Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Karl:
 
You wrote:  “Secondly, Amelek as a name does fit this context in a meaningful 
way.”
 
Karl, how can you say such a thing?  Here are three reasons why Amalek cannot 
be referenced at Genesis 14: 7.
 
1.       Victim.  Genesis 14: 7 is describing a series of peoples and places 
wrongly ravaged by the four attacking rulers.  In the rest of the Bible, 
Amalek is always bad to the Hebrews, and is never a victim.
 
2.       Wrong Generation.  Amalek is described in the last 75% of chapter 36 
of Genesis as being a son of Esau, who is a son of Isaac.  The descendants of 
a son of Esau could not possibly be involved with Abraham in chapter 14 of 
Genesis.
 
3.       No Amalek Anyway.  Even scholars agree that chapter 14 of Genesis is 
very old.  But the last 75% of chapter 36 of Genesis is obviously a very late 
addition to the Patriarchal narratives, centuries after the rest of the 
Patriarchal narratives was composed. Not only does Genesis 36: 9 obviously 
start over, again saying this is the line of Esau.  But consider the 
following outrageous line of text:  “These are the kings who reigned in the 
land of Edom, before any king reigned over the Israelites.”  Genesis 36: 31  
That part of chapter 36 of Genesis was written centuries after the “four 
kings against the five” report was written down.  The author of Genesis 14: 7 
had never heard of Amalek!
 
So for 3 independent reasons, we see that it is  i-m-p-o-s-s-i-b-l-e  that 
Genesis 14: 7 could be referring to Amalek, the son of Esau.  Accordingly, 
it’s probably like Judges 5: 14:  the received Masoretic Text references 
Amalek, but the original text originally said and meant “valley”.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois






-----Original Message-----
From: K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
To: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sun, Feb 21, 2010 8:28 pm
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] "Amalek"/(MLQ vs. "Valley"/(MQ


Jim:
You assume that names are used only once, i.e. for only one person or place.
ut a look at a concordance shows that this assumption is not accurate.
And you admitted in the discussion on Kadesh that that was a name that was
ommon enough that we could not expect that any one history would list all
f them. Or more accurately, just because a particular history doesn’t
ention one town named Kadesh does not mean that that town didn’t exist.
Secondly, Amelek as a name does fit this context in a meaningful way.
Thirdly, the LXX is a resource that sometimes clarifies issues, sometimes
bfuscates them. Therefore you can’t take the LXX as proof.
Karl W. Randolph.
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