Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jonathan D. Safren" <yonsaf AT beitberl.beitberl.ac.il>]

Dear Ian,
You wrote::

>
>
> >Moreover, both the Chaldeans and the Arameans are first mentioned in
> Middle Assyrian
> >sources as residing in Upper Mesopotamia from the 12th century BCE on.
>
> I've tried to chase up the part about the Chaldeans but so far to no avail.
> I'll leave this in abeyance for the moment. The Aramaean presence as nomads
> in the Mari region is well-known, providing us with our first information
> about the bani-yamini tribe.

[JDSafren] You're looking in the wrong period. The DUMU.ME$ Yamina are from 
the Old
Babylonian Period (circa 19th century BCE, time of Hammurapi); the Chaldeans 
and the
Arameans first pop up in the Middle Assyrian Period (12th century BCE).
     Also, I hope you are not positing any connection between the DUMU.MES$ 
Yamina of
Mari and the Israelite tribe of Benjamin. This proposal was rejected a long 
time ago
(even the reading bani- or binu- Yamina was rejectedm by Tracy Luke, I 
believe, who
claims that the correct reading of the cuneiform logograms should be mare, 
with long
two long vowels).
     Among the tribes mentioned in the Mari texts there is also the DUMU.ME$ 
Sim(h)al.
"the Northerners", as opposed to the DUMU.ME$ Yamina, "the Southerners". This 
holds
well for what is known of the wandering grounds of these two pastoralist 
tribes.
Whereas the Israelite tribe of Benjamin, whose name also means "southerners", 
 lived
in the South relative to the other tribes of Israel (Judah and Simeon not 
being
originally Israelite).

>
> There have been speculations regarding the area with the rationale that
> bit-Adini provides the name behind the Eden tradition, and, as you've
> mentioned the Balikh, the same range of speculation puts the name of that
> river behind the biblical name Bilhah. There was more, but I can only
> retain so much of this kind of stuff!.

[JDSafren] The guiding principle behind such speculations is a sound one: 
that many of
the names mentioned in the Genesis genealogies as PNs are actually GNs. But 
any
identification of Bilhah (written with two heshs) with Balih' (written with a 
velar
xeth), doesn't hold water.

> >My conclusion is that the Patriarchal Traditions originate in the
> 12th-11th centuries
> >BCE, with the Sitz in Leben being the migration of some Chaldean and
> Aramean clans to
> >Canaan. This later gave rise to the Patriarchal Narratives.
>
> Naturally, I find this hopeful, looking at other information in Genesis.
> Think for example about the war between the cities of the plain (Sodom et
> al.) against such kings as those of Elam and Shinar (as well as one of
> Ellasar, which GenAp gives as Capadoccia). Is this a likely scenario in
> your mind: kings from distant parts of Mesopotamia in a local squabble in
> the Dead Sea zone?

[JDSafren} From what we know of ANE History, it doesn't sound very likely 
(Benjamin
Mazar considered Gen 14 a "historical novelette"). But then there are some 
big holes
in our knowledge of ANE history.

>
>
> Consider the table of nations in Gen 10. There are names such as Tubal and
> Meshekh which are two post-Hittite states, the latter to become known to us
> as Phrygia, both appearing sometime after 1000 BCE. ...[snip]... There are 
> many more
> juicy tid-bits in the table, but the point is that we have a hotch-potch of
> traditions being sewn together.

[JDSafren} Agreed. Some are from the 12th century BCE and perhaps earlier, 
others are
from the 7th century (e.g., Ashkenaz, cuneiform A$.GU.ZA, the Scythians, of 
Gen. 10)
and perhaps later.

> You might find a single rationalisation for the "Ur of the Chaldeans"
> phrase, but, taken in context of the various other indications in the book
> of Genesis, you seem to be creating an exception to, rather than following,
> the rule of distant memories of a patchwork of traditions from various ages
> and cultural backgrounds shaped by later cultural, political and religious
> needs.

[JDSafren] How is that? What is this "rule of distant memories" and how have I
contradictred it?

Yours,
Jonathan


--
Jonathan D. Safren
Dept. of Biblical Studies
Beit Berl College
Beit Berl Post Office 44905
Israel