Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Banyai AT t-online.de (Banyai)]

Ian Hutchesson wrote:

> The position of Benjamin in this passage is neither here nor there. What is
> the canonical order and when was it instituted??

By canonical order is Benjamin always (well with this notable exception) 
AFTER 
Efraim. Efraim where the nextly incriminated Schechem is. And always AFTER 
Joseph 
as a whole.

You can not quote Ex 1:2-5 for a Joseph after Benjamin, since this is a list 
of 
the Israelites which came with Jacob to Egypt. Joseph didn´t come with Jacob 
to 
Egypt, and is therefore lacking from the list.

The sole exception which you may quote is Num 13:4-15, with Mannaseh after 
Benjamin but Ephraim still in the right position. Num 34:19-28 is no 
canonical 
order list, but follows the names more or the less according to their 
geographical order because it´s a text concerning the partitioning of Canaan 
among the tribes.

So, where are we again.

A canonincal order is an abstract order followed, when not more important 
reasons, like geography or timely order of the events offer a more oportune 
scheme. You may not quote any kind of lists as canonical. In fact the 
canonical 
order is derived from the explicit birth order, which reflects leadership 
within 
the amphictyony.

> >2. The citation of "shoulders" (Deut. 33,12) in combination with a probable
> >reading : "the High GOD surrounds him all day long - the Beloved (GOD)rests
> >between his shoulders, reminds us of Genesis 48,22, where shoulder is an
> allusion
> >to Sichem-Schechem, place of the main Israelite temple in Ephraim.
>
> Why not read the text in its context? The writer is personifying each of the
> tribes as their patronyms, of which Benjamin was the youngest and here is
> shown carried on fatherly shoulders. "the beloved of Yhwh dwells in the
> safety of Elyon, Elyon shelters him (the beloved) all day long - he (the
> beloved) rests on his (Elyon's) shoulders."

Nice and gramatically possible as anything else, but I feel it as quite 
abberant.
If it should mean anything, and this is the ground why Benjamin was inserted 
at 
this position, than it worked later to an allusion to the temple of 
Jerusalem, 
where Elyon dwells in Benjamin. However there is the crux with the shoulders, 
a 
clear reminscency of older times, as the passus heared like: he (Elyon) rests 
on 
his shoulders (in Schechem).

> >3. From 1+2 we may assume that Deut. 33,12 concerned previously Joseph,
> Benjamin
> >is intrusive to the original text, and there was no citation of in the
> whole
> >blessing.
>
> Naaa. The conclusion simply doesn't come from the meagre evidence provided
> here.

I have still for good reasons a different opinion. And what are you doing 
with 
the reference made to Judah:

"O LORD ... bring him (Judah) to his people, with his own hands shall he 
fight 
therefore..."

> >4. The same makes true of the southern Dan, by Jaffa, reference being made
> only
> >of the northern Dan "leaping forth from Bashan". (Same makes true for
> Simeon)
>
> This southern Dan is a memory of the Denyen (Danuna) who came down the coast
> with the Philistines. (Note incidentally 2 Sam 24:6, a place called dnhy`n,
> followed by the coastal cites Sidon and Tyre.) This provides *at least* a
> terminus a quo of circa 1180 BCE and the Sea Peoples' arrival. Remember that
> "Dan shall judge his people as (sic!) one of the tribes of Israel", ie Dan
> was not really a tribe of Israel according to the text. And what the hell is
> this story of Dan remaining (sic) in his ships!?

Sic, I would explain it the other way round, and with far better arguments. 
Danuna (Denyen) comes from Dan, and if you follow the Danaos story as told by 
Diodorus Siculus (this guy had also to polemise against those who told this 
story 
in conection with Danaos, he sought he should replace the name by Dyonisos), 
than 
you would hear that Danaos (Dyonisos) after leaving Egypt settled first in 
the 
teritorry of Cilicia called by us Danuna. He mixed there with the autochtons, 
probably Luwians (therefore one ancestor of the Greek called Lybie/Luwia 
grandmother of Danaos) called by Herodot Hyp-achaeans (little Achaeans). If 
you 
wished more detail, I can provide you with.

Later on he sailed to Greece at the request of the king of Krete (and that´s 
how 
we got the Mykenians). To our general amusement, did these Achaeans 
circumcise 
themselves till late in the 12-th century. 

Their gods didn´t speak pittily to them in Greek but in a from nowon foreign 
language, they called the language of the gods, and from which they still 
could 
quote a number of words. Cyrus Gordon thinks these words were semitic. 

They had still for a long time ties to their mother land Dan by Jaffa, 
where their first Mykenian hero Perseus (son of Danae!)"returned". 

The Danite remnant in Israel, had still a good memory of the Danaid  story, 
it 
just didn´t run under the grecisised name Danaid but that of Dinah. The 
forced 
marriage to the sons of the Egyptians, which in both stories turned bloody, 
was 
pittily corrected by Jerobeam I, who replaced his Egyptian patrons (as 
everywhere 
in the connected Joseph story) by Hamor the son of Schechem. 
The forgery is so obvious, because we see the "butchered" Schichemites faring 
well under the legitimate patronage of a descendent of the same Hamor 
(governing 
in the mean time the levitical city from outside - like the secular lord 
protector of a bishop city, having his residence outside of the city), and 
that 
during the reign of Abimelech!

An amusing detail provides Michael Astour, mentioning the Greek "maza"- 
ritual 
dry barley-cakes = Hebrew mazza. Probably did according to your scenario the 
Danunans learned the Hebrew name and cake and published it later in Greece?

