Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

James Christian:

There are actually two very distinct issues that are raised by your question.

1.  Books in the Bible after Genesis refer to a desert oasis on the east edge 
of the Sinai Peninsula as Kadesh-barnea.  Geographically, there are 2 or 3 
places that would seem to fit the bill.  There is an immense scholarly 
literature out there on the question of which one of these places is the 
actual Kadesh-barnea.  Prof. Yigal Levin is fully conversant with all of that 
literature, because he wrote an artice concerning Israel's borders, about 
half of which is devoted to Kadesh-barnea.

2.  But now consider this.  

(a)  There is no place on the Sinai Peninsula that, in the secular history of 
the ancient world, is attested by the name QD$ or Kadesh-barnea.

(b)  By contrast, we know from Ugaritic literature that the exact spelling of 
the famous, well-documented city of Qadesh of Upper Galilee in Ugaritic was 
QD$.

(c)  Scholars have, most unfortunately, relied heavily on the medieval 
pointing of QD$ at Genesis 14: 7 and Genesis 20: 1, believe it or not, to 
assert that the QD$ in those two passages cannot be historical Qadesh of 
Upper Galilee.  Yet if the medieval pointing is unreliable as to anything, it 
is certainly unreliable as to identifying geographical place names in the 
Patriarchal narratives.  The proper approach is to ignore the medieval 
pointing altogether in evaluating QD$ at Genesis 14: 7 and Genesis 20: 1.

(d)  No scholar for the last 2,500 years, to the best of my knowledge, has 
been willing to consider the ordinary meaning of $WB at Genesis 14: 7.  The 
ordinary meaning of this Biblical Hebrew common word would be, as we know 
from 393 other occasions in the Bible, "return".  $WB cannot possibly mean, 
as scholars would have it, "and then they made a very wide turn to the 
right".  In the context of Genesis 14: 5, which tells us that this military 
operation began at Ashteroth, the natural meaning of $WB at the beginning of 
Genesis 14: 7 would be:  "And then they returned (to the Ashteroth area)".  
After returning north to the Ashteroth area, the next place this military 
party would come to, as it continued to move north, would be Qadesh of Upper 
Galilee, and Genesis 14: 7 indeed references QD$, which is historically 
attested in Ugaritic literature as the exact spelling of Qadesh of Upper 
Galilee.  Qadesh of Upper Galilee is an "eye" on Baal's divine "seat of 
justice", that is Mt. Hermon, which dominates the view from Qadesh of Upper 
Galilee, hence the second name given for this place is En Mishpat.  Having 
returned north to the Ashteroth area, it would be impossible for the military 
party to then launch a nonsensical attack on the tiny desert oasis of 
Kadesh-barnea (unattested historically by that name) in the Sinai Desert.

3.  The key to understanding and appreciating the amazing historicity of the 
Patriarchal narratives is to give the Biblical Hebrew common word $WB its 
ordinary meaning at Genesis 14: 7, while ignoring both II Chronicles and the 
medieval pointing as to the issue of identifying geographical place names in 
the Patriarchal narratives.  If $WB is given its ordinary meaning of 
"return", then the QD$ at Genesis 14: 7 is Qadesh of Upper Galilee, having 
nothing to do with any Kadesh-barnea in the Sinai Desert.  On that basis, 
virtually every single word of Genesis 14: 7 can be historically verified by 
reference to Amarna Letters EA 177 and EA 175.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois






-----Original Message-----
From: James Christian <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>
To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thu, Feb 11, 2010 8:15 pm
Subject: [b-hebrew] Kadesh-barnea


Hi all,
I've seen several discussions on this list implying the location of
adesh-barnea as a given. What basis do we have for our identification of
adesh-barnea?
thanks
ames Christian
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