Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Christian <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>]

Hi Jim,

slow down mate. Take the time to read what people are saying to you and then
respond. Firstly, I would like to observe that you are making a royal mess
of the system we have here of trying to keep discussions appropriate to the
subject title so that people searching the archives might find what they
were actually looking for. George has already pulled us up on this on the
Kings thread because it was going way away from what Karl wanted to start a
discussion on. Then you started a thread about wells of bitumen and while
that promised to be going somewhere we seem to have gotten back to your
essay in a single email style with about 100 different issues in them. I
didn't have time to read your entire essay response (I rarely do) but here a
few observations.

You misrepresented me by saying I deny it to be a plural. I accept this as a
possibility and in fact have offered the LXX translation as corroborative
line of evidence for this traditional understanding. However, where I have
to pull you up is in the way you call George and Don's an 'erudite
analysis'. What analysis? All they have done is raised objections to a
construct interpretation. They are both still to date to offer a sensible
translation which demonstrates an alternative understanding. There is no
other logical way of understanding this phrase in this context than that of
a construct relationship. If you believe there is then please offer a
concrete translation that illustrates this alternative interpretation. In
you can't then the silence speaks for itself.

James Christian

On 4 May 2010 18:13, <JimStinehart AT aol.com> wrote:

>
> Karl:
>
> 1. You wrote:  “It [HRRM] is used only this once, and more than likely
> refers to a name of a city within Seir. That is the best way to explain the
> grammatical structure of the context.”
>
> You say that HRRM is “a name of city within Seir”, and James Christian
> says this is construct form.  Both of you seem to be denying this is a
> plural?
>
> As to the construct issue, I’m delighted to go with the erudite analyses of
> Don Vance and George Athas (which are much appreciated). [I will refrain
> from saying “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”]
>
> My own analysis is simply that the regular plural is HRYM, and this archaic
> plural is HRRM.
>
> You’re saying that there was a city named “HRRM”?  And that the %(YR that
> follows HRRM means “(in the district of) Seir”?  No city named HRRM is
> attested south of the Dead Sea or elsewhere, to the best of my knowledge.
>  Why
> are you so quick to deny that this is an historical reference to the
> well-wooded hill country near historical Seir/Jazer, and come up with an
> unattested
> name of an unattested city?
>
> 2.  To my assertion that “Seir” literally means “hairy”, and hence “
> well-wooded”, you responded:  “No, it does not. That is a fairy tale that
> you
> made up.”
>
> I did not make that up.  I’m quoting BDB:  “the ‘hairy’, i.e. ‘well-wooded
> ’. Cf. [the Arabic word for] trees”.  A site on the Internet gives the
> following Arabic for tree and trees:  “Tree = shajra;  Trees = shajar”.  I
> also quoted Gesenius, who sees Seir as meaning “clothed, and, as it were,
> bristled with trees and thick woods”.
>
> So I most definitely did not “make it up”.  Many analysts see %(YR as
> meaning “well-wooded”.  Historically, the area south of the Dead Sea was
> never “
> well-wooded”.  But in Biblical times, the hill country of the Transjordan
> was definitely “well-wooded”.  The facts are all on my side, as usual.  You
> can call my marshalling of objective facts “a fairy tale”, but that’s the
> identical lingo that the Biblical Minimalists use to characterize the
> Patriarchal narratives as a whole.
>
> 3.  You wrote:  “How many times do we have to repeat that Qadesh in Genesis
> 14 is most likely the same Qadesh as in Numbers 33:6 and Deuteronomy 32:51,
> which was in the wilderness of Zin south of the Dead Sea, and not the same
> as Qadesh Barnea?  That you keep returning to this theme is not only
> intellectual laziness, but also intellectual dishonesty.”
>
> My apologies.  University scholars see the QD$ at Genesis 14: 7 as applying
> to Kadesh-barnea, and I honestly forgot that you and James Christian have a
> different locale for QD$.
>
> I presume your Numbers reference is a typo, and you meant Numbers 33: 36.
> As I read Numbers 33: 6-37, the Hebrews made a long journey through
> desolate
> wilderness, and though they made many recorded stops, they never seem to
> have encountered any people along the way, precisely because it was such a
