Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Niels Peter Lemche <npl AT teol.ku.dk>]

> True, I have not been able to supply any evidence about the Chaldeans, but
> perhaps
> that is because I do not have a research library at my disposal. Also,
> this discussion
> is going on on the Biblical Hebrew List; a better venue would have been
> the ANE List,
> where some "heavier cannons" are stationed than my "light arms".
> As for equating the Aramaic-speaking Chaldeans with the Aramaic-speaking
> Arameans, who
> are first mentioned in Upper Mesopotamia at the time of Tiglath-Pileser I
> (12th
> century BCE) - where Laban the Aramean happened to live as well - why not?
>    And who says people do not emigrate or immigrate? Didn't the Sea
> Peoples migrate,
> according to Egyptian sources? Where did the Kassites and Gutians come
> from? Were they
> also the result of 'internal social revolution", as some people would have
> us believe
> of the Israelites? (Notice how New Left ideology influenced Biblical
> research in the
> '70s; today it's deconstructionism and other modish ways of thinking)
>    No, the Arameans, like the Israelites, did not just drop out of the sky
> (or climb
> the mountains out of the lowlands). Nor did they stay put. First we find
> them in Upper
> Mesopotamia. Then we find them in Syria, then invading Israel itself..
> This is analogy
> enough for me to posit that the Chaldeans were part of the same or similar
> wave of
> Aramaic-speaking peoples (cf. also the Ahlamu).
> Sincerely,
> --
> Jonathan D. Safren
> Dept. of Biblical Studies
> Beit Berl College
> 44905 Beit Berl Post Office
> Israel
> 
> 
        [Niels Peter Lemche]  It is much too simplistic an explanation. One
of the models--the one I used in my overview of Syrian history in CANE--is
the one of the periphery and the centre. The centre in the late 3rd century
is Akkadian speaking Mesopotamia versus Amorite  periphery and in the late
second, Amorite speaking Mesopotamia versus Aramaic speaking periphery. What
has been perceived as immigrations is just as much a chance of emphasis from
centre to periphery and viceversa. Ibn Khaldun had it very fine in his
Muqaddima. The case example is the migration of the Amorites that--if at
all--involved a linguistic transition and most likly the displacement of
some important  strata of population--lasted for perhaps more than half a
millennium. Should be no surprise as the German immigration into the Roman
empire started at least at the time of Caesar, and only culminated 4-500
years later. The Vikings did not conquer England overnight, it happened in a
gradual way that lasted againn for more than 200 years, and so on. But this
is indeed as you say, a discussion better adapted for the ANE list.

        NPL
>