Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Who says that he gave up Shechem. He is accused of having handed Shechem
over to the habiru, but when habiru is used in the Amarna letter in the way
indicated in some of my earlier postings, and referring to both Mendenhall
and Liverani, the phrase NN has surrendered territory or city XX in the
hands of the habiru may only mean that the territory or city in question is
by now revolting against the forces of Pharaoh. This would never prevent the
accused person of accusing his fellow chazanu of slandering him (as Lab'aya
as a matter of fact does). 

As I said before, we cannot take the Amarma letters at face value. We have
to so-to-speak deconstruct their intented meaning and distinguish between
information and noise. Such analyses can be quite subtle like Liverani's
analysis of the letters of Aziru of Amurru where the real intent of the
letters only appears in the number of ventiv verbal forms used. The message
is the opposite of what is written in plain words. Aziru claims to be
willing to go to Egypt at the requst of the Pharaoh. As a matter of fact,
the real message is, no, no, I will not come...

NPL


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Kirk [SMTP:peter_kirk AT sil.org]
> Sent: Wednesday, 09 February, 2000 21:03
> To:   Biblical Hebrew
> Subject:      Re[3]: Evidence
> 
> No-one has said that the land of Shechem was not part of Lab'aya's 
> territory, and so his to give up. On the other hand, having given it 
> up he still seems to have been a ruler, so the land of Shechem cannot 
> have been his whole territory, and he must have had a home and capital 
> other than Shechem AFTER he had given up Shechem. His activities do 
> not seem to have been restricted to the immediate vicinity of Shechem, 
> so he was not just the ruler of a single city state. Rulers do not 
> usually give up their capitals to others except in utter defeat, which 
> does not seem to be envisaged here. Conclusion: Very probably, though 
> not certainly, Lab'aya's home and capital was somewhere other than 
> Shechem, both before and after the time when he gave up Shechem.
> 
> Peter Kirk
> 
>