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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Hebrew historical records
  • Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 15:17:30 EST


Kenneth Greifer:

You wrote: “I feel that you are denying the possibility of the Hebrews
having any historical records. You only believe that Egyptians had real
historical
records for some reason. I don't understand why you have to prove every
place
and battle in Canaan was mentioned in the Egyptian records, as if the Hebrew
historical records don't count.”

On the contrary, I think that the Patriarchal narratives are the finest
single record we have concerning the Late Bronze Age.

There is nothing to fear from comparing the Patriarchal narratives to
Egyptian records. The closer one looks, the more one is impressed by the
pinpoint
historical accuracy of the Patriarchal narratives.

Consider:

Each name of a city in Canaan in the Patriarchal narratives has a counterpart
in either the mid-15th century BCE Thutmosis III list and/or the mid-14th
century BCE Amarna Letters. That supports the historicity of the Patriarchal
narratives in a Bronze Age context.

On the other hand, if you examine these three sources, you come to realize
that the locations of many of the places referenced in the Patriarchal
narratives have been misinterpreted. For example, there is no city name
“Hebron” in
any Bronze Age source, and there were never magnificent groves of oak trees
at
the city of Hebron on the northern edge of the Northern Negev Desert (because
there is not enough rainfall that far south). Those magnificent groves of
oak
trees (referenced regarding “Hebron” at Genesis 13: 18; 14: 13; and 18: 1)
were, rather, located on the low hills that surround the Aijalon Valley. The
Patriarchs’ “Hebron” is the Aijalon Valley, being item #99, JBR, on the
Thutmosis III list. XBR or XBL [having a wide variety of meanings, including

tract of land (measured by a rope)”] appears 89 times in the Hebrew Bible,
whereas )BL, meaning “meadow” or “stream”, only appears 3 times. Although J,
which is an Egyptian single reed (and is not the Egyptian aleph), often came
into
Biblical Hebrew as an aleph, here in JBR is one of several occasions in which
J came into Biblical Hebrew as a heth/X. Thus JBR came into Biblical Hebrew
as XBR, not as )BL as scholars have heretofore thought. (An Egyptian R could
represent either resh/R or lamed/L, and over the centuries a resh/R would
often
soften into a lamed/L. XBR and XBL were the same word in the Bronze Age.)
In order to turn JBR/XBR into a specific geographical place name, the most co
mmon way, as we know from the Thutmosis III list, is simply to add a
vav-nun/WN
suffix. JBR/XBR + WN = XBRWN, which is the letter-for-letter spelling of “
Hebron”. Note that both the spelling of “Hebron”, and the description of the
Patriarchs’ “Hebron”, fit the well-documented secular history of Late Bronze
Age Canaan perfectly, once one realizes that the Patriarchs’ “Hebron” is not
the city of Hebron south of Jerusalem, but rather is the Aijalon Valley
“tract
of land”: JBR/XBR + WN = XBRWN/“Hebron”.

The Patriarchal narratives are an incredibly accurate record of Late Bronze
Age Canaan, better than any single Egyptian source by far. Unfortunately,
the
basic local geography of Canaan that is utilized in the Patriarchal
narratives
has been profoundly misunderstood for a very long time. The problem is not
the text of the Patriarchal narratives. The text is perfect. Rather, the
problem is the longstanding misinterpretation of the text.

I am trying to restore the historicity of the Patriarchal narratives by
showing that everything in the text matches the life and times of Late Bronze
Age
Canaan, as documented by plentiful secular historical records.

The traditional interpretation of the Patriarchal narratives does not match
secular history. That’s not because the Patriarchal narratives are late
fiction by multiple authors who didn’t know what they were talking about, as
university scholars would have it. No, it’s because the Patriarchal
narratives have
been thoroughly misinterpreted for so very long, especially as to
geographical
matters (like the location and identity of the Patriarchs’ “Hebron”, as
noted above).

Until we understand the local geography of Canaan that is being referenced in
the Patriarchal narratives, we will not understand the Patriarchal
narratives. The author of the Patriarchal narratives was an early Hebrew in
the Late
Bronze Age who had no interest in the Dead Sea. He was properly concerned,
rather, that the pagan Canaanites in the heart of Canaan might soon do what
Amurru
and Ugarit just north of Canaan had done last year: sell out to the dreaded
Hittites. The “four rulers against the five” in chapter 14 of Genesis is, in
a quite sophisticated way, simultaneously (i) telling the historical story of
the circumstances under which Amurru and Ugarit sold out to the mighty
Hittites in the mid-14th century BCE, and (ii) warning that the heartland of
Canaan
(the Jezreel Valley) could well be the next target on the Hittites’ hit list,
unless all of Canaan, hopefully with Egyptian support, united to oppose the
advance of the dreaded Hittites. The Jezreel Valley and the Mediterranean
Sea
were very important to the early Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives
in
that regard. The Dead Sea and the southeast coast of the Dead Sea were
entirely irrelevant to the concerns of the author of the Patriarchal
narratives,
who was desperately trying to keep the fledgling Hebrew tribe from being
overrun
by the dreaded Hittites.

The more historical background one has, the more impressive are the
Patriarchal narratives. Yes, the Patriarchal narratives are told from an
early Hebrew
perspective, instead of being altruistic or neutral or passive or literal,
but
that’s the way historical records are.

Rather than “denying the possibility of the Hebrews having any historical
records”, as you allege, I in fact view the Patriarchal narratives as being
the
single best historical record we have of Late Bronze Age Canaan, bar none.
The
problem is not with the Biblical text, but rather is with the longstanding
misunderstanding of what the text actually says.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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