> desolate wilderness.  Why would you think that such a desolate wilderness,
> “the
> wilderness of Zin south of the Dead Sea”, would attract concerted military
> activity by 4 attacking rulers?  I don’t see how your theory of Genesis 14:
> 6-7 makes any sense on any level.
>
> On your theory of $WB, the 4 attacking rulers are making military attacks
> in the wilderness of Zin area, and then after going a little ways away,
> they “
> return”/$WB”, and then they come to QD$ “in the wilderness of Zin south of
> the Dead Sea”.  So the essence of your theory of Genesis 14: 6-7 is that 4
> attacking rulers focused their military efforts during this phase of the
> military campaign “in the wilderness of Zin south of the Dead Sea”.  Why?
>  Do
> you consider that to be a plausible theory of the case?  It makes no sense
> on any level to me.
>
> Why are you so sure that the 4 attacking rulers did not focus instead on a
> lucrative target like the QD$ that is located in lovely, prosperous Upper
> Galilee?  And from there, they could have then struck the Amorites who
> historically are known to have lived in and near Hasi [XCCN TMR] in the
> north-central Beqa Valley.  In fact, Amarna Letters EA 174, EA 175, EA 176
> and EA 363
> verify such an attack on Amorites in and near Hasi.  Those Amarna Letters
> reference the Hittite attackers, with Tidal being a Hittite name, and also
> Etakkama, a Hurrian with a strong Hittite connection.  Arioch is a Hurrian
> name,
> and Elassar is a Hittite word, nicely showing a Hittite connection.  So if
> we look north of the Dead Sea, not only is the military operation logical,
> instead of ludicrous, but also we can verify each step of the troop
> movements
> by reference to various Amarna Letters!  Everything checks out perfectly.
> Even the word GM, meaning “indeed, even”, accurately reflects the
> historical fact that it was unusual to find Amorites in the
> Hurrian-dominated Beqa
> Valley, with the one important enclave of Amorites being at and near Hasi,
> exactly as Genesis 14: 7 portrays the matter, with pinpoint historical
> accuracy.
>
> You started your post with HRRM as allegedly being an unattested name of an
> unattested city south of the Dead Sea, and now you’re on to claiming that
> there’s a QD$ south of the Dead Sea that is an unattested name of an
> unattested desert oasis.  Are the Amalekites an unattested name of an
> unattested
> people south of the Dead Sea?  Where does all this end?  Why are you so
> enamored of making unsupported claims about unattested names of unattested
> peoples
> and places south of the Dead Sea?  Are the Horites an unattested name of an
> unattested people south of the Dead Sea?  My gosh, your analysis is just as
> bad as Rainey’s map (and indeed for the most part is indistinguishable from
> it, except that your unattested name QD$ is at a different location than
> his
> unattested name QD$).
>
>
>
>
>
>
> And what, pray tell, are you doing with “En-Mishpat”? As to an unattested
> desert oasis, is this an unattested former name of the unattested later
> name
> of an unattested desert oasis in the Arabah?  “En-Mishpat” makes perfect
> sense as meaning “Eye on Seat of Justice”, that is, “Eye on Mt. Hermon”,
> and hence being a perfect alternative name for Qadesh of Upper Galilee,
> where
> the Israeli members of the kibbutz there today sing of “Facing the radiance
> of Mt. Hermon”.  That makes sense today, just as it did in the Bronze Age,
> if the locale is Qadesh of Upper Galilee, just south of towering Mt. Hermon
> and the Beqa Valley.  But how does “En-Mishpat” make any sense “in the
> wilderness of Zin south of the Dead Sea”?  And whereas I have a variant of
> the
> name En-Mishpat attested at item #5 on the Thutmose III list, you, as
> always,
> have nothing attested historically at all.
>
> 4.  You wrote:  “Who said anything about Ezra? Is this some fiction that
> you made up?”
>
> Do you see Ezra as being the author of post-exilic Chronicles?  Yigal Levin
> recently said that instead of doing a Hurrian analysis, he identifies XCCN
> TMR at Genesis 14: 7 as being Ein-gedi per II Chronicles 20: 2.  Please
> note
> that when you ask Prof. Yigal Levin about the truly ancient chapter 14 of
> Genesis, he answers in terms of Ezra’s post-exilic Chronicles, while never
> mentioning a single historical inscription from the ancient world.  Kinda
> like
> your analysis, come to think of it.
>
> 5.  You wrote:  “Just because there aren’t any [‘wells, wells of bitumen’
> at the Dead Sea] today doesn’t mean that 4000 years ago there weren’t any
> that have since dried up.  Things change.  The present is not necessarily
> the key to the past.”
>
> Don’t you think an Israeli scientist would take those factors into account?
