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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Where Did Judah Sire Twins by His Daughter-in-Law Tamar?
  • Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 10:38:18 EDT


Where Did Judah Sire Twins by His Daughter-in-Law Tamar?

A close analysis of the Hebrew letters in the names of three geographical
sites in chapter 38 of Genesis may enable us to determine where Judah sired
twins
by his daughter-in-law Tamar (after Tamar dressed as a prostitute).

The only chapter of Genesis devoted to Jacob’s son Judah is chapter 38.
Where did Judah go when he left his father’s family to strike out on his own?
It
is usually presumed that Judah wandered south. But if my theory of the case
is right that Judah’s father Jacob had grown up in northern Canaan, not in
southern Canaan, then we might expect Judah to wander back up north, almost
as far
as Sur/“Tyre”. Let’s examine the three geographical sites named in chapter
38 of Genesis with that in mind.

In two cases, chapter 38 of Genesis seems to cut off part or all of the first
syllable of the city names it cites. As with other non-Hebrew names, the
author of the Patriarchal narratives frequently leaves out one syllable. We
are
looking for prominent Late Bronze Age sites, whose names pre-date the Hebrews.

1. Most scholars see “Chezib” at Genesis 38: 5 as being an alternative
rendering of “Achzib”. While agreeing fully with that linguistic argument, I
will depart from the scholars and look to historical Achzib, in northern
Canaan,
as the likely place where Judah sojourned after leaving his father’s family.

Historical Achzib, a prominent site in the Late Bronze age south of Sur/“Tyre”
, is: aleph-kaf-zayin-yod-bet.

At Genesis 38: 5, this comes out as: kaf-zayin-yod-bet.

The only difference in spelling is that chapter 38 of Genesis drops the
initial aleph, thereby dropping the initial syllable.

2. More surprisingly, Genesis 38: 14 seems to leave off part of the first
syllable of historical “Shikimona”, which is a prominent Late Bronze Age site
fairly near historical Achzib.

We first note the confusion in the ancient languages between S or SH and T,
as in “Sur” coming out in Greek, Latin and English as “Tyre”. Sur/“Tyre” is
usually spelled in Hebrew with a tsade, which started out sounding like an
emphatic S, but much later on became a TS sound. Another example of T
replacing
earlier S is that s-s-ayin-nu in the Egyptian of the Execration Texts is
thought to be “Tasi-ayin-anu”. Rainey, “The Sacred Bridge”, at p. 58. Since
the name “Shikimona” pre-dates the Hebrews and pre-dates 1200 BCE, it is
possible that it originally started with an archaic glottalized S, an extinct
sound
that can come out in later languages as either S or SH or T. In analyzing
pre-Hebrew (or non-Hebrew) names, the Biblical Hebrew spellings often differ.

Here, perhaps the SH or S could become a T/tav. The “-ik” portion of the
first syllable is then dropped. So starting with “Shikimona”, we end up with
Timona, or “Timnah”.

At Genesis 38: 14, this name is spelled tav-mem-nun-tav-he (“Timnath”), but
elsewhere in the Bible the second tav is dropped, resulting in “Timnah”.
(Note that a tav is often optional in the last syllable of a city’s name that
ends with an “-ah” sound. Thus Egyptian Ga-sa-t[a] and Qa-s[a-t]a are
presumed
to be Gaza. Rainey, “The Sacred Bridge”, at pp. 110 and 101. Likewise,
Biblical “Ephrathah” at Genesis 35: 7 could be historical Afula, in northern
Canaan, once the optional tav is dropped from the final syllable of
“Ephrathah”,
and the R is seen as often being confused with L. [Afula is within eyesight
of Shunem, a prominent Late Bronze Age site, and the author of the
Patriarchal
narratives may have known that in the Middle Bronze Age, it had been
now-deserted Afula that was the major city in this area of northern Canaan.
Likewise,
the author appears to have known that the ruins of long-deserted Ai lay east
of thriving Bethel, south of Shechem. Note that the text never states that
any
people actually live at the well-known sites of Afula/Ephrathah or Ai,
neither of which seems to have been inhabited in the Late Bronze Age.])

