AT mail.usyd.edu.au>
  • To: "Biblical Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Qeynites, Genesis and New Subscriber
  • Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1999 10:29:21 +1100


> Who are the Kenites as mentioned in 1 Chronicles 2:55; tacked onto the end
> of the listing of the tribe of Judah and what does their name mean? Again,
> work for dissectors of Hebrew.

The Qeynites, in the biblical texts, are associated with the tribe of Moses'
father-in-law, Hobab (Jdg 4:11). You might equate this with Jethro, priest of
Midian, or
Reuel. That's unimportant, though. The name "Qayin" from which we get
'Qeynites' or
'Kenites' would mean "smith" as in 'blacksmith'.

>
> What does the word <Strong's 8435 Hebrew> (to-led-ah) mean? Check it's
> every use in all of the Hebrew Scriptures and kindly explain why people
> argue it to be used as a recapitulation of the creation of the sixth day
> people when in fact it is not a recapitulation at all and serves to prove
> that THE Adam, with the article and particle, was made on the eighth day,
> after YHVH rested and found He had no man to till the soil. More work for
> dissectors.

You're presuming here that there is no literary seam between Gen 2:3 and 2:4.
However,
there is most definitely a seam when you look closely at the texts. The fact
that 2:4ff is
a 'toledah' with its own littel heading in Hebrew shows that there is a
definite break
with 2:3. The style is different, the term "Yahweh-god" is used rather than
simply "God,"
there is a completely different creation narrative, the content varies. At
some time in
antiquity, a scribe (or scribes) took two accounts of creation, sewed them
together so
that they sat by side, and put them in the book we call Genesis. Gen 2:4ff is
not a
recapitulation of Gen 1:1-2:3, and nor is it a continuation of Gen 1:1-2:3.
It is just
simply different. The scribes could have opted to put Gen 2:4ff at the
beginning so that
our Hebrew Bibles started with "This is the history of heavens...." It's a
bit like saying
that the second poem in an anthology of poems is necessarily the end of the
first poem and
must come after the first poem. It isn't and it doesn't have to. Or that Hymn
2 is
actually the last verse of Hymn 1. It wouldn't be. They're just different. We
should note
and appreciate the differences of the creation accounts in Genesis.

Also, since B-Hebrew is an academic list focusing on a language, we need to
keep
theological discussions to an absolute minimum. Every member of this
discussion list needs
to abide by the rules and wishes of the list-owners who have said that this
is not a
theological forum. That's common courtesy. The texts we are dealing with are
theological
texts, but we are discussing the language, not the theology of the texts.
There are other
forums which deal with the theological aspects, but this is not one of them.

Best regards,
George Athas
Dept of Semitic Studies,
University of Sydney
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  • Qeynites, Genesis and New Subscriber, George Athas, 11/28/1999

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