Biblical Hebrew Forum

[dwashbur AT nyx.net]

On 13 Oct 2008 at 10:53, Gabe Eisenstein wrote:

> Dear Dave,
> 
> Sorry to attribute to you a global denial of punning names in Genesis.
> Guess what set me off was this:
> 
> "Gen 48:22 isn't a pun on anything.  It's a perfectly legitimate and 
> common Hebrew word, and once again, it says Jacob took by force the 
> piece of land he's describing, whereas the texts talking about Shechem 
> say he bought land."
> 
> Puns connect different words, each of which is "perfectly legitimate" on 
> its own. In this case the author was almost certainly aware of the 
> linguistic similarity between the common word "shoulder" or "slope" and 
> the name of the city (which I assume itself derived from the "shoulder" 
> meaning), given the association between the "house of Joseph" and the 
> early seat of Israelite authority.

I just love expressions like "almost certainly" in contexts like this, were 
no actual evidence is 
adduced.  It sounds more like projection to me.  The similarity between words 
seems to be 
coincidental, if we take the full context into consideration.  It takes more 
than just verbal 
similarity to make paronomasia, it takes a deliberate act.  Given the fact 
that we have a 
different explanation here for how Jacob came by the land, such a deliberate 
act by the 
author appears unlikely.  Now, if he had said "the $KM that our family bought 
from so-and-
so," we would have a pun that makes sense in the context.  But that's not 
what we have.

> If you are saying that the text has some different location in mind, 
> which Jacob took by force, I find that very implausible. It seems much 
> more likely that there are simply different traditions about Shechem.

So let me get this straight: you're saying that, on the basis of nothing more 
than verbal 
similarity between a "shoulder" of land ("mountain-ridge" as Holladay 
glosses) and the 
name "Shechem," we're supposed to posit that some different tradition, in 
which Jacob took 
the town by force with his "sword and bow," somehow got stuck into just this 
one statement 
and then promptly vanished again, never to be seen in any ANE literature 
again.  And you 
find this more plausible than the idea that Jacob is talking about an unnamed 
piece of land 
that he actually did take by force, which the text plainly says is the case.  
Does that about 
sum it up?

Dave Washburn
"I'll hold the nail.  And when I nod my head, you hit it with the hammer."