Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>]

jim,

i really see little difference between zone of influence, district,
country and empire. it is only a question of scale. so, let it be
as you say. even so, i see little scope in reconstructing history
and creating an empire without the historians and archeologists, 
based on a single phoneme missing in the text.

speaking about a single phoneme, let us go back to your
12-13-14 theory. the text says on the four against five war: 

    12 years they worked (durative, not cardinal), then it says: 
    13 years they rebelled (durative, not cardinal), then it says: 
 IN 14 years came the 4 kings (i.e. on the fourteenth year, cardinal, not 
durative). 

ONLY in the third time is the cardinal phoneme IN mentioned. AND, the
phoneme IN here is really cardinal because it describes the date of the war.
had 12/13 been equally cardinal, they would have used the same phoneme!!!

so, the only consistent way to read this text (in biblical hebrew, not 
in modern english!!!) would be quite different than yours:

  12 years they laboured under the four rulers;    
  then, 13 ADDITIONAL (!!!) years they rebelled.
  only ON the fourteenth year into the rebellion did the 4 kings 
  summon up an army to fight the rebels (a normal figure for those
  times, i guess)

so, the fourteenth year is into the rebellion, not into vassalhood. 

(also, i dont understand how you count the fourtheenth year as the 
thirteenth, when it says explicitly fourteenth, though this is a 
side issue).

so, a total span of 12+14=26 years from the previous war, not 14 as you 
put it. ample time for abraham and lot to roam the land in total peace. 

AND, no egyptian calendar. 

well, at least this is the ONLY way a hebrew-speaking person would  
interpret the text, grammatically.

again, my 26 theory, as your 13 theory, are based on 
nothing but a word or a slight insinuation in the text. but mine is
more faithful to the bare text.

we could go on and on and debate this for weeks to come. but again, this 
would be futile (from my perspective, at least) unless some archeological 
evidence is there to support either claim. 

nir cohen

On Tue, 23 Aug 2011 21:13:15 -0400, jimstinehart wrote
> Nir Cohen:
> 
> I agree that on hundreds of occasions in the Bible, MQWM has the 
> innocuous meaning of “place”.  Indeed, the most common use of 
> MQWM in the Bible is in a phrase saying that a “place”/MQWM was 
> called such-and-such or was named such-and-such.
> 
> Yet despite the fact that MQWM appears 402 times in the Bible, only  
> o-n-c-e  in the entire Bible do we see the particular pattern that 
> appears at Genesis 12: 6:  MQWM without any letter preceding it, 
> followed immediately (with no intervening word) by a city name.  
> That is unique to Genesis 12: 6.  Why?
> 
> Moreover, the standard translation of Genesis 12: 6 does not make 
> good sense:  “And Abram passed through the land unto the place of 
> Sichem,,,,”  What does the phrase “the place of Shechem” mean?
> 
> My proposed explanation for the unique Hebrew phrasing at Genesis 
> 12: 6 is that the author is viewing Shechem as being both a city and 
> a territory or country, and as such as being a “major city-
> state”.  MQWM can mean place or city or country, but here, where 
> it uniquely is followed by a city-name without having been preceded 
> by any letter, the meaning is “place-city-territory-country of 
> Shechem”, that is, “the major city-state of Shechem”.  Note 
> that Genesis 12: 6 does  n-o-t  say that the place was called 
> Shechem, or that Abram named the place Shechem, which are the 
> classic uses of MQWM in the Bible.
> 
> There is no phrase directly comparable to MQWM $KM in all the rest 
> of the Bible.  In my view, that special phrasing is trying to tell 
> us something special about Shechem:  before and after Year 12 it was 
> a city, like many other cities in Canaan, but uniquely in Year 12, 
> Shechem was more like a country, seemingly poised to control most 
> all of Canaan south of the Jezreel Valley.  The early Hebrew author 
> came up with the unique phrase MQWM $KM in order to portray the 
> unique situation of Shechem as a powerful, threatening city-state in 
> Year 12.
> 
> I hope that people on the b-hebrew list may be excited about the 
> fact that the particular phraseology of the second half of Genesis 
> 14: 4 and the end of Genesis 12: 6 is unique.  To me, the reference 
> to “Year 13” at Genesis 14: 4 is telling us that Abram passed 
> through Shechem in Year 12, and Genesis 12: 6 is telling us that in 
> Year 12, Shechem was a powerful city-state ruled by a notorious 
> “Canaanite”.  It’s all right there in the received Hebrew text,
>  if we simply pay close attention to the unique Hebrew phrasing.
> 
> Jim Stinehart
> Evanston, Illinois


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On Tue, 23 Aug 2011 21:13:15 -0400, jimstinehart wrote
> Nir Cohen:
> 
> I agree that on hundreds of occasions in the Bible, MQWM has the 
> innocuous meaning of “place”.  Indeed, the most common use of 
> MQWM in the Bible is in a phrase saying that a “place”/MQWM was 
> called such-and-such or was named such-and-such.
> 
> Yet despite the fact that MQWM appears 402 times in the Bible, only  
> o-n-c-e  in the entire Bible do we see the particular pattern that 
> appears at Genesis 12: 6:  MQWM without any letter preceding it, 
> followed immediately (with no intervening word) by a city name.  
> That is unique to Genesis 12: 6.  Why?
> 
> Moreover, the standard translation of Genesis 12: 6 does not make 
> good sense:  “And Abram passed through the land unto the place of 
> Sichem,,,,”  What does the phrase “the place of Shechem” mean?
> 
> My proposed explanation for the unique Hebrew phrasing at Genesis 
> 12: 6 is that the author is viewing Shechem as being both a city and 
> a territory or country, and as such as being a “major city-
> state”.  MQWM can mean place or city or country, but here, where 
> it uniquely is followed by a city-name without having been preceded 
> by any letter, the meaning is “place-city-territory-country of 
> Shechem”, that is, “the major city-state of Shechem”.  Note 
> that Genesis 12: 6 does  n-o-t  say that the place was called 
> Shechem, or that Abram named the place Shechem, which are the 
> classic uses of MQWM in the Bible.
> 
> There is no phrase directly comparable to MQWM $KM in all the rest 
> of the Bible.  In my view, that special phrasing is trying to tell 
> us something special about Shechem:  before and after Year 12 it was 
> a city, like many other cities in Canaan, but uniquely in Year 12, 
> Shechem was more like a country, seemingly poised to control most 
> all of Canaan south of the Jezreel Valley.  The early Hebrew author 
> came up with the unique phrase MQWM $KM in order to portray the 
> unique situation of Shechem as a powerful, threatening city-state in 
> Year 12.
> 
> I hope that people on the b-hebrew list may be excited about the 
> fact that the particular phraseology of the second half of Genesis 
> 14: 4 and the end of Genesis 12: 6 is unique.  To me, the reference 
> to “Year 13” at Genesis 14: 4 is telling us that Abram passed 
> through Shechem in Year 12, and Genesis 12: 6 is telling us that in 
> Year 12, Shechem was a powerful city-state ruled by a notorious 
> “Canaanite”.  It’s all right there in the received Hebrew text,
>  if we simply pay close attention to the unique Hebrew phrasing.
> 
> Jim Stinehart
> Evanston, Illinois


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