Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Banyai Michael" <banyai AT t-online.de>]

I had problems to understand the question of Walter Mattfeld:

> Another question I have is that in the Genesis narratives, Abraham's dialogs
> are in Hebrew (correct me if I am wrong). If he is from Harran, why isn't he
> speaking in Aramaic ? If he is from Lower Mesopotamia, why isn't he speaking
> in Akkadian ?  If these dialogs are really "his preserved words", and if one
> wants to argue later generations rendered his words into Hebrew, then
> wouldn't word studies reveal an Aramaic or Akkadian language underlying the
> Hebrew translation ? 

I can hardly imagine anybody, even someone committed to the historicity of 
the
Abraham story, to assume there were any wordly quotes in Abrahams dialogs 
of
the Genesis.
It is also quite difficult to date the collection of patriarch stories of 
the
Genesis.
There are stories concerning the building of later important temples by 
the
patriarchs. As we may see from Assyrian votive inscriptions, it is a major
concern to retrace the earlier temple builders. 

There are stories with genealogical relevance, which can hardly contribute 
to
the dating of the texts, in the way Mr. Mattfeld thought he managed to do. 
For
example, the Arameans may emerge in Assyrian texts just during the 12-th 
century. 

This has however just to mean, the geographic horizont of the Assyrians 
widened but so late to reach the Arameans. Already before this date they 
may
have dwelt in Syria-Damascus or Zoba. 
We have no ethnical name at all for the population of Damascus during the 
LBA or
earlier in Egyptian sources, which might disclose such an assumption. It is 
the
duty of Jan H. or Mr. Mattfeld to prove such an assertion about the late 
arival
of the Arameans into Syria, if it should offer an argument against the age 
of
the Abraham stories. Or can they show the Arameans to be anywhere in the 
ANE
before that date? Why this preference for North-Mesopotamia for their 
whereabouts? Do they beleave indeed in the Patriarch stories?

There are, further, stories delimitating the borders of the land controlled 
by
the Patriarchs in Palestine. These stories are a good chronologic marker 
for the
writing, at least of some, of the Patriarch narratives. Since the borders 
are
called to mind, probably at a time as they became litigious with the 
neighbours,
that is the Arameans and Philistine. A litigious Aramaic-Israelite border 
at
Mizpa/Gal-Ed/Jegar Sahaduta. The name is called both in aramean and hebrew 
to
serve as an argument and make the place identifyable for the contrahent 
too.
 

Gilead was a matter of litigy in the days of the divided monarchy. Later on 
it
was but in the time of Alexander Iannaios (103-76 BC) that it was again 
first in
the reach than in the possesion of Juda.  So the texts may hardly be of 
helenistic datum.

On the other side, if the Israelites thought of Abraham as a reasonable 
argument
during the days of Ahab et al, this means at least that the contemporary 
Arameans of the 9-th to the 8-th century BC accepted the reality of an 
Abraham
or Jacob.

Best regards,

Banyai Michael