Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

George Athas:
 
You wrote:  “Even if Gen 36 is an insertion, it means the form of the book 
that we have is from the monarchic era at the earliest. Regardless of the 
origin of the other traditions, our edition of Genesis is no older than the 
monarchic era. (I would argue it's probably later still.)”
 
Yes, “the form of the book that we have” is late, even post-exilic, but 
nevertheless 95% of the substance of the Patriarchal narratives is vintage 
Late Bronze Age, never having been changed one whit as to its substantive 
content.
 
1.  The post-exilic do-gooders went wild in inserting interior yods/Y all 
over the place as vowel indicators, supposedly as a “neutral” updating of the 
original defective spelling to plene spelling.  They made the original (LM 
into (YLM, the original )RW-K into )RYW-K, the original %D-M into %D-YM, the 
original K$D-M into K$D-YM, and so on.  As to that, the correct policy today 
must be:  n-e-v-e-r  trust an interior yod/Y in the received text of the 
Patriarchal narratives.  They also inserted an interior vav/W into $H-D-T), 
turning it into $H-DW-T).  Thus an interior vav/W also is suspect. But having 
said that, it was considered sacrilegious to change anything else, so almost 
no other changes were made.  In particular, they refrained from changing the 
sin/shin in $H-D-T) to a samekh.  That is to say, you can trust virtually 
every letter in the unpointed Masoretic text of the Patriarchal narratives as 
having incredible accuracy, except that you should never trust an interior 
yod/Y or an interior vav/W, because in a majority of cases they are 
post-exilic.  A more difficult question is the unexpected vav/W in XBRWN.  Is 
it XBRW + N, where XBRW is the same word as Ugaritic Khuburu/XBR, the 
idealized kingdom of mythical King Keret?  Or is it perhaps XBR + W + N, the 
Hurrian way?  The city south of Jerusalem was definitely XBRN in all those 
LMLK seals.
 
2.  Outside of chapter 36 of Genesis, only a handful of other changes were 
made in post-exilic times, but they’re all deadly.  What presumably had been 
Talmudic-like oral comments were, in two unfortunate cases, at some point 
added into the written text.  Whereas no original material in the text tells 
us what to think or what’s going to happen later in the text, in post-exilic 
times we find the following two items being added:  (i) Genesis 13: 13, which 
tells us what to think about Sodom and what will happen later to Sodom, and 
(ii) Genesis 19: 37-38, which adds gratuitous insults regarding Moab and 
Ammon.  Though at first glance seeming harmless, those two post-exilic 
additions have ruined the interpretation of chapters 14 and 19 of Genesis.  
Sodom and its leader BR( are good in chapter 14 of Genesis, not bad, with 
Sodom [now absent its former leader BR(] only turning to the dark side in 
chapter 18 of Genesis.  Lot’s two younger daughters are virtuous, having 
properly been saved by YHWH in the destruction of SDM, and they properly 
maintain life with their father, rather than being the vilified Matriarchs of 
vilified Moab and Ammon.
 
Likewise, the addition of the two-word phrase “Land of Ramses” at Genesis 47: 
11 is not only a glaring historical anachronism, but even worse, it is 
totally wrong as to where Joseph’s family sojourned in Egypt.  “Goshen” is G% 
+ N, which is G% [or Egyptian Qs] + ending in Egyptian, being the nome [#14] 
just south of the nome that contained Amarna, having nothing to do whatsoever 
with the eastern Delta.  All those many references in the text to Goshen are 
ancient and correct, but that one isolated reference to the Land of Ramses is 
post-exilic and dead wrong.
 
Yes, the post-exilic do-gooders messed up several things in this otherwise 
truly ancient text, so that you can say that “the form of the book that we 
have is from the monarchic era at the earliest”.  But what’s important is 
that 95% of the substantive content of the Patriarchal narratives is Late 
Bronze Age, and was never changed.
 
George, in trying to determine when the vast bulk of the Patriarchal 
narratives was composed, have you ever considered the mid-14th century BCE 
word NHRYM, for the Hurrian state of Mitanni that went extinct shortly after 
the Great Syrian War, or the 14th century BCE phrase Paddan-aram?  If not, 
why not?  95% of the text of the Patriarchal narratives has pinpoint 
historical accuracy in a Late Bronze Age context.  Why not focus on that 95% 
for a change?
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois