Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Nir Cohen:
 
1.  You wrote:  “that the ancients used in-clan marriage, this is no 
surprise.   …


this is a necessary strategy for a small group within bigger groups of the


same species, in order to maintain its ethnic identity. recall laban's 


reply to jacob: i'd better give my daughter to you than to


another person (...since you are family).”
 
Yes.  But this thread has emphasized that the Patriarchal narratives set 
forth ideal ancestral tribal bloodlines.  There are both three-fold vertical 
prominent common male ancestors [Abraham, Isaac and Jacob], and three-fold 
horizontal common male ancestors [Abraham, Nahor and Haran], for each and 
every one of the Hebrews [meaning, as to males, male descendants of 
Jacob/“Israel
”].  It’s not just random marrying in-clan.  Rather, it’s a textual claim 
of perfect ancestral tribal bloodlines.
 
2.  You wrote:  “that jacob's sons did not go to aram to wed, this is also 
obvious because supposedly jacob and laban quarreled and made a pact never 
to cross each other's territory again (another biblical device to demarcate 
the territory?).  


so, they HAD to marry canaanite girls. therefore i do not see your ethnic


buildup theory as a fruit of choice but of circumstance.”
 
(a)  Yes, the quarrel between Jacob and Laban, and their permanent 
geographical separation, is a nice way to make the point that Jacob’s sons 
did not 
marry relatives living in eastern Syria.
 
(b)  But I have emphasized on this thread that such a parting of the ways 
does not occur until all of Jacob’s sons will be blood descendants of both of 
Abraham’s brothers, thus creating ideal tribal ancestral bloodlines.  Or to 
say it another way, there is no need for Jacob’s sons to marry relatives, 
because even when Judah marries a Canaanite woman, his son Shelah is still 
doubly related to both of Abraham’s brothers, as both Shelah’s grandfather 
Jacob and Shelah’s grandmother Leah were each, in their own right, blood 
descendants of both of Abraham’s brothers, as each was a blood descendant of 
Milcah.
 
3.  You wrote:  “this requires us to assume the narrator faked the main 
facts.”
 
That is a delicate question.  In my opinion, university scholars have erred 
in describing the existence of Milcah as being “pointless” and “strange”. 
 Rather, a much better issue to raise regarding Milcah and all the other 
marriages that are described in the text would be whether the ideal tribal 
ancestral bloodlines recorded in the text are too perfect to reflect actual 
history.  But on this thread, I am focusing only on the issue that the 
Patriarchal narratives record ideal ancestral tribal bloodlines;  the 
otherwise 
peculiar marriages are neither “pointless” nor “strange”.  Those marriages 
make perfect sense, with almost mathematical precision, when looked at from a 
tribal perspective.
 
4.  You wrote:  “but then i have a question: if so, why didnt the biblical 
source invent right away that abraham, isaac, jacob were eldest suns 
(biblically, 


none of them was)? this would be the perfect solution, wouldnt it?


but it was not done, so we must conclude that some element of truth 


pervades the story.”
 
That’s another delicate question.  In the Patriarchal narratives, 7 out of 
7 firstborn sons get the shaft, and rightly so.  Moreover, every son who is 
initially a Patriarch’s favorite son also gets the shaft, and rightly so.  
Given the monolithic unity of this somewhat odd succession pattern throughout 
the entirety of the Patriarchal narratives [which, by the way, suggests a 
single Hebrew author, rather than the multiple authors claimed by university 
scholars], this cannot be an “accident”.  Rather, the Patriarchal 
succession rules either are modeled on an historical precedent of the 
author’s day, 
and/or reflect an early Hebrew author who himself was a younger son who was 
not his father’s favorite son, and/or reflect the historical experience of 
the first Hebrews, and/or a bit of all of the above.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois