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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: George.Athas AT moore.edu.au, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] )BL Mistranslated at I Samuel 6: 18
  • Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:53:31 EST


George Athas:

You wrote: “The English translators have not arbitrarily translated )BL as
"stone" rather than "meadow". There is text critical support for this
reading.
The Greek translators of this passage seem to have read a text that had )BN
('stone, rock') rather than )BL ('meadow, field') as in the MT. There is
further
support for this reading from the Targums and even some Latin manuscripts.”

I am well aware of all that. In my first post on this thread, I explicitly
quoted the following footnote from the 2003 JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh:

“Reading ‘eben with some Heb. mss., Septuagint, and Targum, most mss. and
editions ‘abel, ‘meadow[?]’.”

That view sees )BL in the Masoretic Text as being a “mistake”. I am
somewhat surprised you would adopt that line. Note that if )BL in the
Masoretic Text
is n-o-t a “mistake” (my view), then the Masoretic Text as is makes
perfect sense, in referencing the Sorek Valley.

Since the phrase in question, )BL HGDWLH, is a proper name, why should we be
surprised to see the northern Hebrew or Canaanite spelling of XBL, namely )BL?

Why turn an historical reference to the Sorek Valley, which uses terminology
and spelling attested in secular history for such phrase going all the long
way back to the Thutmosis III list in the mid-15th century BCE, into a
non-historical reference to a “stone” near “Abel” near Beth-shemesh? The
received
Masoretic Text here, with no emendation at all, is using the
historically-attested spelling of the historically-attested word for the
Sorek Valley, per item
#92 on the Thutmosis III list: )BL [viewed by scholars as being the
linguistic
equivalent of JBR on the Thutmosis III list].

Why is it that when the Bible matches well-documented secular history
perfectly, scholars are so quick to announce that what’s actually in the
Masoretic
Text is a “mistake”? Doesn’t that seem suspicious to you? The Masoretic
Text
of I Samuel 6: 18, as is, makes perfect historical sense in all ways. In
particular, I myself see nothing at all in that phrase that is inconsistent
with “
what we know of NW Semitic linguistics”.

If it makes perfect linguistic sense, and it makes perfect textual sense, and
it makes perfect logical sense, and it makes perfect historical sense, then
why brand such a fine phrase in the Masoretic Text as being a “mistake”?

I myself see )BL and XBL as being different regional spellings of the same
word. I see no “mistake” in the received Masoretic Text of I Samuel 6: 18.

When scholars rush to declare that perfect matches of the Masoretic Text to
the well-documented historical nomenclature of the Late Bronze Age are a “
mistake”, and that we should rest assured that the entire Hebrew Bible is
“late”,
that to me is s-u-s-p-i-c-i-o-u-s. If the scholarly theory of the case
cannot handle what the received Masoretic Text actually says, then why should
we
trust the scholars’ insistence that the entire Hebrew Bible is “late”?

I agree fully with what you said upfront in your first post on this thread: “
If you consistently change the inherent value of a Semitic consonant, you can
make a text say whatever you like.” That is to say, if we let scholars
assert that the Masoretic Text of I Samuel 6: 18 is a “mistake”, and only by “
mistake” is an historically-attested spelling of an historically-attested
word for
the Sorek Valley [!!!], then why should we trust scholars when they
constantly reassure us that the entire Hebrew Bible is “late”?

If we let scholars change the consonants in the Masoretic Text, then all hope
of showing how old certain parts of the Bible are is lost.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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