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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] "Bela (that is, Zoar)"
  • Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 10:00:52 EST


1. The word Bela as a proper name [of a town], BL(, only appears at
Genesis 14: 2, in the following phrase: “Bela (that is, Zoar)”. No name of
a
ruler of Bela/Zoar is given.

The name Bela/BL( may be a Hebrew nickname that is clever Hebrew wordplay
on two different words. BLL usually means “to mingle”, but it can mean “to
feed provender (to livestock)” [Judges 19: 21]. BL( means “to devour”, or “
to ravenously consume” [Genesis 41: 7, 24]. Note that feed can be
ravenously devoured by livestock.

On the positive side, this town is a “small”/Zoar/C(R agricultural town
that produces grain used to feed livestock/BLL. Yet the fear, both at
Genesis
14: 1-11 and Genesis 19: 20-22, is that this “small”/Zoar/C(R town, which
produces grain to feed livestock/BLL, may be “devoured”/BL(.

2. By contrast to the foregoing, here is the standard scholarly
explanation of the phrase “Bela (that is, Zoar)”:

“[T]he explanatory phrase ‘that is, Zoar’ (vv 2, 8) is the first of
several glosses in this chapter, indicating that this chapter is based on an
old
source that has been updated (cf. v. 4).”

Gordon Wenham, “Genesis 1-15” (1987), at p. 310

As is so often the case, the scholarly “explanation” makes no sense on any
level. Why would two different authors, in two different centuries, each
of whom is making up an allegedly fictional story, (a) come up with two
different names for the same town, yet (b) neither author comes up with any
name
at all for the ruler of this town?!

3. As opposed to the foregoing scholarly “explanation”, consider the
following historical explanation, which sees Genesis 14: 1-11 as having
pinpoint
historical accuracy. In the approximately 350 Amarna Letters, the only
place that does not have a ruler is Tunip, a “small” place that is one of the
5 losing rebellious parties that was historically “devoured” in a “valley
of tilled fields”, that is the Orontes River Valley in west-central Syria, in
Year 14. Likewise, Bela/Zoar is the only one of 9 contending parties at
Genesis 14: 1-2 that has no named ruler, and which is a “small”/Zoar/C(R
place, and that is one of the 5 losing rebellious parties that was “devoured”
/BL( in a Valley of Tilled Fields [Valley of Siddim/$DYM], in Year 14.

The pinpoint historical accuracy of Genesis 14: 1-11 is astounding. The
Hebrew author even knows that one small [C(R] member of the league of 5
rebellious parties, in a valley of tilled fields [$DYM] (where grain was
grown to
feed livestock [BLL]), had, very oddly, no ruler when the traumatic events
of the fighting in Year 14 occurred, in which all five members of that league
were devoured [BL(] by four attacking rulers, one of whom had a Hittite
kingly name. The key historical detail here is the peculiar lack of a ruler
for that one member of that league. Neat!

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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