Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Yigal:

On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 12:19 PM, Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>wrote:

> Karl, you keep repeating the same claim, without explaining your position.
>

What more do I need to say? This is Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, not a history
lesson.


> Josh. 15:20-62 is a list of TOWNS.


Exactly. But some of the town names have multiple words, either because they
always had multiple words (e.g. Beersheba), because the county name is
included or there is some other explanation.


> It is divided into regions (Negev,
> Shephelah, Hills and Desert), and the Shephlah and Hill regions are further
> sub-divided into districts, with a numerical summary at the end of each.
>

Did you notice that not all the numerical summaries equalled the number of
towns listed? Sometimes more towns are listed, sometimes fewer. For example,
the first group, verses 21-32, I count 37 names, but that was only 29
cities. Or in verse 36, the numerical summary lists 14, but when I count the
cities, I get either 13 or 16. What I think Joshua did was to list the more
important cities in each county, in some cases naming important hamlets or
places as well, then giving a summary of how many actual cities were
included in each district.


> Vss, 55-57 list ten towns, including Carmel, and then summarize "ten towns
> and their fields". What's not to understand?


This is my question to you.


> Is it because Carmel lacks the
> vav "and"?


What else?


> So do "Haqqayin" and "Gibeah" in vs. 57, but they're still
> counted as part of the district's 10 towns.


Look at the pattern of the whole chapter: towns that are the first in each
list lack the waw, and those that are the first listed within a verse
sometimes lack a waw, yet are expected to be counted separately, not as part
of the preceding name. Those names within a verse have waws except second or
third words of multiple word names.


> And if Carmel is a town near
> Maon in Josh. 15, what's to stop it from being a town near Maon in 1
> Samuel?
>
> We haven't established that it was a town in Joshua 15.


> Even if some passages treat Carmel as a region, it is usually the region
> that is named after the town, not vise versa.


Note your own word, "usually", not always. The example of Bethlehem is not
part of that usually. How many others aren't part of that usually? Is not
the majority not part of that usually?


> If you take the text
> literally, Abraham's Beersheba was a very specific place - a group of seven
> wells - rather than a region. It was this group of wells that eventually
> became the town.
>
> If you take the text literally, Beersheba was originally one well, where an
oath was made. That understanding is also supported by Biblical Hebrew
grammar. Later it became a town.


>
> Yigal
>
> Karl W. Randolph.