Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Isaac Fried:
 
You wrote:  “Yes, and not to forget, not only KARMEL….”
 
I am beginning to follow your reasoning now.  You keep coming up with one 
great idea after another. 
 
Mem-resh/M-L (alternatively spelled with an optional vav or a vav-aleph 
between those two consonants) means “precipice”.
 
KRR in the Thutmosis III list means G-R-R/Gerar/G-L-L/G-L-Y-L/Galilee.
 
KRR could easily be KR, meaning “Galilee”.
 
So, (i) K-R means “Galilee”, and (ii) M-L means “precipice”.
 
Put those two words together, and what do you have?  K-R + M-L = K-R-M-L = 
kaf-resh-mem-lamed = Carmel = Mt. Carmel, in Galilee.
 
That is, K-R (Galilee) M-L (precipice) = Galilean precipice = Mt. Carmel:  a 
precipice/mountain in Galilee.
 
Is that nifty or what?
 
Yes, Isaac Fried, you’re definitely on to something here.
 
And when we are dealing with historical place names (as opposed to names such 
as “Kadesh-barnea”), we’re also likely to find them in the Amarna Letters as 
well.  Amarna Letters EA 288: 26, 289: 18-19 and 290: 28 all have a town 
named “Ginti-kirmil”.  Note the “-kirmil/K-R-M-L.  Wm. Moran (editor of the 
Amarna Letters) at p. 389 says “town, perhaps near Carmel”, and Anson Rainey 
at p. 
85 of “The Sacred Bridge” also relates this place to Mt. Carmel.
 
Note the pattern.  Historical place names like Carmel, and all 12 cities near 
which the Patriarchs are portrayed as sojourning in the Patriarchal 
narratives, including Sur and the region of Gerar (Galilee), are splattered 
all over 
the mid-15th century BCE Thutmosis III list and the Amarna Letters.  They’re 
documented in secular history to the nth degree.  But by stark contrast, the 
name 
“Kadesh-barnea” at Numbers 34: 4 is nowhere to be found in the secular 
history of the ancient world.  Why try to make the Patriarchal narratives 
non-historical, retroactively, by reading “Kadesh-barnea” from Numbers 34: 4 
back into 
the Patriarchal narratives?  Not only does that improperly import a fictional 
geographical place name into the historically-accurate Patriarchal 
narratives, but it also misleads everyone as to the accurate geography of 
Galilee in 
northern Canaan that is being referenced in the Patriarchal narratives.  If 
we 
stick with what is documented in secular history, instead of importing 
non-historical place names like “Kadesh-barnea” that appear in later books in 
the 
Bible (and which do not appear in the historically-accurate Patriarchal 
narratives), the last 40 chapters of Genesis make perfect sense.  
 
So let’s agree to stay with attested place names in secular history, and what 
the text of the Patriarchal narratives actually says, and then we won’t go 
astray.  If those attested place names inexorably lead us to northern Canaan, 
to 
Galilee, there’s nothing wrong with that.  Galilee is a fine place.  In 
particular, Galilee is a fine place for the locale at which the Covenant is 
fulfilled with Isaac’s birth.  It’s the fine land of Galilee, not the arid 
Negev 
Desert, which, according to the Patriarchal narratives, is the geographical 
focus 
of YHWH’s promises of the Promised Land.  That makes logical sense (Galilee 
is much better land than the Negev Desert).  And that is what the text of 
Genesis says, if we stick to secular history and do not start importing into 
that 
accurate text non-historical geographical place names like “Kadesh-barnea” 
that only appear in later books of the Bible.
 
Who said G-R-R/Gerar was located in the Negev Desert, anyway?  No way.  We 
have got K-R-R/K-R/G-R-R/G-R/G-L-L/G-L everywhere we look in northern Canaan, 
with secular history backing us up all the way.  Carmel, and Gilead and 
Golan, 
and Y-G-R and G-L-E-D, and Galilee and Gerar, and 12 historically-attested 
cities in northern Canaan where the Patriarchs are portrayed as sojourning, 
many 
of which are in Galilee (and not a one of which is south of Beth-el).  
There’s 
a lot of historical action in Galilee.  Galilee is where it’s at.
 
Thanks much for the great tip on “Carmel”.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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