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  • From: jimstinehart AT aol.com
  • To: leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Galilean Bethlehem?
  • Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2010 17:52:46 -0400



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







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