Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Dear Professor Yigal Levin:
 
You wrote:  “The fact that some members…keep responding to Jim's


posts are proof that the A-B-S-O-L-U-T-E pinpoint accuracy of the


Patriarchal narratives is a topic which does interest some members….”
 
As to Biblical geography, which is one of your areas of expertise, the key 
question is the  d-a-t-e  of the composition of chapter 14 of Genesis.  If 
chapter 14 of Genesis is a truly ancient composition, dating all the long way 
back to the Late Bronze Age, then there is no way that it would portray the 
Hurrians as living south of the Dead Sea, or the Amorites as living south 
of the Dead Sea.  Everyone in the Late Bronze Age knew that the Hurrians and 
Amorites lived north (often very far north) of the Dead Sea.
 
So in evaluating your acceptance of the age-old traditional view that all 
peoples and places at Genesis 14: 6-7 are portrayed in the text as living 
south of the Dead Sea, the key is the  d-a-t-e  of the composition of chapter 
14 of Genesis.
 
Set forth below are 7 mainstream scholars who assert that chapter 14 of 
Genesis is truly ancient.  Can’t you see that on that mainstream scholarly 
view, the geographical consequence is that the Amorites and Hurrians are 
portrayed at Genesis 14: 6-7 as living  n-o-r-t-h, not south, of the Dead 
Sea?  If 
my logic or facts are wrong here, then why don’t you tell us why?  James 
Christian for sure, and probably many others on the b-hebrew list, was 
greatly 
hoping that you would “put me out of my misery” by explaining why the 
Amorites and Hurrians at Genesis 14: 6-7 are portrayed as living south of the 
Dead Sea.  Your silence suggests that my argument here is very strong.
 
*       *       *
 
1.  “Genesis xiv stands alone among all the accounts in the Pentateuch, if 
not indeed in the Bible as a whole.  …The date of the narrative has been 
variously estimated.  …A fresh re-examination of all the available scraps of 
evidence, both internal and external, favors an early date, scarcely later in 
fact than the middle of the second millennium [BCE].”  E.A. Speiser, The 
Anchor Bible Genesis (1962), Doubleday, New York, at pp. 105-106.  
 
2.  “The most enigmatic chapter in Genesis, chapter 14, seems to stand 
utterly alone and without connection to any of the sources or strands of 
tradition found elsewhere in the book.”  Walter Brueggemann, Genesis (1980), 
at p. 
134. 
 
3.  “Gen 14 is usually considered a stray boulder within Genesis….  [T]he 
account antedates J.  …Generally it has been held that it does not belong to 
any of the usual pentateuchal sources, but that it comes from a special 
source.  Its annalistic style and international perspective set it apart from 
J, E, D, or P.  …[T]he chapter consists largely of pre-J material….  [I]t 
represents old tradition.  The presence of…some stylistic idiosyncrasies 
suggests that it may be based on an older written source.”  Gordon J. Wenham, 
World Biblical Commentary:  Genesis 1-15 (1987), Thomas Nelson, Nashville, 
Tennessee, at pp. xxix, 306-307.
 
4.  “An unusual spectrum of literary features [in chapter 14 of Genesis]…
suggests that the narrator is updating an ancient record.”  Bruce K. Waltke, 
Genesis:  A Commentary (2001), Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, at p. 227.
 
5.  “Scholarship is virtually unanimous in identifying this chapter as the 
product of a different literary source from the three principal strands out 
of which Genesis is woven.  …The dating of the narrative is in dispute, but 
there are good arguments for its relative antiquity….”  Robert Alter, 
Genesis:  Translation and Commentary (1996), W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 
New 
York, at p. 58.
 
6.  “Almost every sentence [in chapter 14 of Genesis] is full of 
antiquarian information, and nowhere in the patriarchal stories do we find 
such a mass 
of historical and geographical detail.  Recent study of the ancient Near 
East has shown that much of this material must derive from very ancient 
tradition.”  Gerhard von Rad, Genesis (1961), Revised Edition, The Old 
Testament 
Library, The Westminster Press, Philadelphia, at p. 175.  
 
7.  “[E]ach element of Genesis 14 has its exact counterpart in the laws of 
war and in the etiquette of booty restoration found sporadically in the 
[Late Bronze Age] international treaties of Boghazkoi [Hittites] and Ugarit.” 
 
Yochanan Muffs, “Abraham the Noble Warrior:  Patriarchal Politics and Laws of 
War in Ancient Israel”, The Journal of Jewish Studies London, 1982, vol. 
33, no. 1-2, at p. 82. 
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois