Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Andronic Khandjani <andronicusmy AT gmail.com>]

Abraham did not his servant to find a wife from a Terahite but from his
nation(Moledeth). I assume that it implies more than the eastern branch of
terakhite group.

As Rebecah is the daughter of Bethuel the son Haran and Milca. The marriage
of Rebebah could achieve the ideal of the inclusion of all 3 terahites
brethren in the promise. It did not need other terahites like Liah an Rahel.

We have to remember that marriage with Canaanites is still forbiden in the
mosaic legislation and the reason indicated is more religious than tribal.
When Rahab and his family converted they found easily a place in Israel.


Firouz Khandjani

Pleven, Bulgaria


2011/10/29 <JimStinehart AT aol.com>

>  Firouz Khandjani:
>
>
>
> 1.  You wrote:  “[T]here are a lot of male relatives of Abraham cited who 
> did not play any direct role.”
>
>
>
> That’s true, including Abraham’s own male descendants.  Although Abraham 
> has approximately 12 sons, only one son, Isaac, receives the entire 
> inheritance of Canaan.  Ishmael is exiled to the south, and Keturah’s six 
> sons and Abraham’s other sons by minor wives or concubines are sent away 
> from Canaan to the east.
>
>
>
> Similarly, the line of Haran’s son Lot receives no inheritance of Canaan.  
> But some [though by no means all] of the descendants of Haran’s daughter 
> Milcah become part of the Hebrew tribe and as such share in Abraham’s 
> divine inheritance of Canaan.  Likewise with Abraham’s middle brother 
> Nahor.  None of Nahor’s descendants by his concubine receives any share of 
> Canaan, nor do any of Abraham’s descendants by concubines.  [By contrast, 
> it’s O.K. for 4 of Jacob’s sons to be borne by his main wives’ handmaidens, 
> because via Jacob’s mother Rebekah, such sons are blood descendants of both 
> of Abraham’s brothers.  By the same token, it would not have been O.K. for 
> Jacob himself to be borne by Rebekah’s handmaiden, because then Jacob would 
> not have been a blood descendant of either of Abraham’s brothers.]  Some 
> [though by no means all] of Nahor’s descendants by his main wife Milcah 
> become part of the Hebrew tribe.
>
>
>
> The Patriarchal narratives present the Hebrews as being the ideal tribe in 
> terms of having ideal ancestral bloodlines.  One integral element of that 
> ideal tribal pattern is that for the first three generations, but not 
> thereafter, the tribe that is being formed is very exclusivist.  Only one 
> son of each of Abraham and Isaac is included in the Hebrew tribe!  Only one 
> son in those two generations is included within the Covenant and inherits 
> Canaan.  So in that important sense you are definitely right that “there 
> are a lot of male relatives of Abraham cited who did not play any direct 
> role.”
>
>
>
> 2.  You wrote:  “It only implies that the author would remind to the first 
> readers or hearers that they have connection with other tribes that we may 
> not know.”
>
>
>
> What you refer to as a “connection” is of critical importance in terms of 
> establishing ideal ancestral bloodlines for the newly forming tribe of the 
> Hebrews.  Note how Abraham deftly coopts his two brothers’ lines of 
> descendants.  Since one line of Nahor’s descendants and one line of Haran’s 
> descendants and one line of Abraham’s descendants share Abraham’s divine 
> inheritance of Canaan, all the bases are covered.  If it be objected that 
> not all of the descendants of Abraham or of Nahor or of Haran are included 
> within the newly forming Hebrew tribe, that is just to recognize the 
> inherently exclusivist nature of creating a new tribe with ideal ancestral 
> bloodlines.
>
>
>
> This has almost nothing to do with religion or geography or “being nice” to 
> people.  Rather, it has everything to do with establishing the ideal 
> ancestral bloodlines for this newly forming ideal tribe:  the Hebrews.
>
>
>
> 3.  You wrote:  “About the teraphim we have to remember that there a 
> difference between the "sin of Jeroboam" and the idolatry of Ahab. 
> According the theology of the Bible, Ahab was introducing the baalism but 
> Jeroboam and Jehu use to worship in the wrong way. Teraphim was considered 
> as less dangerous than the worship of a foreign god. There are some basic 
