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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Gezer Calendar and 6-Month "Year"
  • Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 17:26:56 EDT


Tory:
Thank you for that important clarification.
1. You wrote: "Even if we were to take /kl/ in line 5 in the sense of "to
complete,"
as Lemaire does by assuming a base /klh/…."
That reading is even better for my point of view than Albright's reading of
"feasting". Both readings fit my theory perfectly that one 6-month "year"
would end at the beginning of May, as the first 6-month "year" was
"complete".
That would be the occasion for "feasting" in honor of the new New Year,
which begins in early May and ends in September or so.
So "complete" or "to terminate" or "to end" or "feasting" or "festival" are
all wonderful translations for me.
It's the 1909 translation of "two measure" that causes me some concern.
2. You continued: "…you still would have no
support for a 6-month year in the 10th century BCE."
We've got the Gezer Calendar starting the New Year in the fall. We have the
Qumran Calendar, that S. Talmon views as relating truly ancient knowledge,
starting the New Year in the spring. And we have the Hebrew calendar, which
though heavily influenced later by the Babylonians regarding the names of
the
months and some other issues, nevertheless has some truly ancient roots in
Canaan. The Hebrew calendar starts the New Year in the fall, with the first
day of the New Year, and 6 months later the Hebrew calendar starts the New
Year
in the spring, with the first month of the New Year.
All of that is redolent of a 6-month "year" concept in my book. The New
Year starts in the spring, and/or in the fall, in Canaan.
3. You wrote: "Albright may have
rejected a 1909 proposal from Ronzevalle, but new data coming to
light since Albright's time suggests Ronzevalle was right all along
and line 5 should be read /kl/ from a base /kyl/ ("measuring"), a
reduction of the diphthong /ay/ to /e/ (see Gibson, Textbook of
Syrian Semitic Inscriptions I [Oxford, 1973], p. 2). The "month of
harvest and measuring" (yrh qsr wkl)…."
If the 1909 translation is correct, then a lot would depend on how one
interprets "two measure" or "harvest and measuring". Is the word
"measuring"
there referring solely to counting how much barley and wheat had been
harvested?
Or does "measure" have a calendar meaning there, meaning that the "measure"
of one 6-month "year" has now been taken and completed, and it's time to
begin "measuring" another 6-month "year"?
What would 'two measure' mean? Would it mean that the first 6-month "year"
has now been measured, and now it's time to start measuring a second 6-month
"year" in this 12-month period: a "two measure"? Or is "two measure"
limited to having a specific agricultural meaning of some sort?
4. You continued: "…or Albright's "harvest and
feasting" (he restored a gimmel to /wgl/ and rejected kaph /wkl/), is
the 9th month enumerated in the GC."
Of course, a translation of "harvest and feasting" would be great for my
theory of the 6-month "year". One New Year starts in the fall, at the
beginning
of the Gezer Calendar, and another New Year starts in the late spring, at
the time of "harvest and feasting", with "feasting" meaning a New Year
festival
and each such "year"/New Year being a 6-month "year".
5. You wrote: "Regardless of the precise season
month 9 corresponds to in Israel the GC is a calendar which measures
time using more than 6 months. For your theory you need to bring
forward evidence of a calendar with 6 and only 6 months in it. That
just can't be done with the GC."
But that is not my theory of the case at all. The calendars of ancient Ur
had 12 different month names. But they celebrated a multi-day New
Year/Akitu
festival every 6 months. That's a 6-month "year" concept.
The Gezer Calendar probably is describing the agricultural activities
throughout the course of the year. I agree with S. Talmon's suggestion that
the
Gezer Calendar probably does not list any formal names of any months.
Rather,
the Gezer Calendar chronicles 8 agricultural seasons.
Nobody would have a calendar of six 30-day months, and then start another
year with six more months having the very same names. That would make no
sense
at all, since the winter is very different from the summer in Canaan. So
the names of the winter months will not be the same as the names of the
summer
months. But the question is whether the winter months are in one 6-month
"year", and the summer months are in a different 6-month "year".
I do not see the number of the names of months as being a key factor at all,
one way or the other.
No, what counts is whether a New Year is celebrated both in the fall and in
the spring. From the Gezer Calendar a New Year must have been celebrated in
the fall, because the Gezer Calendar starts in the fall. The question then
becomes whether there was a "festival" or a "feasting" or a "termination" or
an "end" or "to be complete" that occurred in early May. If so, that sure
sounds like a 6-month "year" concept to me. But if what happened in May
was a
'two measure", per that old 1909 translation, then it would all depend on
what "two measure" means. If "two measure" means to take the measure of two
6-month "years", the one that is ending and the one that is just beginning,
that
of course would be great. The only bad translation I can see for my view is
if "two measure" has some very specific agricultural meaning, such as
measuring both barley and wheat, or measuring barley or wheat in accordance
with two
different measures, etc. Otherwise, all the other translations I have seen
fit my view nicely.
6. You cannot realize how greatly I appreciate the fact that you have raised
these issues concerning the Gezer Calendar. All such issues are very
important in trying to decide if the author of the Patriarchal narratives
could
possibly have had a 6-month "year" concept in mind in setting forth all the
ages
of everyone in the text. If so, then every such age makes perfect sense,
as is, with not a single age being miraculous.
7. I myself see nothing in the Patriarchal narratives as being nonsensical.
In particular, no age of any person in the text is nonsensically too old to
be believed.
Moreover, many people knew the "secret" of how the ages of people were being
expressed in the Patriarchal narratives, in ancient times and through the
Middle Ages. It is only modern analysts who have lost the knowledge of how
each
person's age is set forth in the Patriarchal narratives.
The Gezer Calendar is one good clue to help us on our way to understanding
the ages of all persons in the Patriarchal narratives.
Thanks so much for raising these issues concerning the Gezer Calendar. I
myself have found the Talmon article to be particularly helpful in
understanding the Gezer Calendar.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois



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