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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Jim Stinehart's Theories
  • Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 15:08:03 EDT


Karl W. Randolph:

I have typed up drafts of detailed responses to your prior messages. But I
did not post them, because in looking them over, there was virtually no
discussion of Hebrew words or Hebrew language issues, which are the focus of
the b-hebrew list.

But I will respond to your latest message. However, I, along with virtually
everyone else on the b-hebrew list, want to be discussing Biblical Hebrew
language issues, and not get hung up on questioning people’s beliefs.

1. You wrote: “Where are you coming from? What is your belief concerning
Biblical
authorship?”

My controversial view is that the Patriarchal narratives were composed by the
first Hebrew, in the mid-14th century BCE. There is only one author of the
Patriarchal narratives. The text was later “copy-edited”, modernizing
the Hebrew grammar. But the substantive content was left virtually
untouched, so the stories that one sees in the received text are the same,
unedited stories that were reported in the mid-14th century BCE, using
virtually the exact original wording. (There are only a tiny handful of
editorial additions to the original text, in my view.)

The rest of the Bible, by contrast, was composed by multiple authors, many
centuries after the composition of the Patriarchal narratives.

I have no particular expertise beyond the Patriarchal narratives. I see no
J, E, P or D authorship of the Patriarchal narratives. To what extent JEPD
may have composed several other early books in the Bible is beyond my range
of interest and competence.

If you are asking about Moses, all I have to say is that the early Hebrew
author of the Patriarchal narratives long pre-dates any historical Moses.
The Patriarchal narratives are much older than Moses. I see the Patriarchal
narratives as having been written down, to a certain extent, from the very
beginning. At first, it was just names of people, but then names of places,
and then common words generally, were also added to the written account. The
oral tradition of the Patriarchal narratives was always supplemented by
written notes, and later by written text. There was a concerted effort by
the Hebrews never to change the substantive content of the Patriarchal
narratives, and it never changed.

2. You wrote: “On this list we have minimalists who believe that the text
is largely
post-Exile and mostly legendary, going up to maximalists who accept that it
mostly reflects accurate history, then there are those like myself, other
Biblical Christians and Orthodox Jews who claim the theological belief that
it is accurate history, rejecting the Documentary Hypothesis. Where do you
fit in?”

I am a Biblical Maximalist as to the Patriarchal narratives, which is the one
part of the Bible on which I post. As to the rest of the Bible, you would
probably characterize me as being a Biblical Minimalist. In fact, I have no
particular expertise regarding the rest of the Bible. My “agenda” is to
show that the Patriarchal narratives were composed in the mid-14th century
BCE, by a single author, the first Hebrew, whose work was never edited
substantively, and who lived in northern Canaan, at least north of Jerusalem.
The first Hebrews had to contend with a strange Egyptian pharaoh, whom the
first Hebrews worried might not defend Canaan (and the first Hebrews) from a
feared military onslaught by the dreaded Hittites from the north. In my
controversial view, this rational, albeit short-lived, early Hebrew fear of a
possible invasion of Canaan by the mighty Hittites, under Hittite King
Suppililiuma I, is one key to understanding the underlying mindset of the
Patriarchal narratives. In the Amarna Age of the mid-14th century BCE,
Canaan was not a safe place!

I utterly reject the Documentary Hypothesis as it relates to the Patriarchal
narratives, which is the only part of the Bible that I post on. I have no
particular view as to whether or not the Documentary Hypothesis may or may
not apply to other books in the Bible.

3. You wrote: “From recent discussions it seems to me that you have a new
theory that I haven't seen before, namely that after the Israelite invasion,
east of the
Jordan under Moses, west of the Jordan under Joshua, during the middle
bronze age, that the invaders then realized that the civilized inhabitants
had a "history" telling where they came from, therefore the invaders also
made up one drawing parts of their stories from the cities around them?”

That is not my theory at all. The Hebrews are indigenous to Canaan. The
Hebrews did n-o-t come from the east. The Patriarchal narratives open with
Terakh’s family being on a one-time caravan trip way out east to Ur to buy
lapis lazuli. But you know that the Hebrew word “am” is never used
regarding Abraham’s relatives at Ur or Harran. No, the word consistently
used is “molodet”, meaning “one’s father’s descendants”. The
reason why the text of the Patriarchal narratives never asserts that
Terakh’s “am”/ancestors lived in Mesopotamia is because they didn’t.

I do not see the storyline of the Patriarchal narratives as being “made
up”. On the contrary, all of my posts always stress that the Patriarchal
narratives very closely follow the well-documented secular history of the
mid-14th century BCE.

4. You wrote: “That you are quite a high maximalist, saying that this
authorship occurred early, during the late bronze age? That the evidence for
the dating of these
legends is the archeology from late bronze age Israel?”