> agreement between Eliezer(?), Jacob, Laban and Bethuel about the main God.”
>
>
>
> Maybe so, but note that Abraham and Isaac pay not one whit of attention to 
> whatever religious views Rebekah, Leah and Rachel had before their 
> marriages to the successor Patriarchs.  That is not an issue in the 
> Patriarchal narratives.  The ancestral bloodlines of these three Matriarchs 
> are all-important.  Their own religious views prior to marrying the 
> successor Patriarchs, which presumably included teraphim and other pagan 
> idols, are considered irrelevant by the early Hebrew author of the 
> Patriarchal narratives.
>
>
>
> Note that unlike much of the rest of the Bible, never in the Patriarchal 
> narratives do you have a situation where a woman leads a man astray as to 
> religious beliefs.  The problem with the BNWT KN(N is not their pagan 
> religious beliefs, but rather is that for the first two successor 
> Patriarchs, they cannot supply the ideal ancestral tribal bloodlines that 
> Abraham and Isaac insist upon.  It has everything to do with ideal tribal 
> ancestral bloodlines, and little to do with the religious views that the 
> brides may have had prior to their marriages.
>
>
>
> 4.  You wrote:  “Jacob is the man of the rupture: rupture with his Aramean 
> roots, rupture with the Aramean syncretism. Jacob had a message and he felt 
> enough strong with his 12 sons and other Aramean-Hebrews to accept non 
> Hebrew women in his clan that he would convert.”
>
>
>
> Jacob has no strong Aramean roots.  Jacob lives for 26 years in eastern 
> Syria, and his wives come from there.  But Jacob was born in Canaan, as was 
> his father Isaac.  Jacob’s ideas develop from his father Isaac and 
> grandfather Abraham, while such paternal ancestors were living in Canaan.
>
>
>
> There is no suggestion in the Biblical text that Jacob was tempted by 
> “Aramean syncretism” while he worked for Laban out in eastern 
> Syria/Naharim/Harran.
>
>
>
> The huge change, on the marriage front, is that Jacob’s sons are not 
> required to marry descendants of Abraham’s father.  Rather, Joseph marries 
> an Egyptian woman.  Judah marries a Canaanite, and it is probably by a 
> Hurrian [Tamar] that Judah sires his twin sons/grandsons.  Simeon’s second 
> wife is a Canaanite.  We are not given specific information about the wives 
> of Jacob’s other sons.  The tribal necessity for that sea change as to 
> marriages in the generation of Jacob’s sons is in order to enable the 
> formation of a tribe, rather than Jacob’s descendants being limited to 
> being an extended family or mere clan.  Jacob’s sons need to be polygamous, 
> and cannot be restricted to marrying descendants of Abraham’s father.  
> That’s the only way to generate a large tribe in a short amount of time.  
> Later on, after the Patriarchal Age, the marriage rules for Hebrew males 
> will need to become more restrictive again, in order to maintain the close 
> bonds of kinship that every tribe must have.  But beginning with the 
> generation of Jacob’s sons, the new imperative is to sire many new members 
> of this new Hebrew tribe.  Jacob’s sons need to sire many sons, and by no 
> means are Jacob’s sons [unlike Isaac and Jacob] restricted to siring those 
> sons by female descendants of Abraham’s father.
>
>
>
> Note that from the standpoint of creating an ideal tribe, all of these 
> aspects of the Patriarchal narratives are logical, and indeed virtually 
> mandatory.  It’s not “pointless” and “strange”, as scholars would have it, 
> that the text focuses so much attention on Milcah, and on one occasion 
> contrasts her with her sister Iscah.  All of that is necessary in creating 
> ideal ancestral tribal bloodlines [regarding the marriages of the first two 
> successor Patriarchs].  But just as surely, in order to generate a large 
> tribe, those super-exclusivist marriage rules, which were so very important 
> for Isaac and Jacob, must be thrown out the window in the generation of 
> Jacob’s sons, when the new imperative becomes siring a whole host of new 
> members of the Hebrew tribe.
>
>
>
> It all makes perfect sense on a tribal analysis.  The Biblical text’s focus 
> on Milcah is neither “pointless” nor “strange”.  It’s tribal.
>
>
>
> Jim Stinehart
>
> Evanston, Illinois
>
>