Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ian Hutchesson" <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

>It is simply so that none of these materials pertaining to different
>epochs have a draw on the question what a Kittim in an 11 century BC
>document would mean.

You assume an 11th century document. Why?

>If we admit (what I don´t) that Gen. table of the nations is hellenistic
>as you wish to

At the moment I am arguing that it is plainly
after the period you are considering, as the
Assyrian name Tarsisi used for the first time
during the reign of Esarhaddon shows.

>If we take the prophetic texts of the 8-7th century to pertain to a
>Cypriotic Kition (what I don´t)

Why do you say 8th/7th centuries? Internal
evidence by itself is not enough.

>Even this doesn´t mean that  a Kittim of the 11th century would have the
>same geographic meaning.

When does the name first appear in datable
sources?

>As an example take the similar situation of our sources pertaining Kaphtor
>from different historical periods:
>
>Josephus (1st century AD) : Kaphtor is Kappadokia
>
>Kings and else Biblical sources: Kaphtorites are by the Philistines (or
>identical with)

Yet in the table of nations Kaphtor is irrelevant to
the Philistines. Pseudo-Philo supports the Genesis
connection between Kasluhim and the Philistines
(while giving Kappadokia rather than Kaphtor and
see LXX Amos 9:7), as does the LXX.

>Egyptian LB sources and earlier Akkadian ones: Keftjw is Krete.
>
>One source is probably wrong (Josephus), two other behold right, each for
>itself and its historical period.
>
>So what is the whole discussion about, attempting to demonstrate that an
>11th century Kittim

It is to stop making these unsupported assumptions.
What 11th century Kittim??? Establish your corner
stones, not assume them.

>would have to be the same as a 8th century Kittim
>(what is obviously archaeologically impossible).

We know when the Phoenicians arrived at Kition.
There are no indications of the name Kition ever
being used for purely geographical purposes prior
to the second century BCE. And a bilingual
inscription from Rhodes uses the ethnikon kty
along with its Greek equivalent kitieus (directly
derivable from Kition) to describe a person with
the Phoencian name Abd-Melqart.

>We can on such a basis
>ask than why do such long extinct peoples as Amalekites and Kenites appear
>at all in a "hellenistic" paper. Why does Agag appear (strictly bound to
>the Saul story as all other peoples were), and an all-Israelite king

*Traditions* die hard.

>who
>is not at all on the hellenistic agenda before Judas Maccabeus?
>
>Take a look, how many people would follow with a low-dating of the
>Deuteronomic books after Judas Maccabeus, and after already the
>Septuaginta existed.

Why does Judas come into this story? And who
dates the "Deuteronomic books" after him??

The only thing which may lead you to such wild
conclusions, I guess, is my mentioning that
Jubilees may preserve an earlier tradition of
the table of nations than is preserved in the
current form of Genesis.

>One can make ones´points also on the short way with a perfectly
>halftransparent methodology. One calls this half-transparent methodology
>common-sense.

Oh, if it only were the case.


Ian