Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Jim:

I had never heard of this theory about two new years, one every six months,
before your message.

Could you please give your sources of information where we can check up on
this theory?

Can you also give the Hebrew names of the months, at least those in which
one finds the new years celebrations?

Karl W. Randolph.

On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 8:09 AM, <JimStinehart AT aol.com> wrote:

>
> Genesis 41: 1:  “Two Years of Days”
>
> …  Note that the preceding reference to
> a period of years (excluding people’s ages) was Genesis 16: 3:  “So Sarai,
> Abram’s wife, took her maid, Hagar the Egyptian -- after Abram had dwelt in
> the land of [or, “at this piece of ground in”] Canaan ten years -- and gave
> her to her husband Abram as concubine.”   Genesis 16: 3  Those were ten
> years in Canaan, which had a New Year celebration both in the spring and in
> the
> fall, based on the equally important harvest of grain and harvest of
> fruits.  …  Equally
> importantly, the preceding reference to a person’s age was at Genesis 26:
> 34, which
> tells us that Esau married, unwisely, two Hittite women at age 40 “years”.
> Esau had lived in Canaan his whole life to that point, so those “years” are
> logically referring to the fact that Esau had witnessed 40 New Years in
> Canaan:  20 spring New Years and 20 fall New Years.  Esau did not wait
> until
> being well into middle age (in the ancient world) at age 40 regular,
> 12-month
> years to make those unwise marriages.  (In the ancient world, many men died
> at about age 40 regular years, as life expectancies were much shorter than
> today.)  No, Esau was a young man, age 20 regular, 12-month years, when
> Esau
> impetuously made those unwise marriages to Hittite women.
>
> Likewise, the reference to a period of two years concerning Pharaoh’s dream
> at Genesis 41: 1 comes not long after we are told at Genesis 37: 2:  “At
> seventeen years of age, Joseph tended the flocks with his brothers, as a
> helper [“lad”/nar/N(R] to the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and
> Zilpah.”
> If Jacob’s favorite son Joseph were a grown man, age 17 regular, 12-month
> years, there’s no way that Joseph would be a mere helper to his older
> half-brothers by Jacob’s minor wives, and there’s no way that the narrator
> would
> refer to beloved Joseph as a grown man as “nar”.  Rather, Genesis 37: 2 is
> telling us that Joseph to that point had witnessed 17 New Years in Canaan:
>  9
> spring New Years and 8 fall New Years.  Joseph is age 8½ regular, 12-month
> years.  That is why Joseph is, very realistically, a mere helper to his
> older
> half-brothers by his father’s minor wives at that point, and why Joseph is
> very appropriately described by the narrator as being a “nar”.
>
> …
>
> Jim Stinehart
> Evanston, Illinois