Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

George Athas:

You wrote:  “This thread is chasing it's tail now, so it will close on 
Monday. Participants are allowed one final post. No more posts from Tuesday, 
please.”

As a university scholar, I believe you are probably committed to the 
proposition that the Patriarchal narratives were composed by multiple 
authors, all [or at least most] of whom lived in the 1st millennium BCE, and 
none of whom had much detailed knowledge about the Bronze Age.  Coming from 
that scholarly perspective, could you give us your take on the issues that 
the others of us have been struggling with on this thread?  In particular, we 
would all learn [especially me] if you could give us a scholarly perspective 
on the following questions that have been raised on this thread:

1.  Is the point of Genesis 25: 27 that Esau is shown to be aggressive, and 
Jacob is shown to be a future herdsman?  Although many fine scholars have 
asserted precisely that, how can that in fact be the point, since the very 
next story in the text shows Jacob as being even more aggressive than Esau, 
and at Genesis 36: 6-7 we learn that Esau ends up being a herdsman just like 
Jacob?

2.  Why would multiple 1st millennium BCE authors portray Abraham as choosing 
to sojourn in the towering mountains that surround the city just northwest of 
the Judean Desert, and Isaac as choosing to sojourn for decades in the 
eastern Sinai Desert [or thereabouts]?  The Late Bronze Age was much dryer 
than normal, so the entirety of southern Canaan, not to mention the Negev 
Desert and the Sinai Desert, were very tough places to live in the Late 
Bronze Age.  I have noted some Late Bronze Age burials that bear out that 
contention.  If the Patriarchs and their movements are 1st millennium BCE 
fiction, why wouldn’t some of the multiple authors in the 1st millennium BCE 
portray the Patriarchs as instead choosing to sojourn in the nice parts of 
Canaan, such as the Shephelah and Galilee, which had more water?  Wouldn’t 
1st millennium BCE multiple authors remember the “days of old” as being the 
Late Bronze Age, when most of southern Canaan, the Negev and the Sinai were 
very inhospitable places to live?

3.  Why would multiple 1st millennium BCE authors portray Beersheba of the 
Negev, of all the dry places, as being a spot where Esau could be fully 
confident of always bagging savory wild game?  If that is a fictional story 
ginned up by multiple authors in the 1st millennium BCE, why wouldn’t they 
place that fictional story in the southwest corner of Upper Galilee, at 
Beersheba of Galilee, where the hunting had been terrific in the Late Bronze 
Age?  Why would multiple authors in the 1st millennium BCE say that Isaac 
went “up” to the bottom of the drainage basin where Beersheba of the Negev is 
located, instead of meaning that Isaac went “up” into the foothills where 
Beersheba of Galilee is located?

4.  If multiple 1st millennium BCE authors did not want us to think that 
Abraham chose to sojourn in the northern Shephelah, then why did they have 
Abraham say that he would go the opposite direction as Lot from Bethel, and 
then say that Lot went  e-a-s-t ?  Weren’t they afraid someone would think 
that Abraham then proceeded west of Bethel, to the lovely Aijalon Valley?  
And what’s with that strange name X-BR-W-N?  The city just northwest of the 
Judean Desert may have had the name Qiltu in the Bronze Age, and certainly 
was not called X-BR-W-N.  If those multiple authors in the 1st millennium BCE 
did not know that, then why didn’t they copy the city name from the LMLK 
seals, and render it as XBRN?  Why X-BR-W-N, with that interior vav/W, making 
it look for all the world like the Hurrian name xa-vur-u-ne?  No one in the 
1st millennium BCE knew Hurrian, for heaven’s sake.

5.  Is it a mere coincidence that the Laxi- element in Beer Laxi-Rai sounds 
like the Lachi- element in Lachi-$a?  And is it likewise a mere coincidence 
that Late Bronze Age burials at Lachi-$a have likenesses of the great hunter, 
Amenhotep III, and quivers of arrows, and Esau seems to be doing a poor man’s 
imitation of the great hunter Amenhotep III by hunting big game with bow and 
arrow?  Why is it that all the Late Bronze Age burials throughout Canaan seem 
to fit the text of the Patriarchal narratives, if and only if Biblical Beer 
Laxi-Rai is the historical Valley of Lachi-$a, the Patriarchs’ X-BR-W-N is 
the Aijalon Valley, GRR is Galilee, and the Beersheba where Esau hunts big 
game, and “up” to which Isaac goes, is Beersheba of Galilee, not Beersheba in 
the Negev?

6.  George, everyone knows that you reject each and every element of my 
proposed new look at the underlying geography of the Patriarchal narratives.  
But though on several occasions you have explicitly said that, you have never 
given any substantive reasons for your views on that matter.  Why would 
multiple 1st millennium BCE authors all have agreed to use a local geography 
for the Patriarchal narratives that, if the traditional and scholarly views 
are right as to the locales, seems utterly absurd on its face?  Why don’t the 
Patriarchs ever sojourn in the nice parts of Canaan, like the Shephelah and 
Galilee?  Why does Isaac go “up” to the bottom of a drainage basin?  Why does 
not a soul in the entirety of the Patriarchal narratives ever go “up” to the 
Patriarchs’ Hebron, if that is the highest altitude city in Canaan, and the 
Patriarchs allegedly sojourned on the towering mountainsides that surround 
that massively fortified fortress of a city?

Why is it that university scholars never seem to address these questions?  
Karl and I can go round and round, but wouldn’t the world be a better place 
if university scholars would set forth thoughtful, substantive analyses of 
these geographical issues?   

7.  Are there any common words in the entirety of the Hebrew text of the 
Patriarchal narratives that, in your considered opinion, are inconsistent 
with my contentions that the Patriarchs’ X-BR-W-N is the northern Shephelah, 
Beer Laxi-Rai is the southern Shephelah, GRR is Galilee, and the Beersheba of 
Abraham and Isaac [though not of Jacob] is Beersheba of Galilee, rather than 
Beersheba in the Negev?  If all of those questions are somehow ruled out of 
order, then what do you see as being the point of Genesis 25: 27?  Isn’t the 
point that Esau is portrayed in a negative light for aping pharaoh Amenhotep 
III’s alleged hunting prowess in engaging in big game trophy hunting that was 
of no use to his father Isaac’s community, whereas Jacob was TM, that is, 
“proper” and “whole” and “well-rounded” and “a man of the community”, by 
helping take care of the large flock of sheep and goats on which the entire 
community under Isaac’s leadership depended?  Yet if this is all happening in 
the eastern Sinai Desert [instead of my view that it’s the Lachish Valley], 
as scholars would have it, how can this story be plausible in such a marginal 
clime?  Why would multiple authors in the 1st millennium BCE choose to place 
an allegedly fictional story like this in the eastern Sinai Desert?  The 
Patriarchs don’t seem like desert people.  What is the scholarly perspective 
on these issues that the rest of us have been discussing?

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois