Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Walter,
     I am not an expert on your subject. I agree with you that the mention
of Zoan in Num 13:22 and Ps 78:12, 43 may imply at least a 12th century
date of composition for these texts, based on the archeological information
that you shared about Zoan. Yet this fact would not have to alter a 15th
century date for the Exodus. Numbers 13:22 need not imply that Zoan was
important at its founding. The fact that Zoan first receives mention in
Egyptian records in 1183 B.C. does not require that it did not exist before
then. Furthermore, some pieces of the Pentateuch are later editorial
additions, and this explanatory remark in Num 13:22 about Hebron may be one
of them. At the time of its insertion, Zoan may have become an important
place. Nor need Hebron have been such a great city in Abraham's day. It was
famous to Israelites as Abraham's home. The NIV Study Bible in a note on
Num 13:22 states that the parenthetical comment about Hebron may register
surprise at the size of the fortifications: "In the stories of the
ancestors of their people, Hebron had not been a great city, but a dwelling
and trading place for shepherds and herdsmen."
     Even if Zoan was not an important place in 1446 B.C., that does not
mean that it was not at the time that the author of Psalm 78 mentioned
Moses in connection with the area of Zoan. If, according to the title,
Asaph, or a descendant of Asaph, wrote Psalm 78, then he did so at about
1100 B.C. or later. He might have situated Moses geographically in terms
that his readers would understand even if Zoan did not play a significant
role in the Exodus events.
     The article on Zoan in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
starts, as you do, by mentioning D`nt and Tanis, but it adds that this
Egyptian city is identified with San el-Hagar. It states that the oldest
remains for this site date to the time of Pepi I of the sixth dynasty (2300
B.C.). The author, C. E. DeVries, states that W. M. F. Petrie argued
convincingly that Pepi's items had been transported to Zoan from another
palce at a later date. But Devries next mentions beautiful statuary found
at San el-Hagar from the Middle Kingdom, mostly twelvth dynasty (ca.
1991-1786 B.C.). His statements suggest that these sphinxes and remains of
colossae were not imports from another site.

                                                Sincerely,
                                                Harold Holmyard