Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Christian <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>]

These 5 city names are nicknames, not formal, historical names.  These
nicknames indicate that all 5 cities were located in or near one of the two
world-famous Valleys of Fields in greater Canaan

Jim, that's quite a big leap to make. The whole point of the story is that
they were destroyed beyond recognition. You also seem to be ignoring the
greater context of when Abraham and Lot parted company.

So Lot raised his eyes and saw the whole District of the Jordan, that all of
it was a well-watered region before Jehovah brought Sod´om and Go·mor´rah to
ruin, like the garden of Jehovah, like the land of Egypt as far as
Zo´ar. (Genesis
13:10)

Notice how it says 'it was a well-watered region before Yhwh brought Sodom
and Gomorrah to ruin'. Kind of indicates a massive change in the appearance
of the landscape.

If you are going to reply. Please don't make it one of your usual five page
jobs that don't actually address the issue but launch straight into your
blog style method of writing. I'll skim the reply and if I don't see you
addressing the point raised won't be reading it in detail.

James Christian


2010/1/30 <JimStinehart AT aol.com>

>
> The Historical Sin of Sodom:  Etymology and Geography
>
> Scholars have failed to connect the historical sin of Sodom to the Hittites
> primarily because of a total misunderstanding as to geography.
> Interestingly enough, that geographical misunderstanding may in large part
> be able to
> be cleared up by an analysis that deals with one of the long suits of the
> b-hebrew list:  etymology.
>
> The names of the five cities, including Sodom and Gomorrah, of the 5
> rebellious princelings listed at Genesis 14: 2 are brilliantly designed to
> operate
> on three different levels.  This post will focus on the first two levels,
> based on etymology.  I realize that if one looks at any of the following 7
> etymologies out of context, one can easily suggest an alternative
> etymology.
> In fact, few of my proposed etymologies are the majority view.  Yet if one
> looks at all 7 of my proposed etymologies as a package, one may begin to
> glimpse that Sodom was located up north, in the eye of the Hittite storm,
> being
> located nowhere in the general vicinity of the Dead Sea, the Negev, or the
> Sinai Peninsula.
>
> So consider the following 7 proposed etymologies for the cities of the 5
> rebellious princelings at Genesis 14: 2:  Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim
> and
> Zoar.
>
> 1.  Level #1:  “Small Agricultural City”
>
> All five city names are nicknames, which on one level have the generic
> meaning of “small agricultural city”.  That is one key clue as to where in
> greater Canaan these 5 cities were located.
>
> (i)  Sodom/SDM is in part a play on siddim/%DYM, meaning “fields”.  (Most
> scholars see %DYM as an archaic plural of %DH/field.  The only Biblical
> uses
> of %DYM are the three references in chapter 14 of Genesis at Genesis 14: 3,
> 8, 10 to the “Valley of Fields”.)  A name that is a play on “fields”
> indicates that Sodom is a small agricultural city.  Moreover, Sodom and the
> other 4 cities of the 5 rebellious princelings must have been located in,
> or
> close to, one of the two super-famous Valleys of Fields in greater Canaan:
>  the
> Beqa Valley and the Jezreel Valley.  By sharp contrast, there is no Valley
> of Fields at, in, or near the Dead Sea, the Negev, or the Sinai Peninsula.
>
> Yes, I know that different letters are used for the S-type sound in SDM vs.
> %DYM.  That is part and parcel of clever Hebrew wordplay.  Samekh/S and
> sin/% likely had similar, though not identical, sounds in old Biblical
> Hebrew,
> and so they make a natural pun.
>
> (ii)  Gomorrah/(MRH means either “to bind sheaves” or “to heap up”:  (MR.
>
> Note that a final he/H is the most common suffix for a city name in Hebrew.
>  On one level, (MR-H means “city of binding sheaves”, that is, a small
> agricultural city.
>
> Note also that the root of Gomorrah -- (MR -- constitutes the last 3
> letters of the name Chedorlaomer, which are (MR.  We also know from the
> Septuagint
> that in both cases, that ayin is in fact an archaic ghayin, sounding almost
> like a G.
>
> (iii)  Zeboiim/CB)YM means “glorious, beautiful land”.  This is a plural
> form of CBY, which means “splendor, glorious, beautiful”.  (For example, at
> Isaiah 28: 4 CBY is a reference to splendid, glorious beautiful land.)  [In
> context, this is not a play on the word for “gazelles”, as often thought,
> even though linguistically gazelles would fit perfectly.]  A name referring
> to glorious, beautiful, splendid land is a perfect name for a small
> agricultural city.  The Valley of Fields, referenced at Genesis 14: 3, 8,
> 10, was
> world famous for its glorious, beautiful, splendid land.  There was nothing
> like that at, in, or near the Dead Sea, the Negev, or the Sinai Peninsula.
>  The
> geographical clues are actually pretty obvious here, if we will only heed
> them.
>
> (iv)  Admah/)DMH means “land”/)DMH.  (For example, Genesis 28: 15.)  The
> normal implication of this word is “good land”.  That’s an ideal name for a
> small agricultural city that is near good agricultural land in a fertile,
> well-tended Valley of Fields.
>
> (v)  Zoar/C(R means “small”.  We know that the implication here is “small
