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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Joshua City Lists
  • Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2009 14:46:54 EST


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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