Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Karl:
 
1.  You wrote:  “Where in the text of Joshua does it say that they were to 
the south east?”
 
The text does not say that.  Indeed my point is that the ten towns listed at 
Joshua 15: 55-57 were not located southeast of the city now called Hebron, 
nor 
does the Book of Joshua present them that way.  But to the best of my 
knowledge, all scholars say that the ten towns listed there were located 
southeast of 
Hebron.  Their main basis for that analysis appears to be that there is a 
modern Arabic village called KRML southeast of Hebron.  I myself see no 
textual 
support anywhere in the Bible for the scholarly view that those ten towns are 
located southeast of Hebron.
 
2.  You wrote:  “Have you looked at a satellite picture of the Judean 
highlands around
 Hebron? There's room for many towns south of Hebron while staying in the
 highlands.”
 
There’s plenty of room, but no towns and few people.  Even on a fairly 
detailed map of modern Israel, there are no towns southeast of Hebron.  The 
closest 
thing to a town is the village of Kurmul/Carmel, population 2,934.  The only 
other “town” on most maps is nearby Ma’on, which apparently is a village with 
an even smaller population than Carmel.
 
There’s no there there southeast of Hebron.  There’s only the Judean Desert.
 
3.  You wrote:  “Did you notice that there were two different towns named 
ZYP, one in verse 24, and the other in verse 55? Could there have been a 
third 
town as well?”
 
In an earlier post on this thread, I noted that there is another Ziph, far 
south in the Negev Desert.  That is the Ziph noted at Joshua 15: 24.  
(Apparently there may be two places called “Tel Zif”, or one of my sources 
was 
inaccurate.)  And Yes, there could have been a third place called Ziph.  Yet 
“Ziph” 
seems like a strange name, and there is no agreement as to what it means.
 
Note this interesting comment:  “Scholars debate the interpretation of the 
word Z(Y)F on _LMLK seals_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LMLK_seal) . It may 
be 
a reference to an economic center established at the site south-east of 
_Hebron_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebron)  during the reign of King 
_Hezekiah_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezekiah)  (circa 700 BC), or it may be a 
literal votive inscription meaning "battlement", "flowing", "mouthful", 
"pinnacle", 
or "supply" (Grena, 2004, pp. 51, 360-2).”
 
It makes no sense to think of a site southeast of Hebron as being “an 
economic center”.  There’s nothing there.
 
My point is that the only logical place for the Ziph referred to at Joshua 
15: 55 and II Chronicles 11: 8 is in or near the foothills northwest of 
Hebron, 
near or on the eastern edge of the Sorek Valley in the northeast Shephelah.  
That’s where all the people and the towns were.
 
If one leaves the city of Hebron, heading southeast, one quickly comes to the 
Judean Desert, a forbidding place that has never supported real towns.  I 
myself see nothing in the Bible that contradicts that objective fact.
 
4.  Nothing in secular history prior to the common era documents a “Carmel” 
southeast of Hebron.  Yet both the Thutmosis III list and the Amarna Letters 
document a Carmel at or near the northeast corner of the Sorek Valley, just 
west of hill country.
 
Nothing in secular history prior to the common era documents a “Ziph” 
southeast of Hebron.  Yet the Thutmosis III list documents a Ziph at or near 
the 
northeast corner of the Sorek Valley, just west of hill country.
 
The problem is not what the Bible says.  The Hebrews knew the geography of 
southern Canaan like the back of their hand.  No, the problem is the 
scholarly 
misinterpretation of what the Bible says about the geography of Canaan.
 
The only way to see the true antiquity and accuracy of the Joshua city lists 
is to take a new look at where those old towns were actually located.  The 
biggest concentration of towns in southern Canaan in ancient times, by far, 
was 
between Keilah on the south, and the city of Aijalon on the north.  That is 
the 
eastern edge of the northern Shephelah, adjacent to hill country.  That’s 
where the towns were.  There were no towns southeast of the city of Hebron, 
nor 
in my view does the Bible make any such claim.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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