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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Where Is Jacob's Ladder?
  • Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2007 18:49:23 EST


Yigal Levin:
You wrote: “What you did here was to take one sentence of my post out of
context and
then claim that we agree on that point. We do not. Please read the whole
paragraph of which this was part.”
O.K. Let’s look at the whole paragraph you wrote, sentence by sentence.
1. “I agree that the story looks like it's talking about Jacob's first
night of his journey….”
I am absolutely ecstatic that you appear to agree with me about that. That
was my #1 point on this thread.
As we will soon see, however, you later said you are not sure about that
point. So perhaps I should have said that you may agree with me about this
critical point.
1. “…(although I don't accept your assumption that he had NEVER
spent a night away from his parents. How do you know that? The Bible does
not account for every day and night in Jacob's life)….”
The text tells us that Jacob’s older twin brother, Esau, was an outdoorsman,
who killed game for the whole family to eat. The text paints quite a
different picture of Jacob. Here is what the text says:
“...and Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents. …And Jacob sod pottage…
. And Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils….” Genesis 25: 27, 29,
34
Jacob sounds like a guy who stayed at home with Mom making soup. There is
no hint in the text that Jacob ever spent any time away from his parents
prior
to the trip out to Harran. Jacob only went out to Harran because his
parents ordered him to do so. Jacob is portrayed as being very smart, and
divinely blessed. But Jacob is not portrayed as a guy who spent time away
from his
parents before his big trip to Harran. Why try to change what the text
says? The text, as is, is perfect.
1. “...although that may be an illusion, since the text does not
actually say it.”
Here you say that you’re not sure that Jacob came upon the Jacob’s Ladder
locale the very first night of his trip out to Harran. So you more or less
agree with my central point, but then you say you’re not sure. O.K., I can
live
with that.
4. “So you ask how he could have gone from Beer-sheba to Beth-el in one
day's journey? But that's just it: the text does not actually say that it
was
one day, so why is it
important for you to know?”
It’s important to know, because we want to know whether or not the
Patriarchal narratives are purporting to vouchsafe Lebanon to the Hebrews as
part of
the Promised Land. Is YHWH simply repeating to Jacob the very same promise
YHWH had earlier made to Abraham? Or, on the contrary, after vouchsafing
southeastern Canaan to Abraham, does YHWH in addition vouchsafe Lebanon to
Isaac
and Jacob? It makes a big difference where Jacob is when YHWH says these
key
lines:
“The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed.”
Genesis 28: 13
In my view, Jacob is lying at the foot of Mt. Lebanon, in Lebanon, when YHWH
utters those important lines. Abraham never got any divine promise of the
Promised Land near Lebanon.
1. “For the text, what's important is that he "met" God at the same
place that Abraham had, implying, or maybe even "proving", that Jacob was
Abraham's true heir, and not Esau.”
The second half of your assertion is important and true. The Jacob’s Ladder
experience is important in reassuring both Jacob and the audience that Jacob
is indeed Abraham’s proper heir, which we want to hear, in light of the very
strange manner in which Jacob got Isaac’s blessing over Esau.
But there is absolutely no hint in the text that Jacob is at the same place
as Abraham had been when Abraham met with YHWH. If your view were correct,
why wouldn’t YHWH say that just as YHWH had promised southeastern Canaan to
Abraham and Abraham’s descendants when Abraham was at Bethel/Ai, now YHWH is
repeating that very same promise to Jacob in the same location. On the
contrary, the text never refers to Ai when Jacob is here, but rather always
refers to
Luz. What you are claiming is not supported by what the text says. Why
fight the text?
1. “The text does not say how long his journey to Haran was either. The
distances and times are not important.”
It is unlikely that the Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives had even
been north or east of Mt. Lebanon. On the other hand, the Hebrew author knew
Canaan, including southern Lebanon, like the back of his own hand. There
are precious few details of any trip between Mt. Lebanon and Harran. Yet
over
the course of the Patriarchal narratives, we learn a lot about the
Patriarchs’
movements south of Mt. Lebanon. From Damascus, they would go to
Lus/Lusi/Laish/Luz/Jacob’s “Bethel”, just inside of Canaan. They would
probably stay
inside of Canaan as far south as Hazor. Then they would go over to the
Transjordan, and not come back into Canaan until they had gone as far south
as
Shechem. So the two key border towns to the Patriarchs are (i)
Lus/Lusi/Laish/Luz and (ii) Shechem. Abraham’s Bethel/Ai is not a border
town at all, being
located in the very heart of Canaan. Note how the text tells us that each
of Lus/Lusi/Laish/Luz and Shechem is a border town, just inside the border
of
Canaan:
“So Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan--the same is Beth-el….
” Genesis 35: 6
“And Jacob came in peace to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of
Canaan….” Genesis 33: 18
It would be senseless for the narrator to tell us that Abraham’s Bethel/Ai
was “in the land of Canaan”. But that comment makes perfect sense for the
border town of Lus/Lusi/Laish/Luz, namely, Jacob’s “Bethel”.
No matter how much chapters 27 and 28 of Ezekiel hate Sur and southern
Lebanon, the fact of the matter is that Sur and southern Lebanon were good
to the
Patriarchs. Southern Lebanon is part of the Promised Land, according to the
Patriarchal narratives. Unlike Ezekiel, the author of the Patriarchal
narratives likes Sur, Egypt and Assyria. That’s because the Patriarchal
narratives are a truly ancient composition that was composed in the mid-14th
century
BCE, before Sur, Egypt and Assyria did anything bad to the Hebrews. The
politics of the Patriarchal narratives makes perfect sense in a mid-14th
century
BCE time framework for the early Hebrews, while making no sense at all in a
mid-1st millennium BCE time framework (when the Hebrews, for good reason,
hated Sur, Egypt and Assyria).
As you can see from this post and every other post I have made, my views
about the Patriarchal narratives are firmly grounded in what the text
actually
says. Genesis 28: 11 wouldn’t be telling us about the sun going down if it
were not the very first evening of Jacob’s long trip out to Harran, in my
opinion. If that analysis is correct, then the "Beersheba" from which Jacob
left
is not located in the northern Negev Desert, and the "Bethel" where the
Jacob's Ladder experience occurred is not located anywhere near Bethel/Ai or
Jerusalem. Rather, that "Beersheba" and that "Bethel"/Luz are located in
southern
Lebanon.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois



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