>  If you don’t trust an Israeli scientist, who can you trust?  Why are the
> facts always on my side?
>
> 6.  To my reference to “‘return’/$WB back”, you said:  “Stop misusing the
> term ‘return’ in this context.”
>
> I will agree that you do not grotesquely torture the Biblical Hebrew
> language like the university scholarly view does.  They have El-Paran/Great
> Desert
> meaning a navigable waterway (!!!), namely the Gulf of Aqaba, and they have
> $WB meaning “and then they made a very wide turn to the right (and
> proceeded into the Sinai Desert)”.  Even HALOT itself won’t countenance
> that
> bizarre view of $WB.
>
> But your view makes even less sense from a military perspective than does
> the university scholarly view.  You have the 4 attacking rulers spending
> all
> of Genesis 14: 6 and Genesis 14: 7 “in the wilderness of Zin south of the
> Dead Sea”.  Why would 4 attacking rulers spend so much time “in the
> wilderness of Zin”?
>
> Moreover, the Hebrew text does not say that they returned to En-Mishpat
> (QD$).  No, it says “and then they returned, and they came to En-Mishpat
> (QD$)”
> .  That is to say, first they returned, and then after that, they came to
> En-Mishpat (QD$).  Since the military sequence began at Ashteroth in the
> northern Transjordan per Genesis 14: 5, $WB at the beginning of Genesis 14:
> 7 is
> logically saying that the troops of the 4 attacking rulers returned to the
> Ashteroth area, that is, they returned back north to the Ashteroth area.
> Only after that did they come to En-Mishpat (QD$).  Here’s the Hebrew text:
>
> W-Y$BW W-YB)W )L-(YN M$P+ HW) QD$
>
> That second phrase, W-YB)W, means:  “and came to”.  So first they
> returned, and then after that, they came to En-Mishpat (QD$).  That is to
> say, first
> they returned (back north) to the Ashteroth area, and then (continuing to
> proceed further north) they came to En-Misphat (QD$), that is, Qadesh of
> Upper Galilee (which is north by northwest of Ashteroth).  On your view of
> the
> case, to which place did the 4 attacking rulers return/$WB,  b-e-f-o-r-e
> they came to En-Mishpat (QD$)?  The natural reading, as I see it, is that
> En-Mishpat (QD$) is somewhere beyond the place to which the troops
> returned.
>
> 7.  Karl, there’s  n-o-t-h-i-n-g  historical to support your view of
> Genesis 14: 6-7, or James Christian’s view, or the scholarly view.
> N-o-t-h-i-n-g.   Why do you all think that the text portrays
> Horites/Hurrians and
> Amorites as living south of the Dead Sea, when certainly the Hebrew author
> of this
> ancient text knew the historical Hurrians and the historical Amorites, and
> knew that they did not live south of the Dead Sea?  Why do such historical
> facts never seem to slow down any analyses of Genesis 14: 6-7, whether
> scholarly or non-scholarly?
> Except me, no one ever points to any historical inscriptions in analyzing
> Genesis 14: 6-7.  That’s where you all have gone wrong.  Why abandon
> history?
>  That’s what the Biblical Minimalists want us to do.  Relying on unattested
> names of unattested sites [HRRM;  QD$] plays right into the hands of the
> Biblical Minimalists.
>
> Karl, why not instead consider an historical approach, that does not rely
> on unattested names of unattested sites?  Genesis 14: 1-11 is fully
> historical, and fully verifiable historically, if you’d just give the
> Biblical text
> half a chance.  Take a look at Bronze Age inscriptions from  n-o-r-t-h  of
> the Dead Sea.  Then  e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g  checks out perfectly.  There’s no
> need to dream up any unattested names of any unattested sites.  There’s no
> way
> that the troops of 4 attacking rulers would waste their precious time
> mucking about the desolate Arabah south of the Dead Sea, focusing their
> attention
> on a QD$ “in the wilderness of Zin south of the Dead Sea”.  That makes no
> sense on any level.  With the fertile, and strategically located, Beqa
> Valley ripe for the taking, which is where the Amorites referenced at
> Genesis 14:
> 7 historically lived, why muck around “in the wilderness of Zin south of t
> he Dead Sea”?  What sense does that make?  The Amarna Letters even let us
> monitor the exact troop movements as they happen.  Everything is verified
> to
> the nth degree.  It’s just a question of relying on historical inscriptions
> from the ancient world  n-o-r-t-h  of the Dead Sea, instead of making up,
> and
> then relying upon, unattested names of unattested sites and peoples south
> of
> the Dead Sea.
>
> Jim Stinehart
>                                                        Evanston, Illinois
>
>
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