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b-hebrew - Re: Balaam's Kittim Oracle

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  • From: "Ian Hutchesson" <mc2499 AT mclink.it>
  • To: "Biblical Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Balaam's Kittim Oracle
  • Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2002 21:44:27 +0200


>the identification of Kittim with Qode is not my 100%, serves as a
>plausible example, but Enkomi-Alasia was abandoned cca. 1050 BC maybe in
>favour of Salamis. Thus if we had the equation Alasia=Elisha, Kition
>different of Kittim, we get a period pre-1050 for this part of the list of
>Genesis.

If you are willing to throw away the Kittim/Kition
equivalence, Michael, I don't really understand
why you want to keep the Alashiya/'ly$h equation.
It is after all more linguistically distant.

I've already indicated that Tar$i$ is quite similar
to the Assyrian version Tarsisi from the eighth
century, while not very similar to the Hittite Tarsa.

>This corresponds the real-political partition of this part of the world
>cca. 1050 (simultaneously with the Balaam reference),

I think by putting undatable traditions before
historically valid sources, you get to stack
the deck -- at least for yourself.

It's plain why you have to deny the Kition
link. Your fanciful dating system is shot
otherwise.

While you're not looking at data, you may as
well forget that Tubal in Gen 10:2, historically
Tabal, didn't make its appearance in history
until after 850. Or the post-Hittite Bit-
Togarmah. Or one of the descendants of
Kush, Shabtakah, was really a descendant of
Kush, being a Kushite pharoah of Egypt, circa
700 BCE.

>among independent
>coastal or island-states in South-Anatolia. Inland powers with access to
>the Mediteranean are listed separately of "Jaman". The header Jaman could
>be either contemporary with the creation of the list (see the appearence
>of the toponym in Ugaritic documents, thus in the said region) or later as
>most of these countries came under Greek rule.

As you seem arbitrarily committed to such
a ludicrously early dating for Gen 10:4, I
guess you won't be prepared to look at the
literary pedigree of the table of nations,
which can be derived from both Jubilees
and the Genesis Apocryphon, both from the
2nd century BCE and both more primitive
than the Genesis account, suggesting that
they are from an earlier recension of
Genesis than the current one which you are
betting on.

The trouble with not doing your duty is that
you have no way of knowing any historical
data about what you are attempting to
analyse. You cannot assume your date and
work backwards: you may assemble and
mobilise a lot of data, but to what end, when
you can't derive anything historically useful?


Ian






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