Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Rev. Bryant J. Williams III:

1.  You wrote:  “[I]t is evident that the four different translations above: 
2 FE and 2 DE ALL translate it as the former (12th, in the 13th, in the 14th 
year).”

(a)  As we have been discussing on this thread, one possible literal 
interpretation of Genesis 14: 4 is that it says “…and Year 13 they rebelled”. 
 No pre-20th century BCE scholar would have thought to make that translation, 
though, because Amarna, and Year 14 of Akhenaten’s reign, were then unknown.

(b)  But here, for sake of argument let’s accept your interpretation.  Note 
that Genesis 14: 5 says that a force that included a ruler with a Hittite 
name, Tidal, crushed a league of 5 rebellious princelings “in the 14th year” 
[per your wording].  Now consider when scholars think that the fighting in 
the Great Syrian War in western Syria occurred:  (i)  “If the Egyptian 
expedition against Kadesh, which had provoked this response, took place as 
Aziru was making his way into captivity, the Hittite response might have come 
in the same year – as early as the fall of Akhenaten’s year 14….”  William J. 
Murnane, “The Road to Kadesh” (1990), p. 127.  (i) “Therefore, it is 
suggested that the above events and developments should be spread over years 
13 and 14 of Akhenaten; then the 'First' Syrian War can hardly fall any later 
than year 12 of Akhenaten as a reasonable minimal date.”  Kenneth Kitchen, 
“Suppiluliuma and the Amarna Pharaohs:  A Study in Relative Chronology” 
(1962).  Year 14 is the likely date of the Great Syrian War in western Syria.

In Hebrew, the concept of Year 14, the date of that war, could be expressed 
by your phrase “in the 14th year”.

Scholars see the league of 5 rebellious princelings as forming the year 
before the Great Syrian War in western Syria.  That would be Year 13.  Even 
on your conventional translation, the Biblical text is saying that a league 
of 5 rebellious princelings formed “in the 13th year”.  That’s a quite nice 
match.  [I see Genesis 14: 4 as saying “and Year 13 they rebelled”, which 
would be an exact match.]

The point is that regardless of the translation, the references to 13 or 13th 
and 14 or 14th  at Genesis 14: 4-5 match up beautifully to the timing of the 
Great Syrian War in western Syria, which historically featured a coalition, 
one of whose important members had a Hittite kingly name, that in Year 14 
crushed a league of 5 rebellious princelings that had formed in Year 13, just 
as Genesis 14: 1-11 presents it.

2.  The rest of your post points to the  r-e-a-l  problem here.  You wrote:  
“Then there is the problem with the whole Amarna issue. Abraham is circa 20th 
Century BCE (2000). He is NOT the 14th Century BCE (1400)  which is the time 
of Akhenatan's rule.  So who ruled in Jerusalem, Meggido, Lachish, Sechem, 
etc. really does not help identifying the year Abraham was in Hebron, when 
you are looking in the wrong century; you are about 600 years off.”

I realize that there are some geographical problems with my proposed match of 
the Great Syrian War in western Syria to the Biblical “four kings against 
five” at Genesis 14: 1-11.  But the r-e-a-l  problem is exactly as you put 
it:  did the Patriarchal Age include the Amarna Age in the mid-14th century 
BCE?

(a)  Rev. Bryant J. Williams III, don’t you think it odd that of the hundreds 
of scholarly adherents to the Documentary Hypothesis, virtually none of those 
scholars sees any portion of the Patriarchal narratives as reflecting the 
Amarna Age?  Those scholars tell us that the last 40 chapters of Genesis were 
composed by multiple authors, all of whom post-date the Late Bronze Age.  If 
that’s the case, then why on earth wouldn’t part of the Patriarchal 
narratives reflect the Amarna Age, which shortly pre-dates the end of the 
Late Bronze Age?  Why wouldn’t Genesis 14: 1-11 be an Iron Age recollection 
of the historical Great Syrian War in western Syria that happened in Year 14 
of Akhenaten’s reign?  Why wouldn’t “the iniquity of the Amorites” be when 
both of the major Amorite powers, Ugarit and Amurru, sold out to the 
rapacious Hittites in or about Year 14 of Akhenaten’s reign, thereby 
potentially threatening that Canaan might be the next place to be forced into 
Hittite vassalage?  Why wouldn’t the assassination of Hamor of Shechem in 
chapter 34 of Genesis be based, at least loosely, on the historical 
assassination of Lab’ayu of Shechem in the Amarna Age, where in both cases 
the ruler of Shechem was trying to ally with tent-dwelling people, and his 
son in both cases was explicitly “consorting with the [tent-dwellers] 
Hapiru”?  Isn’t it significant that “Naharim” of the Amarna Letters matches 
perfectly to NHRYM at Genesis 24: 10, with the same spelling and referring to 
the same place:  eastern Syria?

(b)  Although you place Abraham in the 20th century BCE, when do you see the 
Patriarchal narratives as having been composed?  If they were composed prior 
to the mid-14th century BCE, then why is it that so many of the incidents in 
the Biblical text seem to match so nicely to the Amarna Age?  On the other 
hand, if the Patriarchal narratives were composed after the mid-14th century 
BCE, then isn’t it possible that some of the high profile events of the 
Amarna Age made it into the Biblical text, even if on an anachronistic basis?

My own view is that the bulk of the Patriarchal narratives was composed in 
Year 15 of Akhenaten’s 17-year reign, by the first Hebrew, and that the 
Biblical text has pinpoint historical accuracy in describing the historical 
background of Years 12-14.  That’s why Genesis 12: 6 and 13: 7 know “the 
Canaanite” of Shechem, historical Lab’ayu, who for one year only, Year 12, 
controlled much of the Jezreel Valley and south-central Canaan.  [The 
historical dating here depends on the original hieratic docket of Amarna 
Letter EA 254 from Lab’ayu of Shechem as having been read correctly as “Year 
12”;  that is the most logical dating of that letter in any event.]  If 
Genesis 14: 4 is referring, directly or indirectly, to Year 13, then chapters 
12 and 13 of Genesis would therefore reflect Year 12.  The  o-n-l-y  time in 
history when it makes sense for Abram to refuse to pitch his tent at Shechem 
and rather to press on to Bethel, and for both Abram and Lot to leave Bethel 
with neither one of them retracing their steps to go back north to or through 
Shechem, is Year 12, when “the Canaanite” Labayu was terrorizing Canaan out 
of his new stronghold at Shechem, and “the Perizzite”, that is, Hurrian 
princeling IR-Heba, ruled Jerusalem, which is why Abram wisely avoided 
Jerusalem as well.  In any other time period, there would have been no reason 
for Abram to give those two fine cities such a wide berth.  In my 
controversial view, only in Year 12 do chapters 12 and 13 of Genesis make 
good sense. 

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois