Biblical Hebrew Forum

[rob acosta <robacosta AT hotmail.com>]

Jim     You wrote:     " Based on Genesis 14: 4, we can deduce that Abram and 
Lot leave Bethel in Year 13.  "
      This statement is pure fabrication and is irrelevant to the discussion 
of Genesis 13:18.  and my focus to whetheror not Abraham obeyed the command 
literally and immediately.     I could demonstrate you don't have a accurate 
grasp of the events of the Amarna period but this is not the time.
     Still, you go on:     "Abram cannot perfect his claim to all of Canaan 
until Lot’s provisional claim to the northern two-thirds of    Canaan, which 
Abram effectively allowed at Genesis 13: 9-11, has been eliminated"
     Jim, where does this "northern two thirds" come from? It is fantasy, 
there is nothing in the Hebrew textthat gives any such indication. The land 
was promised to Abraham and Abraham alone from the beginningyet you drag in 
Lot time after time and some froth about a "provisional claim" mentioned 
nowhere.        you do seem to be personally taken by "provisional 
claim"...sounds impressive I guess, to some.                               As 
for your description of the political situation in Canaan let's review again 
how inaccuratemost  of your claims have been.     You have insisted, for 
years, the Abimeleck of Abraham is Abi Milku of the Armana letters.     Yet 
even a casual reading the the letters tells a far different story.     Abi 
Milku was appointed as mayor of Tyre by Akhenaten after the murder of the 
real King and his family.     EA 89 letter Rib Addi      After a few brief 
years Abi Milku leaves Tyre amidst the wars and NEVER returns.
     " I go away with all the ships and my whole city so let the King care 
for his servant and protect the ships of the King in..." (number 155 letter 
10)."
      Abi Milku is likely murdered before he gets to Egypt as he is never 
heard from again. Nor is he ever referred to by any other ruler. He must have 
been a minor player only stage for a brief few years.     Yet, you claim 
Mamre is named after Abi Milku and that some twenty years after his death 
Abraham dashes off to interact with Abi Milki because according to you he 
cannot "perfect his claim" on Canaan and Sarah cannot get pregnant until he 
sees Abi Milku.    You take a bit player in the Amarna period and make him 
the foundation of Genesis    This is your record. It is obvious you did not 
study Abi Milku.   .    Now you claim the political situation of the time is 
the real reason why Abraham and Lot leave Bethel, andthe biblical version in 
the bible that it was due to strife between the shepherds is a lie.
You repeat yet again" we can then see the  p-i-n-p-o-i-n-t  accuracy of this 
Biblical text in the historical context of Year 13.  There is no way that 
multiple authors in the 1st millennium BCE would know all these precise 
details about the  e-x-a-c-t  historical situation as of early in Year 13! 
"Jim, you yourself have no clue what happened in year thirteen and that is 
painfully obvious to even the casual researcher.You present what I consider 
grade school level Amarna history here. Again, some may be impressed, but to 
me this is  simplistic nonsense for the most part.. You invent myths like Abi 
Milku  and now you inject Lab’ayu  in yet another distortion of events.   I 
can dismantle your Labayu story as easily as I did Abi Milku. The flaws in 
chronology as as plain as the sun.      Of course, when faced with 
authoritative contradiction, you claim everyone else is wrong, not you.     
*You disputed  King Suppiluliumas' own record describing  the capture of 
Aitakama   and claimed he was wrong, thathe actually captured Aitakama in 
some secret raid a year earlier.... " Now that was a doozy   * You dismissed 
Israel Finklestein's petrographic evidence Aziru had yet to control  Amurruby 
the time the Great Syrian war was over.  You claim camels can't live in 
Hebron in winter. Too cold....so OBVIOUSLY Abraham couldn'tlive there...  You 
claim Hebron can't support more than a few cows. Not enough watermoutains too 
high... Nevermind it supports 250,000 people  Now you claim the Dead Sea 
Scrolls that confirm Abraham immediately obeyed God's order  in Genesis 13:18 
is "fanciful"   This is your pattern. Everyone, including Abraham, is wrong. 
he lied about theshepherds., lied about Abimelech...       I contend Abraham 
followed God's order in Genesis 13:17-18. He Obeyed God, no matter ifyou are 
convinced he did not. HE traveled the land(not the world and the Dead Sea 
Scrollsdon't say he traveled the world). He traveled in peace. He wasn't 
concerned about Labayu,there was no Labayu at that time. He traveled during a 
time of peace in Canaan.     Lot was irrelevant to his journey. Lot was 
irrelevant to Abraham's inheritance.   ...
