Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

George Athas:
 
You wrote:  “The English translators have not arbitrarily translated )BL as 
"stone" rather than "meadow". There is text critical support for this 
reading. 
The Greek translators of this passage seem to have read a text that had )BN 
('stone, rock') rather than )BL ('meadow, field') as in the MT. There is 
further 
support for this reading from the Targums and even some Latin manuscripts.” 
 
I am well aware of all that.  In my first post on this thread, I explicitly 
quoted the following footnote from the 2003 JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh:
 
 “Reading ‘eben with some Heb. mss., Septuagint, and Targum, most mss. and 
 editions ‘abel, ‘meadow[?]’.”
 
That view sees )BL in the Masoretic Text as being a “mistake”.  I am 
somewhat surprised you would adopt that line.  Note that if )BL in the 
Masoretic Text 
is  n-o-t  a “mistake” (my view), then the Masoretic Text as is makes 
perfect sense, in referencing the Sorek Valley.
 
Since the phrase in question, )BL HGDWLH, is a proper name, why should we be 
surprised to see the northern Hebrew or Canaanite spelling of XBL, namely )BL?
 
Why turn an historical reference to the Sorek Valley, which uses terminology 
and spelling attested in secular history for such phrase going all the long 
way back to the Thutmosis III list in the mid-15th century BCE, into a 
non-historical reference to a “stone” near “Abel” near Beth-shemesh?  The 
received 
Masoretic Text here, with no emendation at all, is using the 
historically-attested spelling of the historically-attested word for the 
Sorek Valley, per item 
#92 on the Thutmosis III list:  )BL [viewed by scholars as being the 
linguistic 
equivalent of JBR on the Thutmosis III list].
 
Why is it that when the Bible matches well-documented secular history 
perfectly, scholars are so quick to announce that what’s actually in the 
Masoretic 
Text is a “mistake”?  Doesn’t that seem suspicious to you?  The Masoretic 
Text 
of I Samuel 6: 18, as is, makes perfect historical sense in all ways.  In 
particular, I myself see nothing at all in that phrase that is inconsistent 
with “
what we know of NW Semitic linguistics”.
 
If it makes perfect linguistic sense, and it makes perfect textual sense, and 
it makes perfect logical sense, and it makes perfect historical sense, then 
why brand such a fine phrase in the Masoretic Text as being a “mistake”?
 
I myself see )BL and XBL as being different regional spellings of the same 
word.  I see no “mistake” in the received Masoretic Text of I Samuel 6: 18.
 
When scholars rush to declare that perfect matches of the Masoretic Text to 
the well-documented historical nomenclature of the Late Bronze Age are a “
mistake”, and that we should rest assured that the entire Hebrew Bible is 
“late”, 
that to me is  s-u-s-p-i-c-i-o-u-s.  If the scholarly theory of the case 
cannot handle what the received Masoretic Text actually says, then why should 
we 
trust the scholars’ insistence that the entire Hebrew Bible is “late”?
 
I agree fully with what you said upfront in your first post on this thread:  “
If you consistently change the inherent value of a Semitic consonant, you can 
make a text say whatever you like.”  That is to say, if we let scholars 
assert that the Masoretic Text of I Samuel 6: 18 is a “mistake”, and only by “
mistake” is an historically-attested spelling of an historically-attested 
word for 
the Sorek Valley [!!!], then why should we trust scholars when they 
constantly reassure us that the entire Hebrew Bible is “late”?  
 
If we let scholars change the consonants in the Masoretic Text, then all hope 
of showing how old certain parts of the Bible are is lost.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois   

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