> city”, because Genesis 19: 20 explicitly makes that pun, comparing the city
> name Zoar/C(R to “a little one”/MC(R, which is M prefix + C(R = “a little
> place”.
>
> We see that on Level #1, all 5 names of the cities of the 5 rebellious
> princelings are apt Patriarchal nicknames for 5 small agricultural cities,
> that
> were next to good agricultural land in the well-tended fields of a fertile
> Valley of Fields.  If we pay attention to the etymological utter brilliance
> of this clever Hebrew wordplay, we will soon catch on to the geographical
> locales that are implied for these 5 cities.
>
> 2.  Level #2:  Cities that Will Be Destroyed
>
> Sodom and Gomorrah are famously destroyed by YHWH’s wrath.  Interestingly,
> the Hebrew text seems ambiguous as to whether or not Zeboiim and Admah were
> likewise destroyed.  Genesis 19: 21 explicitly states that YHWH agreed to
> spare the 5th city, Zoar, from destruction.
>
> As to the two cities that are clearly and explicitly stated in the text to
> have been righteously destroyed by YHWH’s divine wrath, a second level of
> the meanings of the nicknames of those 2 cities refers to their awful fate.
>
> (i)  Sodom/SDM is in part a play on $DP, meaning “scorched” or “blasted”.
>  All three Biblical uses of $DP are, like all three Biblical uses of %DYM,
> found exclusively in the Patriarchal narratives.  See Genesis 41: 6, 23,
> 27.
>
> (ii)  Although the root of (MRH/Gomorrah, which is (MR, normally has the
> positive meaning of “a heap of grain”, it can also have the negative
> meaning
> of “a wasted heap of grain”.  Indeed, the nickname Chedorlaomer, ending in
> (MR, plays off of that negative meaning, indicating that Chedorlaomer’s
> shocking gambit of calling the dreaded Hittites into central Syria might
> cause
> not only Syria, but also possibly the cities of Lebanon and Canaan south of
> Lebanon as well, to become (MR -- “a wasted heap of grain”.  A prime
> example
> of that is, of course, Gomorrah, whose name means, on Level #2:  “the
> wasted heap”/(MR “city”/-H.
>
> *       *       *
>
> How can people on the b-hebrew list miss the brilliant Hebrew wordplay
> here?  These 5 city names are nicknames, not formal, historical names.
>  These
> nicknames indicate that all 5 cities were located in or near one of the two
> world-famous Valleys of Fields in greater Canaan -- the Beqa Valley in
> eastern
> Lebanon, or the Jezreel Valley in north-central Canaan.
>
> In a later post, we can determine the three groups of 5 city-states to
> which these 5 nicknames are simultaneously referring.  We can also figure
> out
> why the Hebrew author of Genesis 14: 1-11 is using nicknames to refer,
> simultaneously, to three different groups of 5 city-states, the first two
> of which
> groups were attacked by the Hittites in Year 14, and the third group of
> which seemed vulnerable to a possible Hittite attack in Year 16, which was
> the
> Hebrew author’s greatest fear.  (That’s why the Hebrew author composed the
> Patriarchal narratives in the first place.)
>
> We can figure out all sorts of things like this, if we recognize that the
> names and titles of the 4 attacking rulers at Genesis 14: 1 are apt
> Patriarchal nicknames of 4 historical attacking rulers, and the names of
> the cities
> of the 5 rebellious princelings at Genesis 14: 2 are apt Patriarchal
> nicknames for three different sets of 5 cities that were threatened, and in
> 2 of the
> 3 cases actually attacked, by the mighty, expansionist-minded Hittites in
> Year 14.  (Genesis 14: 5 outright refers to “Year 14”, so that is a huge
> clue as to precisely what particular year in secular history is being
> referenced in Genesis 14: 1-11.)
>
> Please consider as a package the 7 foregoing proposed etymologies of the
> names of the cities of the 5 rebellious princelings at Genesis 14: 2.
>  Notice
> that none of those cities could be located at, in, or near the Dead Sea,
> the
> Negev, or the Sinai Peninsula, as scholars have erroneously thought.
>
> How can scholars possibly tell us whether chapter 19 of Genesis is
> historical, if they don’t even know where Sodom is portrayed in the text as
> being
> located?  If we can get the geography right, the pinpoint historical
> accuracy
> of the Patriarchal narratives will come shining through, based on the
> well-documented secular history of the Bronze Age.  Don’t let scholars tell
> you
> that the text portrays “all the people from every quarter” in Sodom as
> having
> become raving homosexual male gang rapists.  If we can help scholars figure
> out where Sodom is portrayed as being located, geographically, then
> scholars will soon realize that the historical sin of Sodom was
> iniquitously
> selling out to the dreaded Hittites, being essentially the identical sin as
> the
> historical “iniquity of the Amorites” referenced at Genesis 15: 13, which
> happened during the same historical time period.
>
> The Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives keeps going over and over
> and over and over the same themes, over and over and over again.  The fear
> that Canaan would sell out to the Hittites in, or shortly after, Year 14
> was
> his #1 fear in life.  He lets us know that over and over and over again.
>  That
> ’s the historical sin of Sodom.
>
> Jim Stinehart
> Evanston, Illinois
> _______________________________________________
> b-hebrew mailing list
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
>