Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Yigal Levin:
 
First, I apologize for calling you “Professor” and for repeatedly 
mentioning your peer-reviewed publications (two of which I have read numerous 
times).  No disrespect was intended.  In fact, I honestly consider you one of 
the 
most open-minded professors I have ever had the pleasure of dealing with.  
(Please, please refer to me as “Jim”.)
 
Second, thank you for your post, which as usual is honest and informative, 
and well represents the middle of the academic mainstream (which, as far as 
I can tell, is the case for most all of your posts).
 
Your post amply confirms, however, my central assertion, namely that you 
know of no inscriptions from the secular history of the ancient world that 
would place any of the following 7 key names of peoples and places at Genesis 
14: 6-7 south of the Dead Sea:  (1) Horites, (2) El-paran, (3) QD$, (4) 
En-misphat, (5) Amalekites, (6) Amorites, (7) Hazezon.
 
Given that startling fact, why aren’t you interested in looking to see if, 
as I have asserted, 6 of those 7 names (all except El-paran) are 
well-attested in Late Bronze Age secular historical inscriptions from north 
of the Dead 
Sea?
 
I hope that people on the b-hebrew list may now realize that you and I have 
an honest difference of opinion.  Instead of me being hopelessly 
misinformed or uninformed, our dispute is, rather, what should be made of the 
objective fact that 0 of 7 of the above names are attested south of the Dead 
Sea in 
the secular history of the ancient world.  My view of that, as directly 
opposed to your view, is that we should look for those names north of the 
Dead 
Sea.  In my view, Ezra’s II Chronicles (together with the medieval pointing 
that follows Ezra, to the extent that medieval pointing of geographical place 
names in the Patriarchal narratives is accurate at all) was meant to fool 
the Persians as to the allegedly ultra-southerly geography of the Patriarchal 
narratives.  I for one do not criticize Ezra for that.  But in my view, 
what is said in the post-exilic II Chronicles should not preclude our efforts 
today to recover what geography the author of the Patriarchal narratives 
actually originally intended.  My own controversial view is that the text 
never 
portrays the Patriarchs as sojourning south of the Aijalon Valley, and often 
portrays the Patriarchs as sojourning in Galilee (GRR/“Galilee”), and that 
no one in chapter 14 of Genesis is portrayed as venturing south of Jazer.
 
Even despite the fact that you recently explicitly characterized my views 
of such a northern geography as being “fantasies”, I have nevertheless been 
dreaming that you yourself, or perhaps one of your students, might honestly 
be interested in researching to see if most of those 7 names are 
historically attested in the Late Bronze Age north of the Dead Sea.  That 
geographical 
investigation could potentially revolutionize the study of the Patriarchal 
narratives.  However, I guess I should understand from your most recent post 
that you have zero interest in such an endeavor.  I honestly do not 
understand why you are not curious about this topic (which to me is a 
super-exciting 
topic), but if you’re not excited about the topic, or even interested in it 
at all, then there’s probably little reason for me to continue posting on 
it.   
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois