Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

Jim, 

While I must admit that it's true that the Septuagint sometimes reflects a
more "original" Hebrew original than the MT, just as often it reflects the
translators' "fixing" terms in the Hebrew original that they did not
understand. Just as you're doing now. First you decide that "Amalek" does
not fit the context, and then you propose to "fix" it to make it fit what
you think should be the context. While I admit that Bible scholars do just
that on occasion, in this case it's unwarranted. 

Without getting into the debate on the historicity of the story, Gen. 14 is
full of geographical anachronisms and glosses, meant to make the places
understandable to the audience for whom it was written, many centuries after
the events. For example, "Seir" is a name for "hairy" Edom, but here it's
the abode of the Horites. In the writer's day, the former "Valley of Siddim"
was called "The Salt Sea" (after the cataclysmic events of Gen. 19). Ancient
Ashtaroth (well known from what you call "secular history"), less prominent
in the writer's day, is near Karnaim. Former Ein Mishpat is now Kadesh. And
thus, the area into which the invaders moved next, which is certainly in the
Negev, is NOW called "the fieid of the Amalekites".

Yigal Levin

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of
jimstinehart AT aol.com
Sent: Monday, February 22, 2010 6:44 AM
To: kwrandolph AT gmail.com; b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] "Amalek"/(MLQ vs. "Valley"/(MQ


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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