I do n-o-t see the Patriarchal narratives as being “legends”. On the
contrary, the Patriarchal narratives were composed in the mid-14th century
BCE, and very closely reflect what actually happened regarding the first
Hebrews in the mid-14th century BCE. The early Hebrew author uses artistic
license, however, to make everything fit into a smooth storyline. For
example, in secular history it was actually the men of Jenin, not Jacob’s
#2 and #3 sons, who killed the leader of Shechem and the men who were with
him in a sneak attack that was surprisingly successful. But that is not a
“legend”. No, it is very closely based on what historically did actually
happen in the mid-14th century BCE. Events like the historical Decapitation
of the Shechem Offensive in the mid-14th century BCE were of profound concern
to the first Hebrews, who could have been effectively eliminated as a
separate people by the aggressive leaders of Shechem (per chapter 34 of
Genesis).

As another example (on which I’ll do a post later), one key to
understanding the Sodom sequence in the Patriarchal narratives is to do a
linguistic analysis of the name “Sodom”. That’s the type of issue
where there’s considerable expertise on the b-hebrew list.

As to “the archeology from late bronze age Israel”, that is very
important. But instead of focusing on buildings, I am more interested in
inscriptions. What I have been working on for the last year is documenting
that all 15 cities and regions where the Patriarchs are portrayed as
sojourning in the text are historical names of historical cities and regions
in Late Bronze Age Canaan, north of Jerusalem. The key is to examine the
inscriptions from the mid-15th century BCE (shortly before the first Hebrews
appeared) and the mid-14th century BCE (the Patriarchal Age), and then
compare these ancient non-Hebrew west Semitic inscriptions to the Biblical
Hebrew of the last 40 chapters of the received text of Genesis. I am
particularly excited about Late Bronze Age inscriptions that I see as
evidencing the name “Arbe” or “R-B city”, for Kiriath Arbe, and the
word aleph-bet-resh as the basis for the Hebrew name “Hebron”. Given the
great deal of expertise in Biblical Hebrew by you and many others on the
b-hebrew list, I see this as the ideal forum for setting forth these
controversial ideas of mine, which argue for a composition date of the
Patriarchal narratives about 700 years earlier than scholars currently see as
being the case. The key is to understand how the early Hebrew author of the
Patriarchal narratives uses Hebrew words and puns, which should be the long
suit of the b-hebrew list.

5. You wrote: “If you have developed such a theory, please explain. We
could then integrate your claims into a coherent whole. Right now, you are
coming across as a
nutcase with excessive verbiage.”

I do not post on the Exodus, the Conquest, Moses, or on much of anything
except the Patriarchal narratives. Many people may think I am a
“nutcase” for seeing the Patriarchal narratives as having been composed
by a single early Hebrew author in the mid-14th century BCE, with such
composition never being substantively edited thereafter. But I relate each
and every story in the text to what actually happened in the mid-14th century
BCE. In particular, as just noted I am currently working on matching all 15
cities and regions where the Patriarchs are portrayed as sojourning to
well-known Late Bronze Age inscriptions in Canaan north of Jerusalem. One of
the main reasons why scholars have overlooked these well-known inscriptions
to date is because scholars uncritically accept the 2,500-year-old
traditional view that the Patriarchs are portrayed in the text as usually
sojourning south of Jerusalem when they are in Canaan. That simply is not
the case. That is not what the text says.

The only way to establish the historicity of the Patriarchal narratives, in
my opinion, is to get the basic geographical facts right in the first place.
After leaving Beth-el, Abraham went west of Beth-el, to “the well-watered
meadowland place”, which he called “Hebron” (the Patriarchal version of
the aleph-bet-resh from a mid-15th century BCE inscription), located 17½
miles west of Beth-el. The valley there (Genesis 37: 14 refers to Hebron as
being a “valley”) was i-d-e-a-l pastureland in Canaan. That
interpretation of the text is sensible, instead of the traditional view,
which is entirely illogical, that Abraham chose to take a huge flock of sheep
and goats and 318 armed retainers “up” into the “hill” country at the
city of Hebron, 20 miles south of Jerusalem, a locale where there is precious
little good pastureland.

What may prove the validity of my new theory of the case is that there is no
“Arbe” attested south of Jerusalem in the ancient world, and no name
“Hebron” attested south of Jerusalem prior to the 8th century BCE. But I
have found inscriptions from the mid-15th and mid-14th centuries BCE which I
think are non-Hebrew versions of “Arbe” and “Hebron”. It’s a
question of analyzing these Hebrew names, and non-Hebrew possible equivalents
of these Hebrew names from the Late Bronze Age. That’s what I’m
interested in, and that’s what I post on. Rather than talking about
general theories, I want to discuss how individual Hebrew words in the text
of the Patriarchal narratives may or may not match up with non-Hebrew west
Semitic inscriptions from the Late Bronze Age. If we can get the historical
geography of the Patriarchal narratives right, and understand the brilliant
use of Biblical Hebrew punning in the Patriarchal narratives, then we can
determine the historical time period of the composition of the Patriarchal
narratives and of the Patriarchal Age, both of which I myself see as being
the mid-14th century BCE.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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