Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter_Kirk AT sil.org]

Dear Ian,

Let me respond to some of your points - I don't have time to go into 
the details of all of this:

You asked "Could you say what it is about these passages that make you 
think specifically of Egypt (in the "Middle Kingdom")?"

Well, here are some points from John Bright's "History of Israel" (3rd 
edition, SCM 1981): "There are, of course, some anachronisms... The 
wanderings of the patriarchs in Palestine fit perfectly in the 
situation of the Execration Texts, when the land, held loosely or not 
at all by Egypt, was (especially in the central and southern mountain 
range) still rather thinly settled. The Beni-Hasan picture illustrated 
the ease with which groups might move from Asia into Egypt... The 
towns that figure in the patriarchal stories - Shechem, Bethel, 
Jerusalem, Hebron - were actually in existence by the period Middle 
Bronze II". I know that doesn't quite answer your question, but no 
time for more now, sorry.

You wrote "...Genesis is, despite the number of fragments, surprisingly 
poorly represented, suggesting that it had not developed too much support by 
the second and first centuries BCE."

That is, one heterodox Jewish sect may have made relatively little use 
of Genesis. But it is, I think, not disputed that the book was written 
long before this, certainly before its LXX translation!

You wrote: "The Hittite information in Genesis is patently wrong"

Do you have any solid evidence to prove that there were NO people 
called Hittites in southern Canaan in (say) the 19th century BC?

>According to Genesis, Abraham and other patriarchs 
>came from Mesopotamia,

You wrote: "Ur of the Chaldeans... that nice anachronism."

But I did not mention Ur, as I know there are problems with that text, 
I was thinking of Haran.

You wrote: "Does one need a long list of indications pointing to a 
later date for the construction of Genesis than what has already been 
provided?"

I haven't seen any indications pointing to a late date for the 
sources, only indications pointing to a later (i.e. Moses' time or 
later) final redaction.

You wrote: "The site of the Old City at the end of the eleventh century BCE 
is extremely limited in size, never more than one hundred and fifty metres 
in width... Nahman Avigad wrote... "It is difficult to understand how a city 
like this could have served -- despite its topographical limitations -- as 
capital of the country and a royal residence, as the national and religious 
centre and as a place of inhabitation." He goes on to wonder how long it 
stayed this dimension."

I'm not sure why he needs to wonder as 1 Kings answers his question: 
the city was extended greatly in Solomon's time, on to the northern 
hill which has not been investigated - and probably expansion in that 
direction had already started in David's time. Doubtless Avigad, as an 
archaeologist, would wish to confirm this by excavation, but as that 
is impossible at present I suggest that we (at least provisionally) 
accept the only evidence we have which is the written record. 
Meanwhile, one can do a surprising amount in an area 400m x 150m (the 
size of the City of David according to the map in my Bible) - try 
comparing with the sizes of walled cities in Italy which were city 
states in the Middle Ages.

Peter Kirk