Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
> As for 1 Chronicles 7:21, the context of Ephraim’s life indicates that he
lived only in Egypt, making the unspecified reference to “land” connected
with Ephraim to be Egypt.


Karl, that is only if you assume that 1 Chronicles was meant to be read with
Genesis in mind. There are three other possiblities:
1. That the author of 1 Chr. 7 didn't know about the traditions in Genesis
(I personally don't think this is very likely).
2. That the author of 1 Chr. 7 knew about the traditions in Genesis and was
purposely stating that he has a different and contarary tradition (this is
more or less what Sarah Japhet claims - that the Chronicler denied the
Exodus and Conquest).
3. That the author of 1 Chr. 7 knew about the traditions in Genesis but had
different traditions and was not bothered by the contradiction.

I'd go for no. 3. Remember, this is an ANE literary creation we're talking
about, not bound by the rules of (Greek) logic. Just like the author of
Genesis was not bothered by the world being created both wet (Gen. 1) and
dry (2:5).

Judged by it's context in the 1 Chronicles genealogies only, the Ephraim-men
of Gath-Beriah incident occured in Canaan. I'd understand that by "born in
the land", the Chronicler was saying that this Githites were "native"
Canaanites, rather than Israelites.

Yigal