Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Curiously I was not able to recognise in the last couple of postings, how 
they touched to the subject Amalek. However did Peter Kirk formulated an 
interesting idea which deserves elaboration:


> I consider it highly probable that a traditional genealogy among the 
> Edomites listed Esau as their original founder and Amalek as his 
> grandson. I also consider it highly probable that such a genealogy is 
> reasonably accurate (although perhaps giving a succession of leaders 
> rather than a strict father-to-son listing), and that said Amalek became 
> the leader of a group which became known as the Amalekites, even if he 
> was not necessarily the biological ancestor of all of them.

I would like to point to the Phoenician cosmogony according to Sanchiunaton 
as related by Filon of Byblos and Eusebius of Cesarea, mentioning a certain 
pair of rival has brothers, one of whom being called Usoos (like Esau), a 
hunter, who has invented fur clothes. This cosmogony seems to be confirmed as 
genuine by its recognisable Ugarit parallels. There existed thus an 
independent semitic tradition concerning Esau/Usoos, who was assimilated by 
the bible writers with Edom.

The way how this story slipped into the Bible may have been the 
identification of some Edom - a historical brother of a proto-Israelite king 
(we may call him for conveniency Jacob) - with the eponymous ancestor of the 
Edomites Esau. 

There exists an Egyptian inscription concerning a certain Abdi-damu (or later 
Hebrew: Obed-Edom) brother of the "prince" of Retenu, taking part into a 
mining expedition into the Sinai, just on the wake of the massive (and 
apparently friendly)immigration of Semites into the Delta under Amenemhat III 
during the late 12-th dynasty.

Best regards,

Banyai Michael
Stuttgart