Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Avi:
 
You wrote:  “I have a question to Mr. Stinehart:  I read very carefully his 
commentaries about Genesis, the Torah in general and History.  My question is 
a 
little meta-historical or perhaps" meta-group":  Could be said or thought, 
that Judaism or traditional Jewish Faith or "Emunah" has a more solid 
historical 
basis than other creeds…[?]”
 
Since this is the b-Hebrew list, I will restrict my comments to Judaism.  In 
my controversial view, (i) the Patriarchal narratives are the foundation of 
Judaism, (ii) the Patriarchal narratives were composed in the mid-14th 
century 
BCE, and were never significantly edited thereafter (though spelling and 
grammar were updated, and a handful of editorial comments/phrases were added 
into 
the text later), and (iii) the Patriarchal narratives are very closely based 
on 
the well-documented secular history of the mid-14th century BCE.  
 
Since the main concerns of the b-Hebrew list are language issues involving 
Biblical Hebrew, let me set forth here, as partial proof of my controversial 
theory, 7 words which appear in the received text of the Patriarchal 
narratives.  
In my view, these 7 words are redolent of the mid-14th century BCE.  
Furthermore, in my view neither JEPD, nor any other southern Hebrew in the 
mid-1st 
millennium BCE, would have known any of these words, except by reading them 
in 
the truly ancient Patriarchal narratives.
 
1.  Horites
 
The Patriarchal narratives are the only place in the Bible that mentions the 
Horites/Hurrians, a people who went extinct prior to the 1st millennium BCE.
 
2.  Chânîykîm 
 
The word chânîykîm at Genesis 14: 14, referring to Abraham's armed retainers, 
is not present in the secular record after the 15th century BCE, and is never 
used elsewhere in the Bible.
 
3.  Naharim
 
Genesis 24: 10 uses this Egyptian word from the Amarna Letters for the 
Hurrian state on the upper Euphrates River that vanished in the late 14th 
century 
BCE.  (This ancient word is picked up from the ancient Patriarchal narratives 
and used in later books of the Bible.)
 
4.  Pa nTr
 
This monotheistic phrase, which appears in Akhenaten’s Great Hymn to the 
Aten, is in Joseph’s Egyptian name at Genesis 41: 45.
 
5.  Paddan-Aram
 
Though John Van Seters is usually considered something of a Biblical 
Minimalist, his book nicely sets forth the 14th century BCE nature of this 
odd phrase, 
which appears 10 times in the Patriarchal narratives but nowhere else in the 
Bible:  "[I]n the Ugaritic texts [appears] a reference in a fourteenth 
century 
cuneiform text to eqleti aramina, 'the fields of the Arameans.  …Paddan-Aram…
is the Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew…'field of Aram'…."  John Van Seters, 
Abraham in History and Tradition (1975), Yale University Press, New Haven, at 
pp. 30, 58.
 
6.  Amrapel
 
“Amrapel” at Genesis 14: 1 is the name of the most famous brother of Aziru, 
the iniquitous Amorite of Amurru (northern Lebanon).  Amrapel is the one who 
wrote Amarna Letter #170, claiming that there were 90,000 Hittite troops in 
the 
Bekka Valley, just north of Canaan proper.  “Amrapel” makes an ideal 
nickname for Aziru, who in secular history was one of the four attacking 
rulers being 
referred to in chapter 14 of Genesis, because the first three letters of his 
name, aleph-mem-resh, mean both “Amorite” and “Amurru”.  Aziru was an 
Amorite who iniquitously sold out Amurru to the dreaded Hittites in the 
mid-14th 
century BCE, thereby threatening the future existence of the pre-Hebrews in 
northern Canaan proper
 
7.  Abimelek of Sur
 
Both in the Patriarchal narratives and the Amarna Letters, Abimelek/Abimilki 
of Sur/Surru is constantly jousting over contested rights to valuable water 
wells, in a land that is otherwise wealthy, where a tent-dwelling farmer like 
Isaac can get rich growing crops and selling the produce to the wealthy 
island 
city-state of Sur (“Tyre” in English) in northern Canaan, which had to buy 
all 
of its food.
 
Conclusions
 
In the Bible, only the Patriarchal narratives are chock-full of vintage 
mid-14th century BCE vocabulary like this.  JEPD knew nothing about this.  In 
my 
controversial view of the case, the Patriarchal narratives were composed by 
the 
first historical Hebrew, who thereby succeeded in saving his people -- his 
fellow tent-dwelling pre-Hebrews in northern Canaan -- from being wiped out 
by 
the dreaded Hittites.  As I see it, the specific historical event that 
convinced 
the first Hebrews that God was on their side, and that Canaan was their 
Promised Land, was that on a near-miraculous basis, the dreaded Hittites, 
though at 
one point apparently having 90,000 troops in the Bekka Valley just north of 
Canaan proper, never in fact invaded Canaan proper.  For the next 500 years 
after that, the rivals of the early Hebrews in inland Canaan gradually faded 
away, as the non-Hebrew population of inland Canaan dramatically declined.  
Subject to an occasional Egyptian raid that was mainly for show, the first 
500 years 
of the Hebrews’ existence were remarkably peaceful, if modest.  No one could 
have foreseen at that point that from the 9th century BCE to the present, the 
Hebrews/Jews would never again have a peaceful life.
 
It is my view that the mid-14th century BCE vocabulary of the Patriarchal 
narratives bespeaks a mid-14th century BCE composition date for the 
Patriarchal 
narratives.  No group of southern Hebrews in the mid-1st millennium BCE, 
whether JEPD or anyone else, could possibly have composed the Patriarchal 
narratives, with all that vintage mid-14th century BCE vocabulary.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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