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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Can absence of evidence be evidence of absence?
  • Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 16:34:57 EST


Harold Holmyard:

You wrote: “The fact that such a coalition happened in the 14th century
indicates that it could have happened earlier, too. The biblical dates for
Abraham suggest that he was born in 2166 B.C. and died in 1991 B.C. So the
events in Genesis 14 happened long before the 15th century, according to the
biblical evidence.”

Your proposed dates are impossible in secular history.

1. No Hittites Yet

Per Trevor Bryce, “The Kingdom of the Hittites” (1998) at p. 16:

“The Hittite kingdom was founded in the early or middle years of the
seventeenth century.”

So a ruler with the vintage Hittite kingly name of “Tidal” could not have
been operating near Canaan prior to the 17th century BCE at the earliest.

2. No Hurrians in Canaan Yet

Per Amelie Kuhrt, “The Ancient Near East, Volumes I and II” (1995), at p.
286:

“[I]n the period c. 1850 and 1600, Hurrians appear to be present in
increasing numbers throughout northern Mesopotamia and Syria, as well as in
the areas
where they were located earlier (north-west Iran and north-east Iraq).”

There is no support in secular history for seeing any Hurrian presence in the
greater Canaan area prior to the Late Bronze Age. Indeed, the only Hurrian
state was Naharim (accurately referenced by that very name at Genesis 24:
10),
on the upper Euphrates River, in the 15th -14th centuries BCE. Note also
that
the Patriarchal narratives reference the historical Hurrians, a people who
died out in the Late Bronze Age. To cite Amelie Kuhrt again, at p. 283:

“The term ‘Hurrian”…reminds the present-day reader of the Old Testament ‘
Horites’ (Gen. 14.6; 36.20…)”.

“Arioch” is a vintage Hurrian princeling name. The Hurrians do not appear
in greater Canaan, in any capacity, prior to the Late Bronze Age.

3. Four Rulers Against the Five Only Happened Once

Only once in recorded history did 4 rulers, one with a kingly Hittite name,
one with a princeling Hurrian name, and two with west Semitic names, destroy
a
coalition of 5 princeling rulers in or near Canaan. That was in the mid-14th
century BCE.

Pinpoint historical accuracy is the hallmark of the Patriarchal narratives.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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