Rob Acosta                         

From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2011 10:00:12 -0400
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Genesis 13:18  Appositional Phrase vs. Adjectival 
Phrase
To: robacosta AT hotmail.com; b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org








Rob: 1.  Of course Abimelek's water wells, both historically and in Genesis, 
are on the mainland.  Your two E-mails to me [perhaps only one of which was 
posted to the b-hebrew list] focus a lot on Abimelek, and do not seem to 
raise issues of Hebrew grammar suitable for discussion in this forum.  But 
your posts do also continue to raise the question of Lot’s role in the 
Patriarchal narratives, which is important to this thread [which, as 
discussed in #2 below, will then return us to this thread’s Hebrew grammar 
focus on whether H-KN(NY at Genesis 12: 6 and 13: 7 can have a singular 
meaning:  “the Canaanite”];  so in this post I will limit myself to that 
subject, because it is directly related to Hebrew grammar.   In the 
Patriarchal narratives, the firstborn son gets the shaft in every generation, 
and properly so.  That’s Haran, Lot, Ishmael, Esau and Reuben.  Haran 
predeceases his own father, but then Lot, as Haran’s only son, in effect 
thereafter represents the line of Terakh’s firstborn son.  The text 
emphasizes this by on four occasions referring to Lot as being Abram’s 
“brother”.  Genesis 14: 14, 16;  Genesis 13: 8, 11.  At Genesis 13: 8, Abram 
could have forced Lot to leave Canaan, using some of Abram’s 318 armed men at 
Genesis 14: 13 if necessary;  YHWH has already at Genesis 12: 7 promised all 
of Canaan to Abram, which implies that Lot, representing the line of Terakh’s 
firstborn son, will get none of Canaan.  But instead of booting out of Canaan 
the son of Abram’s older brother, and thereby commandeering all of Canaan of 
his own accord, Abram quite properly does just the opposite, and graciously 
allows Lot to go anywhere from Bethel that Lot may choose to go, provided 
that both Lot and Abram will leave Bethel, and Abram will go the opposite of 
whatever direction Lot chooses to go from Bethel.  “And Abram said unto Lot, 
Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my 
herdmen and thy herdmen; for we are brothers.  [Is] not the whole land before 
thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if [thou wilt take] the left 
hand, then I will go to the right; or if [thou depart] to the right hand, 
then I will go to the left.”  Genesis 14: 8-9.  Lot chooses to sojourn in the 
Jordan River Valley, the KKR of the Jordan, which is in Canaan, and is north 
of where Abram then sojourns at the Patriarchs’ XBRWN.  Although YHWH has 
promised Lot nothing, Abram has graciously and provisionally allowed his 
“brother”/nephew Lot to lay claim to all of Canaan north of Bethel, at least 
for the time being, until such time as YHWH may divinely direct otherwise.  
As I explained in my prior post, Abram on at least three occasions declines 
the opportunity to hasten Lot’s downfall or to remove Lot from Canaan [even 
though from the beginning, YHWH has promised all of Canaan to Abram and 
Abram’s descendants, while not promising anything to Lot]:  Abram does not 
kick Lot out of Canaan in chapter 13 of Genesis, he rescues Lot as a hostage 
in chapter 14, and he pleads for Sodom (where Lot is living) to be spared if 
there are at least 10 righteous people there in chapter 18.  So even though 
YHWH has promised Abram all of Canaan a second time at Genesis 13: 14-15, 
nevertheless Abram cannot perfect his claim to all of Canaan until Lot’s 
provisional claim to the northern two-thirds of Canaan, which Abram 
effectively allowed at Genesis 13: 9-11, has been eliminated, and that 
elimination will be done by YHWH, not by Abram on his own motion elbowing Lot 
aside.  Though Abram graciously helps Lot, instead of unilaterally kicking 
Lot out of Canaan, nevertheless Lot as the firstborn/only son of Terakh’s 
firstborn son Haran does not have a chance, as we realize after we have read 
the entirety of the Patriarchal narratives.  As with the case of every 
firstborn son in the Patriarchal narratives, the firstborn son always gets 
the shaft, and properly so.  Haran predeceases his own father, Lot is reduced 
to living in a cave, Ishmael is exiled by his own father, Esau never gets the 
grand blessing that his father had planned to give him and ends up living 
outside of Canaan, and Reuben gets a final curse, rather than a blessing, 
from his father.  Jacob is going to win out over Esau, because Esau is 
Isaac’s firstborn son, and in every generation the firstborn son gets the 
shaft and properly so.  Ditto with Isaac being fated to win out over Ishmael, 
and Abraham regarding both Haran, his literal older brother, and Lot, the son 
of Abraham’s older brother who in effect represents in Canaan the line of the 
firstborn son of Abraham’s father.  [Moreover, Joseph’s firstborn son gets 
