Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

ONly that several scholars have questioned the presence of local
administrations in the Egyptian part of Western Asia in the EA
period--espec. in Palestine. Some have argued that we may have a travelling
circus with scribes educated by the Egyptians and used exclusively for their
purpose, others that e.g. some Northern Amorite elements are present in the
letters pointing to an education not in Palestine. It is at least for the
small patronage systems of Palestine very doubtful that any administrative
organization worth mentioning was present. In Phoenicia, the situation was
different, as evidence from the mass of lettesr from Rib-Adda of Byblus.

NPL


> ----------
> Fra:  Walter Mattfeld[SMTP:mattfeld AT mail.pjsnet.com]
> Svar til:     Walter Mattfeld
> Sendt:        24. januar 2000 06:28
> Til:  Biblical Hebrew
> Emne:         Dating the Pentateuch- Canaan's Conquest Anomalies
> 
> Mr. Riordan has raised the question of the transmission of Mosaic texts of
> the the 15th century BCE and scribal schools under a state to perpetuate
> them over a period of seven centuries to the 8th century BCE.
> 
> That Canaan had governments in place generating offical state
> correspondence
> in cuneiform to the Pharaohs of the 18th dynasty is well known, as
> attested
> by the tablets found at Tell el Amarna, dated to the reigns of Amenhotep
> III
> and IV (alias Akhenaton), 1411-1358.
> 
> The book of Joshua suggests a successful victory over many areas of Canaan
> by the Israelites in the 15th century- the problem though, is how to
> account
> for the historical situation portrayed in the Tell el Amarna tablets that
> appear not to know of an Israelite State in existence from Hazor to
> Beersheba. The tablets suggest the biblical conquest and settlement
> account
> as portrayed in Joshua is a fiction.
> 
> I would welcome any "counter observations" on the historical implications
> of
> these tablets in relation to the book of Joshua.
> 
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld
> Walldorf by Heidelberg
> Baden-Wurttemburg
> Germany
> 
> 
> 
> 
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