Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

James Christian:
 
You’re failing to consider when the various parts of the Bible were 
composed.  The one and only prose section of the Bible that university 
scholars 
will concede may date all the long way back to the Late Bronze Age is chapter 
14 of Genesis.  Moreover, Genesis 36: 8-43 is clearly a very late addendum to 
the original Patriarchal narratives, with such addendum dating to the 1st 
millennium BCE.  That’s why it refers to the 1st millennium BCE state of 
Edom, and such state of Edom having kings before Israel.
 
1.  You wrote:  “perhaps the first major problem is your identification of 
the Horites with Hurrians. You simply have no basis to make this 
identification. The Horites to the author of the Torah were a people native 
the 
mountain of Seir which were driven out by the Edomites. See Deuteronomy 2:12. 
We 
even have an extensive geneology of Seir and the Horites in Genesis 36.”
 
Deuteronomy and Genesis 36: 8-43 were composed in the 1st millennium BCE, 
after the Hurrians had been extinct for centuries.  The author of Genesis 36: 
8-43 doesn’t even know that the Hurrians/Horites were not west 
Semitic-speaking people:
 
“[T]he Horites of Gen 36 have Semitic names, which also tells against 
identifying them with the Hurrians. [Citations omitted.]”  Wenham, “Genesis”, 
at 
p. 311.
 
By contrast, the Horites at Genesis 14: 6 are the historical Hurrians.  
Chapter 14 of Genesis was composed in the Late Bronze Age by a Hebrew 
contemporary of the Hurrians, who knew exactly what he was talking about.
 
2.  You wrote:  “You have no basis for identifying them with the Hurrians. 
They are presented as a small people native to mount Seir which we know 
beyond a shadow of a doubt to be South of the Salt Sea (Dead Sea).”
 
Not true.  Genesis 14: 6 refers to the hill country of Seir, not to Mt. 
Seir.  Genesis 36: 8-9, by stark contrast, refers to Mt. Seir, and then goes 
on 
to talk about the 1st millennium BCE state of Edom.  Mt. Seir is south of 
the Dead Sea.  But Seir/Jazer, and the hill country of Seir, are in Gilead.  
Genesis 36: 8-43 knows nothing of the historical Hurrians.  Meanwhile, 
Genesis 14: 1-11 has pinpoint historical accuracy in the context of the 1st 
year 
of the Great Syrian War, a war in which the Hurrians and the Amorites 
figured prominently.  The historical Hurrians were never south of the Dead 
Sea, as 
I believe you are conceding.
 
3.  You wrote:  “[T]here is a great deal of ambiguity surrounding the 
phrase El Paran. As used in the Hebrew text it looks like a proper name with 
no 
definite article. In the LXX we see El translated as a type of tree while 
Paran is used as a proper name. To add to the confusion the Vulgate 
translates 
with plain of Paran. The one thing we are sure of is that Paran is in the 
desert (MDBR) or at least near it if we follow your literal translation and 
abandon the LXX and Vulgate understanding.”
 
)YL means “oak tree”.  It’s as simple as that.  The place to find mighty 
oak trees was in the Transjordan, not south of the Dead Sea.
 
4.  You wrote:  “Now if we are to use the LXX as a guide to what El means 
(abandoning a proper noun interpretation) then we see it as a single 
turpentine tree of Paran in the desert. A turpentine tree is the tree in the 
photo I 
showed you. Not a mighty oak! The appearance of single turpentine tree in 
an oasis at the end of the Horite territory in or near the desert (MDBR) is 
not such a surprising find as you are making out. I've sent you satellite 
images of MDBR and an Oasis to compare but you don't seem to be taking them 
seriously or interacting with them.”
 
Why would a single turpentine tree be worthy of the grand label El Paran?  
El Paran must be referring to a mighty oak tree.  It had to be a magnificent 
tree in order to be singled out for such attention.
 
I agree that there was some vegetation south of the Dead Sea, and I’m sure 
the oases are lovely there.  But none of that would have attracted the 
concerted military attention of 4 attacking rulers at Genesis 14: 6 and 
Genesis 
14: 7!  No way.  Why would a powerful military coalition spend its time 
mucking around in the wilderness of Zin, when it could be pressuring the 
Transjordan, or burning down villages in the fertile, strategically important 
Beqa 
Valley (both of which military actions are verified in the Amarna Letters)?  
Your overall theory of the case is not sensible.
 
5.  You wrote:  “Your theories require the relocation of the Edomites….”
 
There were no Edomites in the Patriarchal Age.  That’s a 1st millennium BCE 
concept.
 
6.  You wrote:  “…, their mount Seir, Paran, Hebron and just about 
everything else (did I forget to mention Qadesh).”
 
There’s no Mt. Seir in chapter 14 of Genesis.  That’s 1st millennium BCE 
nomenclature from Genesis 36: 8-9.
 
Paran means “desert”.  The biggest, baddest desert in the area is the 
Syro-Arabian desert that flanks the eastern edge of the Transjordan.
 
The city of Hebron 20 miles south of Jerusalem is too dry for sheep and 
goats in the summer, and too cold and wet for camels in the winter.  There’s 
no 
way that Abraham and his 318 armed retainers would decide to sojourn at 
such a forbidding, mountainous locale in lieu of the attractive Aijalon 
Valley, 
which is the Patriarchs’ Hebron.   In the early 1st millennium BCE, that 
city south of Jerusalem, which formerly had been called Qiltu (in the Amarna 
Letters), was re-named by its new Hebrew occupants “Hebron”, in honor of the 
Patriarchs’ original Hebron in the Aijalon Valley.
 
QD$ is historically attested as being the Qadesh in Upper Galilee.
 
7.  You wrote:  “You even go so far as to suggest that the Salt Sea is the 
mediterranean not seeming to realise that this involves the valley of Siddim 
being identified with the Mediterranean Sea. And you still don't see the 
problems with your theory?!?”
 
The Valley of Siddim is a “valley of tilled fields”.  There was indeed a 
valley of tilled fields near the Mediterranean Sea:  the Orontes River Valley 
in western Syria.  HW) at Genesis 14: 3 means “that is (near)”.  It’s not 
describing a massive ecological change.  Rather, it’s clarifying that the 
valley of tilled fields being referenced in Genesis 14: 3, where the big, 
final battle of the “four kings against five” took place, is the valley of 
tilled fields that is near a salt sea.  That rules out the Beqa Valley, and 
clarifies that the valley of tilled fields in question is the Orontes River 
Valley.  That’s what happened historically, and that’s what’s described at 
Genesis 14: 1-11.
 
*       *       *
 
If you would focus on chapter 14 of Genesis, you would see that Genesis 14: 
1-11 is fully historical in the context of the first year of the Great 
Syrian War in Year 14 (of Akhenaten’s reign).  The early Hebrew author knew 
that 
the Amorites and the Hurrians lived exclusively north of the Dead Sea, not 
south of the Dead Sea as you would have it.
 
It’s not my fault that later parts of the Bible, composed many centuries 
after the Amorites and Hurrians had gone extinct, no longer knew where the 
Amorites and the Hurrians had lived.  What I’m saying is that everything 
about 
Genesis 14: 1-11 checks out historically, if it is viewed on its own terms 
-- based on Late Bronze Age historical inscriptions from north of the Dead 
Sea.   The “four kings against five” is not describing a nonsensical series 
of military operations in the wilderness of Zin.  At Genesis 14: 6, %(YR 
means “well-wooded”, HRRM means “hill country”, Horites means “Hurrians”, and 
)YL means “oak tree”, all of which are totally redolent of the Transjordan 
in the Late Bronze Age.  The problem is that later books in the Bible lost 
track of what had actually gone on, historically, in the Patriarchal Age, 
that’s all.  My goal in life is to re-establish the historicity of the 
Patriarchal narratives, especially the “four kings against five” at Genesis 
14: 
1-11.  I’ll let others worry about the rest of the Bible.   
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois