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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: kwrandolph AT gmail.com, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] 1 Kings 20:14 Who are the young men, princes of the districts?
  • Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2010 13:14:46 EDT


Karl:

You wrote: “The only significant city in Canaan during the late bronze age
was Hazor, which was destroyed during the late bronze age, and never
mentioned in the Amarna letters.”

Wm. Moran, at p. 390 of his edition of the Amarna Letters, sees Biblical
Hazor as being mentioned 7 times in the Amarna Letters, more than most other
cities:

“Hasura [where the H is marked heth, and the s is marked ssade], biblical
Hazor, 148: 41; 227: 3, 21; 228: 4, 15, 23; 364: 18”

Biblical Hazor is spelled as follows: XCWR

At Amarna Letters 227 and 228, which are from Hazor, Hazor is spelled (in
the English transliteration of Akkadian cuneiform): ha-cu-ri, or ha-cu-ra,
where the h is a heth, and the c is a ssade.

So the spellings of the city name Hazor are identical.

Joshua 19: 36-37 refers to Adamah, Hazor and QD$. That’s eastern Galilee
all the way.

Per Amarna Letters EA 256: 6, 3 and EA 364: 2, Wm. Moran sees Ayyab as
being the mayor of Ashteroth, in the northern Transjordan, not too far from
Hazor, being just east of Galilee. In Amarna Letter EA 364, Ayyab claims
that
the princeling ruler of Hazor has taken 3 cities from him.

Looking the other direction, that is west of Hazor, Rib-Hadda of coastal
Lebanon accuses the princeling ruler of Hazor at Amarna Letter EA 148: 41-47
as follows: “He has taken over the land of the king for the Apiru. May the
king [Akhenaten] ask his commissioner, who is familiar with Canaan.”

Thus all the references to Hazor in the Amarna Letters fit historical Hazor
perfectly. And the spelling of Hazor is exactly the same as in the Bible.

Biblical Hazor is front and center in the Amarna Letters, appearing on 7
occasions. Your assertion that “Hazor…[is] never mentioned in the Amarna
Letters” is not true.

The Amarna Letters are filled with references to princelings who have
Amorite or Hurrian names. The Amorites were no longer in existence after the
Late Bronze Age, and the Hurrians were only in existence during the Late
Bronze
Age. The Hittites are the baddest guys in the Amarna Letters. The
Hittites never threatened anyone after the Late Bronze Age, and were
virtually
extinct by the 1st millennium BCE. Everything about the Amarna Letters is
utterly redolent of the Late Bronze Age in every way: Amorites, Hurrians,
Hittites, and -- Hazor.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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