Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Yigal Levin:
 
1.       You wrote:  “Without getting into the debate on the historicity of 
the story, Gen. 14 is full of geographical anachronisms and glosses….”
 
If that’s true, then why is it that you cannot point to a single “
geographical anachronism” in Genesis 14: 7, viewed from the standpoint of 
Year 15 of 
Akhenaten’s reign?  Implied at the beginning of Genesis 14: 7 is a 
reference back to Ashteroth, per Genesis 14: 5, which is verified at Amarna 
Letter 
EA 197.  Then we have Ein-Mishpat, which is similar to item #5 on the 
Thutmose III list, meaning that it is likely that in the mid-14th century 
BCE, 
Qadesh of Upper Galilee, whose view is dominated by towering Mt. Hermon, was 
also known as “Eye on Mt. Hermon” or “Eye on Arise” or “Eye on [Baal’s 
Towering Divine] Seat of Justice”/Ein Mishpat.  Genesis 14: 7 then says “that 
is”
, meaning here that the Hebrew author is giving us an alternative, 
contemporaneous name for the same place:  QD$, which is Qadesh of Upper 
Galilee.  It 
has that same spelling in Ugaritic literature.  The same place, although 
spelled differently, is referenced in Amarna Letter EA 177 and item #4 on the 
Thutmose III list.  Then we have “valley”, incorrectly rendered in the 
Masoretic Text as “Amalekites”.  There was no Amalek yet, so a better 
understanding is “valley” [just like Judges 5: 14], meaning here the Beqa 
Valley, 
which per the Amarna Letters was called “Amqu”, just like the original )MQY 
in Genesis 14: 7.  Then we have the Amorites and Hasi, per Amarna Letter EA 
175.  There is not a single “geographical anachronism or gloss”, except that 
one lamed/L got incorrectly added, centuries later, to )MQY.
 
If you are going to allege a “geographical anachronism” at Genesis 14: 
1-11, please specify what you see as a geographical anachronism, that was not 
well-known in Year 15.  There is no such thing at Genesis 14: 1-11 (although 
there is considerable use of Hebrew nicknames, where appropriate).
 
2.       You wrote:  “For example, "Seir" is a name for "hairy" Edom, but 
here it's
the abode of the Horites.”
 
As you know, when Jacob returns from Harran and is east of Shechem in the 
Transjordan, Jacob cannot avoid meeting his estranged older twin brother, 
Esau of Seir.  In the Patriarchal narratives, Seir must be Jazer, and the 
hill 
country of Seir at Genesis 14: 6, like the country of Seru referenced by 
Abdi-Heba of Jerusalem at Amarna Letter EA 288: 26, is the hill country just 
north and south of Jazer, not all that far from Shechem and Jerusalem across 
the river.  As jewishhistory.com says:  “[T]here are ruins, called Seir, on 
the spot indicated, which leaves no doubt that Seir is derived from Jazer.”
 
We know from Amarna Letter EA 197 that there were Hurrian princelings in 
the Transjordan, from Busruna/Bezer on the south (just north of the Dead Sea) 
to Ashteroth on the north.  “Horites” is a perfect linguistic fit to “
Hurrians”.  Genesis 14: 6 is 100% historically accurate in referring to 
Horites/Hurrians at Jazer/Seir in Year 14.  Your claim that the Horites are a 
fictional people dreamed up by Biblical writers falls flat.  The Horites at 
Genesis 
14: 6 are the historical Hurrians of the Transjordan.  Biblical Seir at 
Genesis 14: 6 is historical Seru/Jazer per Amarna Letter EA 288: 26, and the 
Biblical Horites at Genesis 14: 6 are the historical Hurrians of the 
Transjordan per Amarna Letter EA 197. 
 
3.       You wrote:  “In the writer's day, the former "Valley of Siddim"
was called "The Salt Sea" (after the cataclysmic events of Gen. 19).”
 
