Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Professor Yigal Levin:
 
You wrote:  “Jim, at the risk of getting involved in a debate that will lead 
nowhere, but
just to keep the record straight, there is and never was any such "ancient
Jewish controversy". No Jewish authorities ever doubted that Genesis was
referring to Bethlehem of Judah.  …No-one but you thinks that it might be in
Galilee.”
 
You are one of the world’s leading authorities on Ezra, having edited a book 
of scholarly commentary on Ezra.  You are now saying in your post that prior 
to Ezra, 100% of pre-exilic Jews and Hebrews held the following geographical 
views:
 
1.  The Patriarchs’ GRR has nothing to do with GLL or GLYL or Galilee.  
Rather, without having the benefit of the ultra-suspect II Chronicles 14: 
12-13, 100% of pre-exilic Jews and Hebrews saw GRR as being located in a 
desolate corner of southwest Canaan.  When I asked Oun to ask George Athas 
what the scholarly support was for that proposition outside of Ezra’s II 
Chronicles, here is the scholarly documentation that George Athas supplied to 
back up that scholarly view:
 
“We’ve heard your theory on the location of Gerar before. There is no need to 
bring it up again.”  
 
2.  XCC-N at Genesis 14: 5 has nothing to do with historical Xasi in the Beqa 
Valley. Rather, without having the benefit of Ezra’s II Chronicles 20: 2, 
100% of pre-exilic Jews and Hebrews saw XCC-N as being En-Gedi, southwest of 
the Dead Sea, even though there is no place south or southwest of the Dead 
Sea that has a name remotely similar to XCC-N based on non-biblical sources, 
or based on any Biblical source, for that matter, other than Ezra’s II 
Chronicles.
 
3.  As a leading expert on Ezra, are you saying that Ezra simply passively 
repeated what 100% of pre-exilic Jews and Hebrews thought as to the 
geographical locales of Bethlehem, GRR and XCC-N in the Patriarchal 
narratives?
 
I would have thought that you, as a leading scholarly expert on Ezra, would 
have said, on the contrary, that Ezra operated in terribly difficult times, 
that Ezra had to virtually re-create Judaism for his people who had almost 
lost touch with their religion, and that if the Patriarchs would seem more 
vital and relevant to the post-exilic Jews in Jerusalem if the geography of 
the Patriarchal narratives were re-interpreted on an ultra-southerly basis, 
then Ezra was prepared to compose II Chronicles 14: 12-13 and II Chronicles 
20: 2 to further that objective.
 
By the way, I have no beef against Ezra.  On the contrary, I greatly admire 
Ezra for resisting the temptation to change the written text of the ancient 
Patriarchal narratives (except for the unfortunate spelling updates).  My 
beef, rather, is with modern scholars, who to the best of my knowledge have  
n-e-v-e-r  asked a single question about Ezra’s ultra-suspect geographical 
pronouncements at II Chronicles 14: 12-13 and II Chronicles 20: 2.  As far as 
I can see, mainstream university scholars trust Ezra as to almost nothing, 
except the one thing that Ezra certainly knew almost nothing about:  the 
Bronze Age geography underlying the Patriarchal narratives.
 
4.  So I will pose to you a slight variant of the question that I had asked 
Oun to ask George Athas:
 
Do you have any objective basis whatsoever to substantiate the assertion that 
Ezra’s II Chronicles 14: 12-13 and II Chronicles 20: 2 simply passively 
repeat what the pre-exilic Jews and Hebrews had always thought as to the 
geographical locations of GRR and XCC-N?
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois