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  • From: "jason silber" <uzisilber AT gmail.com>
  • To: "JimStinehart AT aol.com" <JimStinehart AT aol.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Was Abraham Born in Mesopotamia?
  • Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2007 10:47:56 -0500

Jim,
1) I have to read and reread the narrative and your writing, especially your
contention concerning the beer sheva in southern lebanon near Tzor (im at
work now, so...
2) im sending my reply to earlier quesitons under separate cover, some of
the points which you reply to here.

let me say, that this group is very interesting and wonderful, and its great
to find a bunch of people who live and breath the mikra, both devout and
secular.

uzi



On 11/6/07, JimStinehart AT aol.com <JimStinehart AT aol.com> wrote:
>
>
> Uzi:
> You wrote: "there are also references to towns being known differently
> at
> one point )
> and Beit El which was once luz, and hevron nee kiryat arba). the semi
> mythical nature would explain the multiple versions of events, the
> doublets, the
> same events featuring different characters, the rounded numbers (in
> baylonian
> style) of 180, 120, 40. so wouldn't you agree that while some of the
> semi
> mythical information may originate from sources from, say, the 15th
> century,
> that the writer who
> ultimately put this fathers cycles together would have lived in the 8th
> century BCE at the earliest?"
> I disagree completely. We're not talking myths when we're talking the
> Patriarchal narratives.
> In this post, let me focus on your common misunderstanding about Luz and
> Bethel. There are two Bethels in the Patriarchal narratives. The name
> "Bethel" means "house of God", and so could be applied to any cite where a
> Patriarch encounters YHWH.
> Abraham's Bethel/Ai is the Bethel we know today. It is between Jerusalem
> and Shechem. That Bethel was located next to the recently abandoned
> city of
> Ai in Abraham's day. That Bethel is referenced after Abraham travels
> south
> from Shechem, and Luz is never mentioned in connection with
> that Bethel. That
> site had the name Bethel before the first Hebrews got to southeastern
> Canaan.
> Note that Abraham is not portrayed as naming that site "Bethel", and the
> narrator uses the name Bethel as if that site had long been called Bethel
> (long
> before Jacob's birth), which indeed was the case.
> By sharp contrast, Jacob's Bethel is in a completely different location,
> near Mt. Lebanon in southern Lebanon. It's secular name was Luz. In
> secular
> history, Luz almost certainly is historical Luweiziyeh, located 4 miles
> northwest of Banias at the foot of Mt. Lebanon in the _Golan Heights_
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golan_Heights) . "Luz" is simply the
> shortened Hebrew
> version of "Luweiziyeh". Southern Lebanon is part of Canaan, so Luz is
> in
> Canaan.
> Jacob calls Luz "Bethel", because Jacob has important encounters with
> YHWH
> there, including the famous Jacob's Ladder experience. Note that Jacob's
> Bethel always references Luz. Your basic contention that Luz was an
> older
> name, that became displaced by the later name Bethel, is specifically
> refuted by
> the text itself. The last reference to this place in the text simply
> refers
> to it as "Luz" (with no reference to "Bethel"). That was not an old name,
> now abandoned, but rather is the secular name of this place near
> Mt. Lebanon.
> Here are the textual cites:
> "And he called the name of that place Beth-el, but the name of the city
> was
> Luz at the first." Genesis 28: 19
> "So Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan--the same is
> Beth-el--he and all the people that were with him." Genesis 35: 6
> Note that Jacob's "Bethel" is always closely associated with secular
> historical Luz (Luweiziyeh).
> "And Jacob said unto Joseph: 'God Almighty appeared unto me at Luz
> in the
> land of Canaan, and blessed me'". Genesis 48: 3
> The Patriarchs knew that the actual name of this place in
> southern Lebanon
> was Luz. "Bethel" is just a Hebrew nickname that Jacob applied to the
> place,
> because Jacob met YHWH on two important occasions at that site.
> When the Patriarchs are in southern Lebanon, they sometimes use
> names from
> southern Canaan to apply to a site in southern Lebanon as a new Hebrew
> nickname, if there is some connection in their experience between the
> two different
> geographical sites. The Patriarchs know that there is a Beersheba in the
> northern Negev Desert. That Beersheba is referenced, but only once, in
> the
> Patriarchal narratives at Genesis 46: 1. The rest of the "Beershebas" in
> the
> Patriarchal narratives are locales in southern Lebanon where a water well
> has
> been providentially found. "Beersheba" means "on oath -- a
> well!". Likewise,
> Jacob's "Bethel" is located in southern Lebanon, at Luz. That
> was Jacob's
> "house of God", where Jacob had two profound encounters with YHWH. So it
> makes
> sense for Jacob to give historical Luz the Hebrew nickname of "Bethel",
> somewhat comparable to his grandfather's Bethel north of Jerusalem.
> Everyone loves to hate southern Lebanon and Sur ("Tyre") because
> chapters 27
> and 28 of Ezekiel condemn Sur in such strident terms. Evangelical
> Christians
> even see Sur in chapters 27 and 28 of Ezekiel as symbolizing the Devil
> himself. But that's all 1st millennium BCE history, coming about 700
> years after
> the Patriarchal Age. The Hebrews liked Sur and southern Lebanon in the
> 2nd
> millennium BCE. In the early 1st millennium BCE, Solomon is portrayed as
> getting rich selling wheat to Sur. I Kings 5: 15, 25 It makes sense
> for the
> Patriarchal narratives to portray Isaac as getting rich growing wheat in
> southern Lebanon and selling the wheat to Sur. Genesis 26: 12-14
> Jacob's "Bethel" is historical Luz/Luweiziyeh in southern Lebanon (not
> Abraham's Bethel/Ai north of Jerusalem). Abraham's and Isaac's
> "Beersheba" is a
> site east of Sur ("Tyre") in southern Lebanon (not the well-known
> Beersheba in
> the northern Negev Desert). If we can drop our hatred of southern
> Lebanon
> and Sur, which makes no sense whatsoever prior to the 1st millennium BCE,
> we
> can see that the Hebrew Patriarchs are portrayed as prospering in
> southern
> Lebanon in the Patriarchal narratives.
> None of this is "semi-mythical". Rather, it's all tracking the
> well-documented secular history of the mid-14th century BCE.
> Jim Stinehart
> Evanston, Illinois
>
>
>
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