According to my chronology did the Hebrews + Danunans/Danites leave Egypt 
1622 BC 
, just before the Hyksos invasion, leaving them plenty of time to first go to 
Danuna/Cilicia and than colonise Greece.


> >6. We read in the Simson story about marriages between the southern Danites
> and
> >Philistine.
>
> Not too strange if these southern Danites are still the Denyen, is it? How
> much, though, is the Samson story Hebrew? Father a "southern Danite", name
> means "like the sun", lives near or in Beth-Shemesh (where is the camp of
> Dan anyway?) from which Timna was further down towards the coast. Isn't this
> "southern Dan" country?

Dito.

> >The reverse occurs at the end of the story about the crime of the
> >Benjaminites, as they are forced (from now on) to mary Israelite women.
>
> This doesn't seem to represent the story as I read it. We have Israelites
> not permited to give their daughters to the Benjaminites. This causes the
> trick of the daughters of Jabesh-Gilead

They were first determined to exterminate them. For this purpose was created 
the 
propagandistic story of Sodom and Gomora, with an identical outrage against a 
foreigner and his women (Lot set against a Levite from Judah). The Sodomites 
are 
not to be saved from the wrath of GOD since there were not found not even 50 
righteous man, but those who separated from the group (the fugitive Danites, 
and 
the fugitive Lot) escape. 

This a plan of "reintegrating" the "righteous" refugees into Israel by a 
"trick", 
not to break the oath, remembering sentimentally also of the fate of Lot´s 
daughters, who didn´t find a human male being to mate with.

> The
> Benjaminite
> >story is generally placed after Abimelech, because of the change of the
> main
> >Temple (from formerly Schechem to Beth-El in the Benjamin story).
>
> Naaa. Conjecture without good cause. (And not the "amphictyony" again!?)

Thanks for the orthography. This is the single thing I could retain from your 
answer. About temples in Israel, temple pweriod and so on, please read my 
paper 
on the web. I´ll provide you with compplementary information afterwards. The 
"conjecture" may be in fact solidly demonstrated.

> >7. We read in Deut. 33,5 about a king arousing in Jeshurun: "There arose a
> king
> >in Jeshurun, when the leaders of the people assembled", and being
> incoronated in
> >the plains of Moab (Deut. 33,21):"For where the commander´s allotment was
> >reserved, came the leaders of the people". This is the ground for the
> obviously
> >wrong attribution to Moses (Moses allotment in Gad).
>
> Who attributes it to Moses? The text refers to Gad.

This the traditional reading of the stance. It has to with the grave of the 
"versteckter Anführer" - i.e. Moses.

> >8. We read in Judges 8,16-23 about a situation arousing at Sukkoth and
> Penuel, as
> >Gideon is offered there the crown of Israel by the Israelites, that is
> exactly
> >where the allotment of the commander (Moses) was.
>
> About all I can see here is that in Gad, where these towns were, Gideon is
> offered kingship. Your Moses stuff, doesn't seem relevant.

It perfectly is for those knowing the jewish traditions speaking of the 
"versteckter Anführer".

> >9. Now the original reference to Schechem (destroyed by Abimelech, Gideons
> son)
> >offers a terminus ante quem.
>
> No, it definitely doesn't. (And incidentally, how many times was Shechem
> destroyed?)

Only twice. After Abimelech, later on, there was no Temple more IN Schechem, 
never again, so Schechem looses its signification for us. First time by the 
Egyptians (kindly replaced by Jerobeam with Simeon and Levi) during the early 
years of Senwosret III as he fought against the coalised Sichemim and Retenu. 
Soon after, still in his reign, we have a massive pacific influx of Semites, 
probably Retenu to Lower Egypt, and bilateral expedition to the Sinai, where 
the 
Egyptians and Semites are mining under the protection of the brother of the 
prince of Retenu.


> >Deut. 33,16 is the exact description of the ointing
> >ceremony, prerequisite to the incoronation: "...Let these come on the head
> of
> >Joseph, on the brow of the prince among his brothers". We read about the
> same
> >incoronation circumstances as of Gideon (being offered the crown in Gad),
> but we
> >have no alternative identification.
>
> I think this is a little hopeful. Why don't we connect all these little stor
> ies about people being offered the kingship and ascribe them to the same
> person?

Well, following Rasor´s Ockham (or Okhams rasor, ha, ha ,ha). You are 
otherwise free to assume as many coronations as you will. But you should have 
also a feeling for the esthetics of logic.

> >10. The text wants originally to be an incoronation blessing for Gideon.
> >If it is indeed the original one we may never exactly now.
>
> Right. Case in no sense made.

I am precaute. 

> >But it must be
> >much much older than its attribution to Moses, as it was embodied to the
> >Deuteronomy. Even the insertion of Benjamin to this text predates the
> >creation of the Deuteronomy. It seems also to predate the period of the
> >kings of Juda, since not the slightest reference is made of.


> I haven't seen anything to justify any of these conjectures.

Present us please with anything which could line up with a later historic 
situation. BTW Jeschurun is an absolute archaism as it seems. No wonder we 
don´t 
find any mention of Israel before Menreptah (if Menreptahs mention has 
anything 
at all to do with Israel). On the other side, since it seems the text never 
had 
anything to do with Moses, it has to SURELY predate the Deuteronomy, which 
thematically closes with the death of Moses. The one composing this 
historical monograph, the Deuteronomy, has wrongly thought this to be a text 
best fitting his subject. 


 >If this should be a fake, than a too intricate one.
>
> The intricacy seems to be in the mind of the one who conceived the twisted
> logic!

Many thanks. I always knew I surpassed many by my intricacy. Still a simple 
mind...

Best regards,