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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Jacob-El
  • Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 09:36:44 EST


As noted in the first post on this thread, “Jacob-El” is an old Amorite name
from the early 2nd millennium BCE. Does that old Amorite name show up in the
mid-15th century BCE on the Thutmosis III list as being a city name of a town
in the Shephelah? Scholars recognize items #104 and #105 as being Gezer and
Rubutu, located in or near the Aijalon Valley. Only two slots away, at item
#102 on the Thutmosis III list, is another town in or near the Aijalon Valley
in the northern Shephelah: Jacob-El.

There are two versions of item #102 on the Thutmosis III list. As can be
examined later, the second version, which is longer, is likely a later
version,
and as such is likely to be the version that may be reflected in the Bible.
But in this post we will look at the first version, the shorter, older
version,
which appears to be “Jacob-El”.

The first version of item #102 on the Thutmosis III list is: Y(QBJR.

The first four letters are directly comparable to Biblical Hebrew. Y(QB is
the standard Biblical Hebrew spelling of the name “Jacob”.

The last two Egyptian letters may need a little explanation. The J (an
Egyptian single reed) is an all-purpose guttural sound, which has no exact
equivalent in Biblical Hebrew. A J is most frequently an aleph/) in Biblical
Hebrew,
but it can also come out as an ayin or a heth in Biblical Hebrew, which are
the other two guttural sounds in Hebrew (and on some occasions it may be just
a
vowel indicator). In this first, older version of item #102, the J probably
has its most common function of representing an aleph/) in Biblical Hebrew.

An Egyptian R represents either a resh/R, or a lamed/L. In a slight majority
of cases on the Thutmosis III list, an R represents a lamed/L (not a resh/R).
In item #102, the R probably has its most common function of representing a
lamed/L in Biblical Hebrew.

Accordingly, this older, shorter version of item #102 on the Thutmosis III
list appears to be “Jacob-El”, with all 6 letters being identical to the way “
Jacob-El” would be rendered in Biblical Hebrew.

We know that “Jacob-El” is an old Amorite name. We also have begun to
glimpse that most of the last 30 items, beginning with item #90, on the
Thutmosis
III list may represent places in or near the Shephelah, just west of hill
country (fairly near Jerusalem and the city of Hebron, but in most all cases
being
just west of hill country).

The logical conclusion is that in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE,
the Amorites had a substantial presence in the northern Shephelah, especially
in the Aijalon Valley. That is why this town, which is probably located in
or
very near the Aijalon Valley, has this ancient Amorite name.

That further means that in the Bronze Age, the Aijalon Valley may likely have
been associated with Amorites. If so, then the Aijalon Valley was the
o-n-l-y place in southern Canaan that was historically associated with the
Amorites, who historically were most prominent in northwest Canaan. To the
best of
my knowledge, the Negev Desert was never associated with Amorites in secular
history. Thus a Biblical reference in Genesis to “Mamre” and “Amorite” might
well suggest the Aijalon Valley, and would not be consistent, historically,
with the city of Hebron or any other locale in the Negev Desert.

Scholars recognize that “Jacob-El” is item #102 on the Thutmosis III list,
and that it is an old Amorite name, but scholars have failed to recognize the
great significance of that fact. Once one sees that most of the towns
surrounding item #102 on the Thutmosis III list are located in the Shephelah,
near or
in the Aijalon Valley, one comes to see that in the Bronze Age, the Aijalon
Valley was closely associated with the Amorites. When the Patriarchal
narratives repeatedly insist that the Patriarchs’ “Hebron” is associated with
“Mamre”
or “Amorites”, that is a huge clue that the Patriarchs’ “Hebron” is not the
city of Hebron, which was never associated with Amorites in secular history,
but rather is the Aijalon Valley, which is the only locale in southern Canaan
that historically was closely associated with the Amorites in the Bronze Age.

But now we need to move on to the second question here. If the Bible has
near-blanket coverage of Late Bronze Age cities, towns and important villages
in
southern Canaan, as I believe it does, then where is this “Jacob-El” in the
Bible? We’ll have to look at the second, longer, later version of item #102
on
the Thutmosis III list. And we may need to, as we did previously with
Magaroth and Carmel and Halhul, be willing to look a few miles west of where
scholars have unsuccessfully looked for the Biblical Hebrew version of the
town of “
Jacob-El”.

If “Jacob-El” was a town important enough to be recorded on the Thutmosis
III list as a city name in southern Canaan, it stands to reason that it
should
be referenced somewhere in the Bible. The Hebrews knew more about cities in
southern Canaan than did the Egyptians.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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