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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] 1 Kings 20:14 Who are the young men, princes of the districts?
  • Date: Mon, 3 May 2010 14:50:35 EDT



James Christian:.


1. HRRM vs. HR

For there to be “a construct relationship” at Genesis 14: 6, we might
expect to see a construct form: HRY or HRRY. But instead we see HRRM. That
looks nothing like the construct forms at all, but rather seems to be an
archaic version of the regular plural form: HRYM.

In terms of substantive meaning, the only key issue here is singular vs.
plural. HRRM looks like an archaic plural, literally meaning “hills” or “
mountains”, and hence meaning: “hill country”. Note that the phrase B HRRM
%(YR at Genesis 14: 6 is quite different from the phrase B HR %(YR at Genesis
36: 8 and Genesis 36: 9. HR is a 2-letter singular, and means “Mt.”.
HRRM is a 4-letter plural, and means “hill country”.

As long as HRRM is some kind of plural, then the two characteristics of
this place are, quite obviously, that it is (i) well-wooded/%(YR (ii) hill
country/HRRM. Those are precisely the two most prominent characteristics of
the
well-wooded hill country north and south of Seir/Jazer in the Transjordan,
similar to the hill country north of Jerusalem. There’s no well-wooded hill
country south of the Dead Sea!

The phrase at Genesis 14: 6 could have three slightly different meanings,
but they all refer to the same place north of the Dead Sea, on the east bank
of the Jordan River in the Transjordan:

(i) in hill country seir/in well-wooded hill country [where %(YR is either
a common noun, and/or in the Late Bronze Age it was an adjective and
HRRM/hill country, having a singular meaning though a plural form, may have
been a
plural of majesty in the Late Bronze Age, and like Elohim take a singular
adjective]

(ii) in hill country [near the city of] Seir/Jazer [which city name means “
Well-Wooded”]

(iii) in hill country [which comprises the district of] Seir/Jazer [“
Well-Wooded”]

“Seir” literally means “hairy”, and hence “well-wooded”. Gesenius
initially says “rough”, but then he clarifies that by saying “clothed, and,
as
it were, bristled with trees and thick woods”. In my view (as opposed to
Gesenius), that’s the well-wooded hill country of the Transjordan, in the
district of Seir/Jazer, in Gilead, north and south of the ancient city of
Seir/Jazer.

Please note that in the entirety of the Hebrew Bible, a reference to a
named mountain, such as Mt. Seir (e.g. at Genesis 36: 8-9), a-l-w-a-y-s
takes
a singular form of HR or HRR, n-e-v-e-r a plural form (like the archaic
HRRM).

Chapter 14 of Genesis knows nothing of an Edom south of the Dead Sea. That
1st millennium BCE concept of a state of Edom is front and center in the
very late Genesis 36: 8-43, but is totally absent from the truly ancient
chapter 14 of Genesis. As to the area south of the Dead Sea, there was no
there
there in the mid-14th century BCE, when chapter 14 of Genesis was composed.
That area is never mentioned in the Amarna Letters or in chapter 14 of
Genesis.

As something of a corollary to the above analysis, the singular word HR at
Genesis 14: 10 probably does not mean “hill country”, but rather literally
means “mountain”, and in English would more naturally be rendered as “
mountains”. Whereas it would make sense for defeated rulers to flee to
inaccessible mountains [HR], it would not make much sense for them to flee to
hill
country [HRRM].

2. Horite Troglodyte Cave-Dwellers vs. Historical Hurrians

Are you viewing the Horites at Genesis 14: 6 as being mythical troglodyte
cave-dwellers south of the Dead Sea? Here’s a helpful comment on that
subject from the Zondervan KJV Study Bible (2002) at p. 23:

“Horites. Formerly thought to be cave dwellers (the Hebrew word hor means ‘
cave’), they are now known to have been the Hurrians, a non-Semitic people
widely dispersed throughout the ancient Near East.”

Though delicately not mentioned in that quote, the historical Hurrians are
n-e-v-e-r attested south of the Dead Sea. The early Hebrew author of the
truly ancient chapter 14 of Genesis certainly knew the historical Hurrians,
and knew (as did everyone else at that time) that the Hurrians never lived
south of the Dead Sea.

3. Is El-Paran the Gulf of Aqaba? Is QD$ Kadesh-barnea?

You seem reluctant to embrace the very peculiar scholarly view that
El-Paran, which means “Great Desert”, is referring to a navigable body of
water,
namely the Gulf of Aqaba, 100 long miles south of the southern end of the
Dead Sea. So let’s examine your view. Why would troops sent by a coalition
of
4 attacking rulers assault “some settlement/oasis in Wadi Paran down in the
Arabah”? That makes no sense. What’s more, you’ve then lost all sense of
“return” in the word $WB at the beginning of Genesis 14: 7. Now you begin
to see the reason why scholars make the gargantuan ultra-leap of trying to
view El-Paran/Great Desert as somehow, some way meaning a navigable
waterway, the Gulf of Aqaba, 100 long miles south of the Dead Sea. Only by
dreaming
up a locale that incredibly far south can one possibly claim that in some
sense, the troops then “return”/$WB by way of the desert oasis Kadesh-barnea
in the Sinai Desert.

Awkwardly for the scholarly view of Genesis 14: 5-7, Genesis never mentions
Kadesh-barnea. QD$ at Genesis 14: 7 is, rather, historical QD$, that is,
QD$ of Upper Galilee. In his article on Kadesh-barnea that I have often
cited, Prof. Yigal Levin notes the medieval pointing done in the Middle Ages
as
to the QD$ that is in Upper Galilee. While pointing out that fact from the
Middle Ages, that long article on Kadesh-barnea never alludes to any
historical inscription from the ancient world referencing any QD$, much less
a
Kadesh-barnea, by those names (or anything similar to those names), in or
near
the Sinai Desert. On this thread, Prof. Yigal Levin has recently emphasized
that in identifying XCCN TMR at Genesis 14: 7, Prof. Levin relies on Ezra’s
post-exilic Chronicles. James Christian, doesn’t it bother you that
scholars n-e-v-e-r reference any historical inscriptions from the ancient
world
in analyzing Genesis 14: 6-7? Karl sees Ezra as being inerrant in
identifying peoples and places in the truly ancient chapter 14 of Genesis.
Are you
surprised that the university scholarly community simply follows Karl and
Ezra
in analyzing the geography of the “four kings against five”? If you were
expecting the university scholarly community to have some secular historical
support for its agreement with the age-old, pre-scholarly analysis of
Genesis 14: 6-7, with the traditional analysis having been formulated when
there
was almost no knowledge of the secular history of the Bronze Age (and hence
relying entirely on later books in the Bible, not secular historical
inscriptions from the ancient world), you may be surprised to find out that
there’s
nothing like that in the scholarly analysis of this issue. Although Prof.
Yigal Levin disagrees with Karl as to whether the “four kings against five”
is historical or fictional, please note that Prof. Levin passively follows
Karl’s traditional identification of all peoples and places at Genesis 14:
6-7. There’s nothing out there in the scholarly literature that goes beyond
Karl’s overt reliance on Ezra’s post-exilic writings in identifying peoples
and places at Genesis 14: 6-7. So the person you should rightly be citing
is Karl, because university scholars simply follow Karl, not vice versa, in
identifying peoples and places at Genesis 14: 6-7. No, university scholars
don’t agree with Karl that the Amarna Letters date to the 8th century BCE.
Yet university scholars nevertheless fully agree with Karl’s basic point
that the Amarna Letters are 100% irrelevant in identifying peoples and places
at Genesis 14: 6-7. I respect Karl’s view, which is internally consistent,
even though it’s not my own view. But why do university scholars passively
follow Karl’s approach to identifying peoples and places at Genesis 14: 6-7,
while n-e-v-e-r mentioning the Amarna Letters in their scholarly analyses
of this issue?

4. Does HW) Mean “Being the Former Name of a Place Later Called”?

To ask the question is to answer it. HW) means “that is”. En-Mishpat is
an alternate, contemporary name of QD$ of Upper Galilee. Variants of both
names are found at items #4 and #5 on the mid-15th century BCE Thutmose III
list, referring to Qadesh of Upper Galilee, whose view is dominated by
towering, nearby Mt. Hermon (which the pagans viewed as being Baal’s “seat of
justice”/mishpat). Your assertion that “This is obviously a modernization
for
the reader” is not true. Rather, it’s a vintage Late Bronze Age phrase
(verified by the Thutmose III list) that was never updated by anyone.

5. “Wells, Wells of Bitumen”

On a separate thread, I noted that an Israeli scientist has confirmed that
there were no “wells, wells of bitumen” at the Dead Sea. That phenomenon
is definitely found in the southern Beqa Valley, and in some form applies at
Babenna near the west coast of Syria (just south of Ugarit, not far from the
city of Niya) as well.

6. Place of Final Battle

The place of final battle was well north of Ashteroth, not in the
Transjordan, because at the beginning of Genesis 14: 7 the troops of the 4
attacking
rulers “return”/$WB back north to the Ashteroth area in the northern
Transjordan, and then they proceed north from there all the way through the
Beqa
Valley, including Hasi/Hazezon-tamar/XCNN TMR/“the wisdom of nine” [in
Hurrian]. We know from Richard Hess’s scholarly and minute analysis of the
names
in the Amarna Letters that the Beqa Valley at Hasi was one of the places
where Amorites lived in the mid-14th century BCE, as accurately recalled at
Genesis 14: 7. %DYM means “tilled fields”. There is no “valley of tilled
fields” south of the Dead Sea! And no Amorites there either. And no
well-wooded hill country, and no Horites/Hurrians. And no “wells, wells of
bitumen”
either. N-o-t-h-i-n-g in the text fits the
scholarly/conventional/fundamentalist view of Genesis 14: 6-7.
N-o-t-h-i-n-g.

Rather, Genesis 14: 1-11 has pinpoint historical accuracy in portraying the
final battle as occurring in a valley of tilled fields north of the Beqa
Valley near a salt sea (where historically there were both Amorites and
Hurrians galore) -- the Orontes River Valley in west-central Syria, north of
the
Beqa Valley, near the Mediterranean Sea. In Year 14 (per Genesis 14: 5). “
Four kings against five”. Amorites, Hurrians and Hittites, wherever one
looks. And bitumen is exported from that part of Syria to this very day.

Having been defeated at or near the city of Niya in the Orontes River
Valley (a “valley of tilled fields”), by an enemy who can come from the
northeast, the defeated princelings had two main choices for fleeing. One
would be
to take the road west to the nearby port city of Latakia, staying just south
of Ugarit, and perhaps as an evasive action passing through Babenna and its
famous bitumen pits (whether quarry pits or wells). The other tactic would
be to abandon the roads entirely, and flee southwest into the rugged
mountains (with the latter tactic proving to be a better strategy). Note
that
these two logical routes of flight, after a final losing battle at the city
of
Niya in the Orontes River Valley in western Syria, match nicely to what
Genesis 14: 10 says: “Now [an area near] the Valley of Siddim [the Orontes
River Valley] was full of bitumen pits [‘wells, wells of bitumen’], and as
the
kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, some fell into them, and the rest fled to
the mountains.”

The final battle occurs in the pivotal first year of the Great Syrian War.
Once we get the underlying geography right, instead of always fighting what
the text so clearly and unequivocally says, and look n-o-r-t-h of the
Dead Sea (where no university scholar has ever seen fit to look), we see that

e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g matches perfectly to the well-documented secular
history of the mid-14th century BCE. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.

Just be willing to take a look at ancient historical inscriptions from
n-o-r-t-h of the Dead Sea, that’s all. It’s all there, and it’s fully
historical to a fault.

7. “Pinpoint historical accuracy” -- thy name is Genesis 14: 1-11.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois






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