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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: kwrandolph AT gmail.com, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Salt Sea
  • Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010 14:56:46 EST


Karl wrote: “Ugarit, and other geographically separate societies, which
may not have
knowledge of the Dead Sea, would use the terms differently.”

O.K., fair enough, so then let’s stick to an analysis of Biblical Hebrew
words.

The phrase “salt sea” at Genesis 14: 3 is literally “sea the salt”: YM
H-MLX. Obviously the 5 critical letters there are MLX/salt and YM/sea.

1. Consider now how people from Tyre who sail the Mediterranean Sea (what
I would call the “Big Salt Sea”) are described at Ezekiel 27: 29: MLXYM.

The 5 critical letters are the same. Yes, the literal meaning is
different, with those letters at Ezekiel 27: 29 literally meaning “salts”,
not “salt
sea”. But note that using “salts” to mean sailors on the Mediterranean
Sea means that the Hebrews thought of the Mediterranean Sea as being a “salt
sea”.

2. If Tyre is a bit far north for one’s tastes, then consider Jonah 1: 5,
where Jonah sets off to sea on the Mediterranean Sea from Joppa in central
coastal Canaan. Note that the people who sail the Mediterranean Sea from
Joppa are called: H-MLXYM. It’s the same 5 key letters again (this time
with
H meaning “the”, similar to Genesis 14: 3).

It’s probably a coincidence that the suffix –YM in unpointed text is the
same as the word “sea”/YM. But it’s no coincidence that people who sail the
Mediterranean Sea are called “salts”. That means that the Hebrews
themselves considered the Mediterranean Sea to be a “salt sea”.

3. The point is that YM H-MLX at Genesis 14: 3 is inherently ambiguous.
Depending on the context, those letters could be referencing the
Mediterranean Sea, or the Dead Sea. In order to determine the context, 3
keys are the
following aspects of Genesis 14: 7: (i) recognize that $WB at the beginning
of Genesis 14: 7 almost certainly means “return”, and in the context of
Genesis 14: 5, which tells us that this military operation started at
Ashteroth, the likely implied meaning is “and then they returned (to the
Ashteroth
area)”; that in turn would mean that the places and peoples that come later
in Genesis 14: 7 are north of Ashteroth; (ii) recognize that QD$ in Genesis
14: 7 is an historically attested spelling of Qadesh of Upper Galilee, north
of Ashteroth, whereas no place in the Sinai Desert has any such attested
name in secular history; and (iii) recognize that historically, the Amorites
referenced in Genesis 14: 7 were closely associated with Lebanon in the
Bronze Age, being north of Ashteroth, with the historical Amorites never
being
historically attested south of the Dead Sea.

4. Any argument that YM H-MLX at Genesis 14: 3 cannot refer to the
Mediterranean Sea is refuted by the use of MLX-YM at Ezekiel 27: 29 and
H-MLX-YM at
Jonah 1: 5, where those same 5 key letters are used to refer to people who
sail on the Mediterranean Sea -- a body of salt water/YM H-MLX, that is, a “
salt sea”.

There’s no way that Biblical Hebrew would call people who sail on the
Mediterranean Sea “salts”/MLX-YM or H-MLX-YM unless the Hebrews thought of
the
Mediterranean Sea as being a “salt sea”/YM H-MLX. Thus the very language of
Biblical Hebrew itself is telling us that YM H-MLX at Genesis 14: 3 may
possibly be referring to the Mediterranean Sea, and does not necessarily
refer
to the Dead Sea.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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