Are you kidding?  How could a “valley of fields” be thought to be the “
salt sea”?  The historical “valley of fields” where four rebellious 
princelings were historically defeated by a coalition of four attacking 
rulers, one of 
whom had a Hittite kingly name, is the Orontes River Valley (on the west 
edge of central Syria), which is near, and whose river empties into, the most 
important “salt sea” in the Near East:  the Mediterranean Sea.  In order to 
alert us to the fact that the historical smashing of the league of 5 
rebellious princelings historically occurred at a “valley of fields” that was 
near the most important “salt sea”, the text says exactly that.  It’s 100% 
historical, and 100% verifiable by the Amarna Letters and similar documents 
from the Late Bronze Age.  (The generic phrase “valley of fields” is used to 
alert us to the danger that after Year 14, the Hittites might try to conquer 
the other two prominent valleys of fields in the Levant -- the Beqa Valley 
and the Jezreel Valley.)
 
4.       You wrote:  “Former Ein Mishpat is now Kadesh.”
 
How can you possibly say such a thing?  You literally “wrote the book” on 
Kadesh-barnea.  You, better than anyone else, know that in the secular 
history of the ancient world, there’s no place named “Kadesh-barnea” or “QD$” 
or “Ein-Misphat” on the Sinai Peninsula!  How can you pretend to the 
contrary?  If you want the names QD$ and a variant of Ein-Misphat verified in 
the 
secular history of the ancient world, then you need to go to items #4 and #5 
on the mid-15th century BCE Thutmose III list.  There you see a different 
spelling of QD$ (but remember that we know from the Amarna Letters that the 
other Qadesh, the one on the Orontes, has 3 very different spellings in the 
Amarna Letters!).  And there you see “Eye on Arise” at item #5 as the 
alternative name of Qadesh of Upper Galilee, which is similar to 
Ein-Misphat/“Eye 
on [Baal’s Towering Divine] Seat of Justice”. 
 
If we’re talking secular history, we’re talking Upper Galilee here.  No 
military operation like this ever happened in the Sinai, and there are no 
names like this in the Sinai either.  All the peoples and places in Genesis 
14: 
7 are north of Ashteroth.
 
5.        You wrote:  “And thus, the area into which the invaders moved 
next, which is certainly in the Negev, is NOW called "the fieid of the 
Amalekites".”
 
Surely you jest.  The word “Amalek” or “Amalekites” is unknown in the 
secular history of the ancient world.  Meanwhile, the Amarna Letters document 
the name of the Beqa Valley as being Amqu, which is what Genesis 14: 7, like 
Judges 5: 14, originally said:  (MQY.
 
Nothing in chapter 14 of Genesis is happening in the Negev.  Rather, after 
the military operation starts at Ashteroth east of the Sea of Galilee, the 
military party $WB/“returns”.  That is, giving this key Biblical Hebrew 
common word its normal meaning (which it has 390 other times in the Bible), 
they 
returned back north to the Ashteroth area, and all their subsequent 
conquests are thus north of Ashteroth.  That’s exactly what Amarna Letters EA 
197, 
EA 177 and EA 175 say.  And it’s exactly what the natural reading of Genesis 
14: 7 says as well.  Just give the Biblical Hebrew common words $WB and GM 
at Genesis 14: 7 their natural readings (which, by the way, no scholar in 
the Western world has ever been willing to do), and you’ll see that all the 
military action reported at Genesis 14: 7 is north of Ashteroth.  That’s not 
only the case historically, but it’s also what the Hebrew text itself clearly 
says.  Why fight the text?
 
No matter how hard you try, you cannot make Genesis 14: 1-11 fictional.  
There is not a single “geographical anachronism” there in a Year 15 context.
 
In fact, you cannot come up with a single assertion made at Genesis 14: 
1-11 that I cannot verify in full by reference to various Amarna Letters.
 
Genesis 14: 1-11 ain’t fiction!!!  Rather, it’s a pinpoint historically 
accurate account of the onset of the Great Syrian War, which potentially 
threatened the tent-dwelling early Hebrews south of Lebanon.  Even the 
specific 
dates have pinpoint historical accuracy.  Per Genesis 14: 4, a league of 
anti-Hittite rebellious princelings did indeed form in Year 13.  And the 
first 
year of the Great Syrian War, when a coalition of 4 attacking rulers crushed 
that league of 5 rebellious princelings at a “valley of fields” near a “
salt sea”, and the Hittite Empire in Syria was suddenly and ominously 
created, 
was indeed Year 14, just as said at Genesis 14: 5.  That’s the “four kings 
against the five”, as specifically, and historically accurately, stated at 
Genesis 14: 9. 
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois