Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

George Athas:
 
You wrote:  “Genesis does not name its author. And nowhere in the 
Pentateuch is it claimed that Moses wrote Genesis. Mosaic authorship of 
Genesis is 
predicated on notions external to any evidence within the text itself.”
 
If we look at the “evidence within the text itself”, we can tell that the 
Patriarchal narratives were composed in the mid-14th century BCE, many 
centuries before the composition of the rest of the Bible.  Start with the 
following words:
 
TD(L.  NHRYM.  K$-D-YM.  MLK (LM.  GRR (per item #80 on the Tuthmose III 
list).  )B-Y-MLK.
 
All of them are redolent of the world of the mid-14th century BCE.
 
And how about XNYKYW?  That’s either mid-14th century BCE or older.  “The 
language [of chapter 14 of Genesis] contains some unique or very rare words 
and phrases.  One such, hanikh [XNYK, though its peculiar form at Genesis 
14: 14 is XNYKYW] (v. 14), meaning ‘an armed-retainer’, appears but this once 
in the Bible, but is found in the Egyptian execration texts of the 
nineteenth-eighteenth centuries B.C.E. and in a fifteenth-century B.C.E. 
cuneiform 
inscription from Taanach, Israel.”  Nahum M. Sarna, “Understanding Genesis” 
(1966), at pp. 110-111.
 
Or how about the peculiar number 318?  That particular, peculiar, specific 
number is redolent of the early 14th century BCE.  “[T]he number 318 in 
[Genesis] 14: 14 is analogous to the number of Hurrian handmaids plus the 
bride 
[from the Hurrian state of Naharim/Mitanni] in an Egyptian scarab of 
[Akhenaten’s father] Amenhotep III”.  Gary A. Rendsburg, “The Redaction of 
Genesis”
 (1986).
 
Abraham’s actions at the end of chapter 14 of Genesis deftly recall the 
royal etiquette of the time period of the Great Syrian War in the mid-14th 
century BCE.  Here’s another scholarly comment acknowledging that:  “[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”, in “The Journal of Jewish Studies London”, 1982, vol. 33, no. 
1-2, at p. 82. 
 
Moreover, the mid-14th century BCE ambience of the Patriarchal narratives 
is by no means limited to the stories about Abraham, much less to chapter 14 
of Genesis.  Jacob is portrayed as doing what Akhenaten historically did 
regarding statues and NHRYM:  both men broke off all relations with their 
irate 
father-in-law from NHRYM and never turned over those blessed statues.  Note 
that both men had been forced against their will to marry a particular 
daughter of that father-in-law from far-off Naharim.  Meanwhile, Jacob’s 
father 
Isaac, like Akhenaten’s father, had also married a woman from far-off NHRYM, 
but by contrast never had any problem getting along with his in-laws in 
eastern Syria.  Akhenaten was a younger son who was not his father’s favorite 
son, but whose birth mother was his father’s original main wife #1.  Ditto 
for all the Patriarchal successions:  each of Isaac, Jacob and Judah is 
likewise a younger son who was not his father’s favorite son, but whose birth 
mother was his father’s original main wife #1.  As to specific historical 
events, the Amarna Letters talk about a son of the leader of Shechem 
consorting 
with tent-dwelling people, just as happens in chapter 34 of Genesis.  Note 
that in both cases the leader of Shechem is assassinated soon thereafter.
 
What do university scholars have to say about that ton of evidence that the 
Patriarchal narratives are uniquely redolent of the mid-14th century BCE, 
are much older than the rest of the Pentateuch, and feature a completely 
different author?  “[N]owhere in the Pentateuch is it claimed that Moses 
wrote 
Genesis. Mosaic authorship of Genesis is predicated on notions external to 
any evidence within the text itself.”  Note that university scholars 
consistently lump the late material in the first 10 chapters of Genesis with 
the 
truly ancient Patriarchal narratives in the last 40 chapters of Genesis.  
There 
are many scholarly books on the entire Book of Genesis, but few scholarly 
books that deal with the entire last 40 chapters of Genesis while not 
spending 
time on the first 10 chapters of Genesis.  With the sole exception of 
chapter 14 of Genesis, university scholars consistently claim that the same 
authors of the rest of the Pentateuch also composed the Patriarchal 
narratives.  
Yet look at all the objective evidence above that the Patriarchal narratives 
were composed in the mid-14th century BCE, many centuries before the 
composition of the rest of the Pentateuch.
 
Since you raise the question of authorship, aren’t you interested in 
investigating the authorship of the Patriarchal narratives by looking at the 
peculiar, truly ancient nomenclature and substantive content of the 
Patriarchal 
narratives?  Dare I ask what you  a-r-e  interested in regarding the 
Patriarchal narratives?  If the names TD(L and K$-D-YM aren’t super-exciting 
to you, 
as evidencing an extremely old text, then pray tell what  i-s  
super-exciting to you about the Patriarchal narratives?
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois