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  • From: Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] $WB, Gen 14 and Amarna 197
  • Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 08:26:51 +0200

Dear Mr. Stinehart,



First of all, please stop referring to me as "Professor" and constantly
mentioning my publications. It's nice to know that somebody has actually
read them, but once is enough. On this list many of us have some field of
expertise, some are self-educated, others are beginners. We learn to judge
and to respect each other's knowledge by what they write and how they
express it, not by their academic titles. And we usually refer to each other
by given names. Your constant reference to my academic position and
publications comes across as either mockery or obsequiousness. In any case
you're over-doing it.



Second, while it's nice if places mentioned in the Bible are also attested
outside the Bible, the very mention of lack of cannot be used as "proof" of
that place's existence or location. For example, Beth-el is never mentioned
in any contemporary text, but no-one doubts its existence or identification.
The same is true of Kadesh(-Barnea). It's mentioned dozens of times in the
Bible as a place in the far south. One of the wells (or springs - I forget
which) at the large Ein el-Qudeirat oasis in Sinai is called Ein Qudeis. The
only debate is on whether there is only one place that is called both
Kadesh-Barnea and just Kadesh, or whether these are two separate places in
the south, just like there are at least three Kedesh's in the north. So
within the Bible, the Kadesh-En-Mishpat of Gen. 14 could be in the south.
Why it's also called "En Mishpat" is a question.

El-Paran is not known from other sources, but "the wilderness of Paran" is
well known in the south, and is reflected by the modern Arabic name of Wadi
Faran. I would assume that "El-Paran" refers to a place dedicated to the
worship of El in or near the wilderness of Paran, but that's just a guess.

There is no proof that the biblical "Horites" are related to the Hurrians,
just as there is no proof that the biblical Amorites and Hittites are
related to the Amurru and Hatti. While I don't believe that the similarity
in names is purely coincidental, the assumed identification is more a
figment of "biblio-centered" 19th and 20th century scholars' trying to fit
every discovery from the Ancient Near East into the Bible. Whatever the
etymological relationship may be, the Hurrians are indeed a northern people,
while the Hoirites are ALWAYS mentioned in southern contexts. The connection
of the Horites to Seir and Edom is made clear in Gen. 36:20-30. The
"Amorites" in the Bible appear all over Canaan. That some of them are
pictured as living near Kadesh-Barnea is made clear by Deut. 1:44, where the
Israelites who attempted to enter the Land after the spy debacle were
defeated by the Amorites. In the Num. 14:45 version of the same story they
are defeated by the Amalekites, who of course also appear in the south in
many other places. Hazazon-Tamar in mentioned once more in the Bible, in 2
Chr. 20:2, identified there with En-Gedi. En-Gedi, on the shore of the Dead
Sea, is well-known, and one of the ravines in the area is called Wadi
Hassassa. "Tamar" as a place-name, is attested (in the Bible and in
"secular" Roman-period documents) as being south of the Dead Sea (identified
at today's Hazevah). And of course many other places in the Dead Sea area
have names that include the word "tamar", meaning "palm-tree". All of this,
together with the traditions connecting Sodom and co. to the Dead Sea, plus
the known site of Zoar, well attested in later periods near the southern end
of the Dead Sea, should be enough to places the Gen. 14 story, whether
historical or imagined, in that same area.



And that's all I have to say on the subject.



Yigal Levin



_____

From: jimstinehart AT aol.com [mailto:jimstinehart AT aol.com]
Sent: Monday, February 15, 2010 4:45 AM
To: leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il; b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] $WB, Gen 14 and Amarna 197



Prof. Yigal Levin:



On a different, but related, thread, you wrote two things.



First, you wrote this: "Questions about language, geography, the text
itself are allowed."



Then later, you wrote this: "I also have answers to most of Jim's claims,
but since one of the moderators has declared the thread closed, I'll keep my
comments to myself. :-)."


I am hoping that your comment #1 still stands: "Questions
about.geography.are allowed."

If your comment #1 still stands, and questions about geography are
permitted, then let me repeat my question to you which I previously raised
on this particular thread, which is exclusively about geography:

"Please tell us if you have inscriptions in the secular history of the
ancient
world south of the Dead Sea or in the Negev [or in the Sinai Desert] for any
one or more of the names (1) Horites, (2) El-paran, (3) QD$, (4) En-mishpat,
(5) Amalekites, (6) Amorites,
(7) Hazezon [all of which appear at Genesis 14: 6-7]."

I would greatly appreciate learning from your expertise in the field of
Biblical geography as to my question about those 7 names of peoples and
places at Genesis 14: 6-7.

If I am not permitted to ask that question, or if you decline to answer that
question, please say so. Otherwise, I am banking on your comment #1, when
you said "Questions about.geography.are allowed."

You are one of the world's leading experts in this field, having at a
minimum published at least one peer-reviewed article that is directly on
point, as to QD$. We would all (not just me) learn a lot from your answer.
Why do you seem a bit reluctant to answer such a straightforward question,
which falls squarely within one of your fields of expertise? Either there
are non-Biblical inscriptions from the ancient world for one or several or
all of those 7 names that attest such names south of the Dead Sea, in the
Negev, or in the Sinai Desert, or not. Agreeing to keep the historicity of
the Patriarchal narratives completely out of it, the objective question
remains whether there are inscriptions from the secular history of the
ancient world that back up the 2,500-year-old unanimous view of all Biblical
analysts (both scholarly and non-scholarly) as to the underlying geography
of the Patriarchal narratives. The identity and geographical location of
those 7 specific names is of critical importance in understanding the
underlying geography of the Patriarchal narratives, I believe you would
agree.

Is there any non-Biblical evidence from the ancient world to place any one
or more of those 7 names south of the Dead Sea, in the Negev, or in the
Sinai Desert (or close to any of those very southerly locales)? Either
there is, or there isn't. Is you is, or is you ain't? Professor, we just
want to learn from your expertise, that's all.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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