the shaft, at the express direction of Jacob/“Israel”, and Judah’s firstborn 
son by Tamar does not even get to come out of Tamar’s womb before his 
“younger” twin brother is born.  How can scholars see multiple authors here, 
when the monolithic unity of thought is readily apparent?] 2.  Of more direct 
relevance to the linguistic issue on this thread, however, is to ask why 
Abram properly insists that both Abram and Lot must leave the Bethel area, 
with neither man remaining in central hill country.  Based on Genesis 14: 4, 
we can deduce that Abram and Lot leave Bethel in Year 13.  Now think what the 
historical situation was at the beginning of Year 13 from Shechem to 
Jerusalem.  Two leaders dominated that entire area, with Bethel in effect 
being a no-man’s land, if you will, separating their two spheres of 
influence.  Lab’ayu was a Canaanite strongman temporarily operating out of 
Shechem, who was trying to become the most powerful princeling in all of 
Canaan, largely by recruiting tent-dwelling Habiru to do his fighting for 
him.  IR-Heba was the Hurrian princeling ruler of Jerusalem, who rants and 
rails against the tent-dwelling Habiru in the Amarna Letters, and who would 
give no ground to anyone.  As we have seen on this thread, KN(NY and H-KN(NY 
and H-PRZY can all be understood as having a singular meaning, in addition to 
being singular in form.  As such, Genesis 12: 6 and 13: 7 refer to “the 
Canaanite” at Shechem, that is, Lab’ayu, the Canaanite strongman ruler of 
Shechem, north of Bethel.  Genesis 13: 7 by necessary implication then refers 
to the powerful Hurrian princeling ruler south of Bethel, H-PRZY, “the 
Perizzite”, meaning “the Hurrian lord”, namely IR-Heba.  Abram has wisely 
decided that both Abram and Lot should vacate central hill country, because 
that area would obviously soon descend into civil war in Year 13, given 
rapacious Lab’ayu, “the Canaanite”, and uncompromising IR-Heba, “the 
Perizzite”/“the Hurrian lord”.  The foregoing analysis as to non-biblical 
history is largely confirmed by Israel Finkelstein here: “The fourteenth 
century BCE Tell el-Amarna letters confirm the partition of the central hill 
country between two city-states, or actually early territorial states, 
Shechem and Jerusalem….  A number of the letters refer by name to the rulers 
of these two city-states -- a king called Abdi-Heba who reigned in Jerusalem 
and a king named Labayu who reigned in Shechem -- each of whom controlled 
territories of about a thousand square miles. These were the largest areas 
held by a single local ruler…at this time….”  Israel Finkelstein, “The Bible 
Unearthed” (2001), at p. 155.    So if Genesis 14: 4 is giving us Year 13 as 
the exact date when Abram and Lot were at Bethel in chapter 13 of Genesis, 
then Abram would have known about both “the Canaanite”/H-KN(NY/Lab’ayu of 
Shechem, and “the Perizzite”/“the Hurrian lord”/H-PRZY/IR-Heba of Jerusalem, 
and would have known that it was wise not to have anything to do with either 
of those awful rulers.  T-h-a-t  is why Abram insists that both Abram and Lot 
must leave Bethel [with Abram graciously and wisely trying to get Lot out of 
harm’s way, instead of Abram looking out solely for Abram], and that is why 
the two men go “east” and the opposite of east (that is, west) from Bethel 
(per Genesis 13: 9-11), thereby leaving hill country (which runs north and 
south of Bethel, not east and west). If we can understand the Hebrew grammar 
here, where each of H-KN(NY and H-PRZY can be singular in meaning, in 
addition to being singular in form, we can then see the  p-i-n-p-o-i-n-t  
accuracy of this Biblical text in the historical context of Year 13.  There 
is no way that multiple authors in the 1st millennium BCE would know all 
these precise details about the  e-x-a-c-t  historical situation as of early 
in Year 13!  Nor would whoever composed the Genesis Apocryphon know such Year 
13 details either.  My point is that chapters 12-14 of Genesis must have been 
composed by a contemporary in the mid-14th century BCE, the first historical 
Hebrew, because there is no non-miraculous way that multiple authors in the 
1st millennium BCE, be they JEPD or whoever, could possibly know all the ins 
and outs of exactly what life was like in Canaan in Year 13.  The magnificent 
wealth of pinpoint accurate details about Year 13 in chapters 12-14 of 
Genesis is telling us that these three chapters were composed by a 
contemporary who knew exactly what he was talking about, rather than JEPD 
somehow conjuring up this material in the 1st millennium BCE. I am trying to 
make the point that an analysis of Hebrew grammar can lead us to make great 
discoveries as to Biblical mysteries like this that have baffled analysts for 
millennia.  The key is simply to realize that each of H-KN(NY and H-PRZY at 
Genesis 13: 7 can be singular in meaning, in addition to being singular in 
form, which is the Hebrew grammatical thesis of this thread. Jim 
StinehartEvanston, Illinois