Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Boaz and Rahab

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Boaz and Rahab
  • Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 09:06:52 +0200

Hello Oun Kwon,

That's what you get for trusting web pages. In general, biblical genealogies
are a tricky buisiness, since they have a tendacy to "skip" or to
"telescope" generations. Also, a series of young marriages in one lineage
and a series of late marriages in another can mean that people of the same
"generation" are sometimes years apart. There are lots of, say, uncles and
nephews that are the same age. So there's really no problem with the line of
Judah having 6 geneartions to the Exodus and the line of Levi taking 4
generations to cover the same period. And since Nahshon was a young adult at
the time of the Exodus, his grandson (assuming that the list did not skip a
generation) Boaz could well have been a young adult 40 years later, at the
time of the conquest. And there is no indication as to Rahab's age at the
time. She could have been anything from 15 to 50 (although more likely
somewhere in the middle).

Num. 1:16 does not say anything about Ammuhud or Elishama. Elishama son of Ammihud is listed as the "prince" of the tribe of Ephraim in verse 10, but this does not mention how many generations he was removed from Ephraim son of Joseph. The assumption there seems to be that Elishama was a contemporary of Joshua, who of course was a younger contemporary of Moses. But there is no way to know if Elishma was the same age as Joshua, or older, or younger.

The Ammihud - Elishama - Nun - Joshua sequence is from 1 Chr. 7:26-27, but the connection between this line (which goes back 5 generations before Ammihud) to Ephraim is "disturbed" by additional material. A lot has been written about this, including by myself (in JBL 123, 2004). Read the commentaries on 1 Chronicles by Sara Japhet or (more recently) by Gary Knoppers (in the Anchor Bible series).

A question worth asking, of course, is whether Mat. 1, in including Rahab in the lineage of Jesus, is meant to be a historical reference, or whether it is more ideologically motivated. In any case, one may wonder where the author of Matthew got the tradition from. Later Jewish rabbinic sources claim that Rahab actually married Joshua. I'm not saying that one is more "historical" than the other, just that we should be careful when trying to "harmonize" traditions that appear in different sources that are hundreds of years apart.


Yigal Levin





----- Original Message ----- From: "Oun Kwon" <kwonbbl AT gmail.com>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 5:42 AM
Subject: [b-hebrew] Boaz and Rahab


This is not about language but i hope it is something I can ask on this
list.

Matthew 1:(KJV) "5 And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab"

The way I learned is the traditional understanding of this Rahab of
G-Mt as Radab of Canaan conquest.

Now I happen to read a web page where this is quoted

"The only Rachab mentioned in the Tanakh was the Rachab of the
Conquest who lived about two hundred years before Boaz."

I thought, wow. Was Boaz that late?

Here is my calculation tracing down family line:

Judah - Perez -Hezron - Ram - Amminadab - Nahshon - Salmon - Boaz (Mt and
O.T.)
Levi - Kohath - Amram - Moses & Aaron (great-grandsons) (Exo 6:16 ff)
Ephraim - ? - Ammihud - Elishaman - Nun - Joshua (Num 1:16)

Here Amminadab and Elishaman were the tribal leaders in the first
census of Israel, 2nd year after Exodus.

Joshua, young general in charge for the new generation in Canaan
conquest is a grandson of these leaders. When compared these tribal
lines, Boaz is only one generation behind Joshua, which brings Boaz at
the time of Caanan conquest where we find the story of Rahab.

Jamieson Commentary says (for G-Mt): "a thing not beyond possibility
indeed, but extremely improbable, there being about four centuries
between them. There can hardly be a doubt that one or two intermediate
links are omitted"

I wonder there are other scholarly source with such conclusion. (Some
says 200 years gap from Boaz to Rahab). How did they come up with such
conclusions?

Another minor question: from the reading Num 1:16, it is not clear
whether there is additional generation. Was Ammihud a son or a
grandson of Ephraim?

Thanks for your help.

Oun Kwon.





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page