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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Hello
  • Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:48:01 EST


Avi:

You wrote: “I have a question to Mr. Stinehart: I read very carefully his
commentaries about Genesis, the Torah in general and History. My question is
a
little meta-historical or perhaps" meta-group": Could be said or thought,
that Judaism or traditional Jewish Faith or "Emunah" has a more solid
historical
basis than other creeds…[?]”

Since this is the b-Hebrew list, I will restrict my comments to Judaism. In
my controversial view, (i) the Patriarchal narratives are the foundation of
Judaism, (ii) the Patriarchal narratives were composed in the mid-14th
century
BCE, and were never significantly edited thereafter (though spelling and
grammar were updated, and a handful of editorial comments/phrases were added
into
the text later), and (iii) the Patriarchal narratives are very closely based
on
the well-documented secular history of the mid-14th century BCE.

Since the main concerns of the b-Hebrew list are language issues involving
Biblical Hebrew, let me set forth here, as partial proof of my controversial
theory, 7 words which appear in the received text of the Patriarchal
narratives.
In my view, these 7 words are redolent of the mid-14th century BCE.
Furthermore, in my view neither JEPD, nor any other southern Hebrew in the
mid-1st
millennium BCE, would have known any of these words, except by reading them
in
the truly ancient Patriarchal narratives.

1. Horites

The Patriarchal narratives are the only place in the Bible that mentions the
Horites/Hurrians, a people who went extinct prior to the 1st millennium BCE.

2. Chânîykîm

The word chânîykîm at Genesis 14: 14, referring to Abraham's armed retainers,
is not present in the secular record after the 15th century BCE, and is never
used elsewhere in the Bible.

3. Naharim

Genesis 24: 10 uses this Egyptian word from the Amarna Letters for the
Hurrian state on the upper Euphrates River that vanished in the late 14th
century
BCE. (This ancient word is picked up from the ancient Patriarchal narratives
and used in later books of the Bible.)

4. Pa nTr

This monotheistic phrase, which appears in Akhenaten’s Great Hymn to the
Aten, is in Joseph’s Egyptian name at Genesis 41: 45.

5. Paddan-Aram

Though John Van Seters is usually considered something of a Biblical
Minimalist, his book nicely sets forth the 14th century BCE nature of this
odd phrase,
which appears 10 times in the Patriarchal narratives but nowhere else in the
Bible: "[I]n the Ugaritic texts [appears] a reference in a fourteenth
century
cuneiform text to eqleti aramina, 'the fields of the Arameans. …Paddan-Aram…
is the Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew…'field of Aram'…." John Van Seters,
Abraham in History and Tradition (1975), Yale University Press, New Haven, at
pp. 30, 58.

6. Amrapel

“Amrapel” at Genesis 14: 1 is the name of the most famous brother of Aziru,
the iniquitous Amorite of Amurru (northern Lebanon). Amrapel is the one who
wrote Amarna Letter #170, claiming that there were 90,000 Hittite troops in
the
Bekka Valley, just north of Canaan proper. “Amrapel” makes an ideal
nickname for Aziru, who in secular history was one of the four attacking
rulers being
referred to in chapter 14 of Genesis, because the first three letters of his
name, aleph-mem-resh, mean both “Amorite” and “Amurru”. Aziru was an
Amorite who iniquitously sold out Amurru to the dreaded Hittites in the
mid-14th
century BCE, thereby threatening the future existence of the pre-Hebrews in
northern Canaan proper

7. Abimelek of Sur

Both in the Patriarchal narratives and the Amarna Letters, Abimelek/Abimilki
of Sur/Surru is constantly jousting over contested rights to valuable water
wells, in a land that is otherwise wealthy, where a tent-dwelling farmer like
Isaac can get rich growing crops and selling the produce to the wealthy
island
city-state of Sur (“Tyre” in English) in northern Canaan, which had to buy
all
of its food.

Conclusions

In the Bible, only the Patriarchal narratives are chock-full of vintage
mid-14th century BCE vocabulary like this. JEPD knew nothing about this. In
my
controversial view of the case, the Patriarchal narratives were composed by
the
first historical Hebrew, who thereby succeeded in saving his people -- his
fellow tent-dwelling pre-Hebrews in northern Canaan -- from being wiped out
by
the dreaded Hittites. As I see it, the specific historical event that
convinced
the first Hebrews that God was on their side, and that Canaan was their
Promised Land, was that on a near-miraculous basis, the dreaded Hittites,
though at
one point apparently having 90,000 troops in the Bekka Valley just north of
Canaan proper, never in fact invaded Canaan proper. For the next 500 years
after that, the rivals of the early Hebrews in inland Canaan gradually faded
away, as the non-Hebrew population of inland Canaan dramatically declined.
Subject to an occasional Egyptian raid that was mainly for show, the first
500 years
of the Hebrews’ existence were remarkably peaceful, if modest. No one could
have foreseen at that point that from the 9th century BCE to the present, the
Hebrews/Jews would never again have a peaceful life.

It is my view that the mid-14th century BCE vocabulary of the Patriarchal
narratives bespeaks a mid-14th century BCE composition date for the
Patriarchal
narratives. No group of southern Hebrews in the mid-1st millennium BCE,
whether JEPD or anyone else, could possibly have composed the Patriarchal
narratives, with all that vintage mid-14th century BCE vocabulary.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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