(Ancient historical Shikimona is “Shiqmona” in modern Hebrew.)

As noted below, historical Nami (Biblical Enaim) is on the road to historical
Shikimona
(Biblical Timnah). Here is Genesis 38: 14: “[Judah’s daughter-in-law
Tamar] sat in the entrance of Enaim, which is by the way to Timnah….”

3. Biblical “Enaim” at Genesis 38: 14 seems to be historical “Nami” (or “
Tel Nami”), another prominent Late Bronze Age site fairly near Achzib, in
northwestern Canaan.

Here, the introductory ayin, or ayin-yod, probably is a prefix meaning “
fountain”, which as such is optional as being part of the name. So if the
optional
prefix ayin (in the form of ayin-yod) is added to historical Nami, we get
Biblical Enaim.

At Genesis 38: 14, “Enaim” is ayin-yod-nun-yod-mem.

This compares to historical “Nami”. Note that the only two true consonants,
N + M, are the same, and are in the same order.

4. Thus in looking for the whereabouts of Jacob’s son Judah in chapter 38 of
Genesis, the key is to look in northwestern Canaan, just south of Sur/“Tyre”
. The Late Bronze Age equivalents of Biblical Chezib, Timnah and Enaim are
right there, namely historical Achzib, Shikimona and Nami.

As usual, the northern pre-Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives knows
northern Canaan in the Late Bronze Age like the back of his hand, while
knowing shockingly little about the detailed geography of southern Canaan.
As such,
the author of the Patriarchal narratives is the exact opposite of JEPD, who
knew dozens, if not hundreds, of specific geographical sites in Iron Age
southern Canaan.

Nami/Enaim is 10 miles south of Shikimona/Timnah, which in turn is 20 miles
south of Achzib/Chezib, with all three sites being on the Mediterranean Sea
in
northwest Canaan. Achzib itself is 30 miles south of Sur/“Tyre”. As I see
it, all these prominent Late Bronze Age sites are in northwest Canaan, not in
the later country of Judah in southern Canaan, as traditionally believed for
the last 2,500 years.

This is not bad news; this is good news. This means that the concept of the
Promised Land always included land well north of modern Haifa, dating all the
long way back to the historical Patriarchal Age. The notion that the divine
promises of the Promised Land in the Patriarchal narratives focus on the
unappealing Negev Desert not only is illogical and non-historical, but also
cannot
be squared with a fresh reading of the received text of the Patriarchal
narratives in Genesis. The Patriarchal narratives are replete with names of
Late
Bronze Age sites (along with a handful of earlier sites) in n-o-r-t-h-e-r-n

Canaan, where the Patriarchs are often portrayed as sojourning. The Promised
Land in the Patriarchal narratives is, first and foremost, the fine land in
northern Canaan, from Shechem to Sur/“Tyre”.

Shockingly enough, the only historical site in southern Canaan between
historical Bethel and historical Beersheba mentioned in the entirety of the
Patriarchal narratives is, believe it or not, Hebron. When Jerusalem does
not make it
into the text even a single time, you know that this text was neither
composed nor edited by southern Hebrews like JEPD. (“Salim” in the text is
historical Salim, a tiny hamlet east of Shechem, which was of great symbolic
importance because it was where the Hebrews crossed over into the Promised
Land of
Canaan after traveling through the Transjordan. “Salim” is not a nickname
for
Jerusalem.) Based on the geographical sites referenced in the text, this
text
can only be coming from a
n-o-r-t-h-e-r-n pre-Hebrew in the Late Bronze Age. In the Patriarchal
narratives, the Promised Land is, first and foremost, northern Canaan.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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  • [b-hebrew] Where Did Judah Sire Twins by His Daughter-in-Law Tamar?, JimStinehart, 04/01/2008

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