Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dora Smith" <villandra AT austin.rr.com>]

Fascinating.   Thanks for this!

I get the idea that Jerusalem was a town and a regional center before 1550 -
when Hurrians overran the land, to be followed eventually by Egyptians.
The Egyptians depopulated the area, so that could explain it.

In Amarna times Jerusalem had people but little clue what they did;
Jerusalem appears to have probably been a regional fortress and center of
government.   At the time, according to the article below, most towns in the
hill countyr were little mroe than forts!    I believe that actually most
life was in little villgages - or for some time, after the drought and
Egyptian depopulation of the region, it consisted mainly of Apiru and Shasu
(Bedouin, who moved in from teh Transjordan, and worshipped Yahweh.)

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, Texas
villandra AT austin.rr.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
To: "Dora Smith" <villandra AT austin.rr.com>
Cc: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2005 7:29 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Josiah's book of the Law


On 8/3/05, Dora Smith wrote:
> I previously sent this only to Yitzhak by mistake.
>
> I am wondering; I beleive that Jerusalem actually existed for a long time,
> as a fortress; and that the archeological evidence shows that but just
does
> not show that there was a city there.
>
> But if I knew it was mentioned in the Amarna letters, I've forgotten.
> Where and in what context is Jerusalem mentioned in the Amarna letters?

It (probably) is mentioned as the seat of Abdi Heba.  See for example EA
286:
http://www.kchanson.com/ANCDOCS/meso/amarna286.html

EA 280, 286, 288: http://pirate.shu.edu/~carterch/bible/amarna.html

Part of EA 287: http://www.touregypt.net/amarna20.htm

EA 287 specifically mentions the "attic being breached" in lines 33-46, and
I
think this suggests some kind of fortress.

In her hebrew translation of the letters, Tzipora Cochavi-Rainey also
mentions
the following letters in connection with Jerusalem: 271, 279, 280, 285 -
291,
366

Margareet Steiner on the issue:
http://www.truthbeknown.com/jerusalem.htm

See also: Nadav Naaman, The Contribution of the Amarna Letters to the
Debate on Jerusalem's Political Status in the Tenth Century BCE, BASOR
304 (1996), p. 17-27

Amarna letters in cuneiform (translation is up to you...):
http://www.tau.ac.il/humanities/semitic/amarna.html

Yitzhak Sapir