Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Hi Jim,

I do have some problems with identifications of Kadesh-Barnea but they have
nothing to do with the points you make. I am looking for the Kadesh that
Torah claims is an 11 day journey from Horeb if you go through Mt Seir. I
think we have a pretty good idea of the mountain range we identify with Mt
Seir. And so now we need to find a Kadesh and a Horeb that would be 11 days
journey apart when going through Mt Seir. And we would also expect a good
reason for going the Mt Seir. Be it a straight line. Be the road easier that
way.

James Christian

2010/2/12 <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
> Kadesh-barnea as a given. What basis do we have for our identification of
> Kadesh-barnea?
>
> thanks
> James Christian
> _______________________________________________
> b-hebrew mailing list
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.orghttp://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
>
>