Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Professor Yigal Levin has nicely answered most of the questions that have 
been raised so far on this thread.  So in the interest of brevity, I will for 
the 
most part not respond to the individual points that people have made.
 
I believe that a majority of scholars would agree that the Biblical Hebrew 
common words KRM and KRML, plus Abigail's KRML, likely have KRM as their 
root.  
(By contrast, Mt. Carmel is a completely different place with completely 
different characteristics, so Mt. Carmel might have a completely different 
etymology, perhaps something along the lines suggested by Isaac Fried.)


Bill Rea perceptively observed that poetry is often not the best place to 
look in determining meanings of words.  But a KRML (a garden that bears fine 
fruits) sometimes is smaller and finer than a KRM (a vineyard), so the view 
that 
the final lamed/L in KRML is a suffix that has a diminutive meaning makes a 
good deal of sense here.  Professor Yigal Levin set forth another mainstream 
scholarly view of the final lamed/L in Abigail’s KRML:  “KRML…is sometimes 
taken 
as a shortened form of Kerem (vineyard) + El (God)”.
 
The one and only critical linguistic issue here is to recognize that the 
final lamed/L in Abigail’s KRML, whether it be a diminutive or a theophoric, 
is 
likely a mere suffix. 



*       *       *
 
Professor Yigal Levin delicately, and accurately, sets forth the scholarly 
view of Abigail’s city of Carmel as follows:
 
“As far as I know, the name ‘Carmel’ is NOT attested in any pre-Israelite 
sources.  … I am pretty certain that I’m going to disagree with whatever Jim 
is 
getting to [regarding] Carmel in Judah”.
 
Despite that scholarly view, on this thread I will set forth Late Bronze Age 
secular historical documentation showing that Abigail’s Carmel as portrayed 
in 
I Samuel is historical, not fictional, based primarily on comparing west 
Semitic secular historical inscriptions from the Late Bronze Age to 
comparable 
Biblical Hebrew words or names.  I hope I am right in thinking that doing a 
linguistic comparison of west Semitic geographical place names from the 
secular 
history of Canaan in the Late Bronze Age to Biblical Hebrew geographical 
place 
names, in order to try to verify the historicity of Abigail’s Carmel in I 
Samuel, is an appropriate topic for the b-hebrew list.
 
*       *       *
 
The name of Abigail’s city of Carmel/KRML in southern Canaan is likely KRM + 
suffix.  The normal way to check to see if Abigail’s KRML was already in 
existence 500 years before Abigail’s day, with this same town having this 
same 
basic city name, would be to look at the mid-15th century BCE Thutmosis III 
list 
of places in Canaan.
 
It would not be surprising for the particular suffix involved to be 
different.  In fact, an –el suffix is very rare on the Thutmosis III list.  
(It would 
have an Egyptian R as its final letter, and it might have an Egyptian J as 
its 
next to final letter.  The first version of item #102 has that JR ending, 
though the longer, second version does not.)  The most common ending of them 
all 
on the Thutmosis III list is an N.  So the most likely entry we would expect 
to 
find, 500 years before Abigail’s birth, for the town of Carmel/KRML that is 
associated with David’s Abigail, would be as follows:  KRM + N = KRMN.
 
That is exactly what we see at item #96 on the Thutmosis III list:  KRMN.  
KRMN on the Thutmosis III list is KRM + suffix.  Abigail’s Carmel in chapter 
25 
of I Samuel is likewise KRM + suffix.  It’s a perfect linguistic match.  
 
As to the location of the KRMN on the Thutmosis III list, KRMN is one of 17 
straight items that appear to be located in or near the general vicinity of 
the 
Sorek and Aijalon Valleys in the northern Shephelah, just west of hill 
country.  Based in part on additional evidence that can be examined later, 
Abigail’s 
KRML was probably located on the northern edge of the Sorek Valley.  The 
Sorek Valley was a fine place for Abigail’s first husband to graze his 3,000 
sheep 
and 1,000 goats, per I Samuel 25: 2.  An earlier item in that long stretch of 
17 items on the Thutmosis III list is item #91, JTR(, which is probably 
Ether/(TR at Joshua 15: 42, located south of the Sorek Valley.  [That 
Egyptian J is 
an all-purpose guttural with no direct equivalent in Biblical Hebrew, often 
being an aleph, but sometimes being an ayin or heth, in the Biblical Hebrew 
equivalent of city names on the Thutmosis III list.]  Scholars agree that two 
later items (in this stretch of 17 items, from #90 through #106) on the 
Thutmosis 
III list, namely items #104 and #105, are Gezer [QDR, where an Egyptian Q can 
represent a gimel/G, and the D is underlined to indicated a Z-type sound], 
and Rubutu [RBT].  Gezer is located just northwest of the Aijalon Valley, and 
Rubutu is located in the south-central portion of the Aijalon Valley, with 
the 
Aijalon Valley in turn being located just north of the Sorek Valley.  
Geographically, everything makes perfect sense for KRMN at item #96 on the 
Thutmosis 
III list to be located on the northern edge of the Sorek Valley, just south 
of 
the Aijalon Valley, just west of hill country.
 
Under ordinary circumstances, one might think that this would end the matter. 
 Chapter 25 of Samuel presents Carmel/KRML as being a city in 10th century 
BCE southern Canaan.  What appears to be a Late Bronze Age linguistic 
equivalent 
name, KRMN, appears at item #96 on the mid-15th century BCE Thutmosis III 
list, in the middle of a long string of entries which seem to be located in 
or 
near the Sorek and Aijalon Valleys, in the northern Shephelah west of hill 
country.  That would seem to confirm both (i) the historicity of a city named 
Carmel in Judah, just as stated in I Samuel, and (ii) the approximate 
location of 
such historical city, probably on the northern edge of the Sorek Valley, west 
of hill country.  That is my view of the matter.
 
But scholars will have none of it.  To the best of my knowledge, no scholar 
has ever asked whether KRMN at item #96 on the Thutmosis III list may be KRM 
+ 
suffix, and hence be an exact linguistic equivalent of, and be the same city 
as, Abigail’s KRML/Carmel in chapter 25 of I Samuel, with the city name 
Carmel/KRML likewise being KRM + suffix.
 
Both the Bible and the secular history of the ancient world strongly suggest 
that Abigail’s Carmel was an historical city in southern Canaan in both the 
Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age.  But scholars say No.  As I noted in my 
first 
post, Carmel as a city in Judah is much more controversial than one would 
think.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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