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  • From: Kevin Riley <klriley AT alphalink.com.au>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] kaleb
  • Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:22:17 +1100

Jim

Are you not making a leap of faith in deciding all these people were non-west Semitic speakers? After all, is not Hebrew a Canaanite dialect? I know you see Hurrians everywhere, but is it not also possible that they are simply Canaanite speaking people?

Kevin Riley

On 20/12/2011 9:22 AM, JimStinehart AT aol.com wrote:
Chavoux Luyt:

Numbers 32: 12 says that Caleb is the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite,
whereas Numbers 13: 6 says that Caleb is a tribal leader of Judah. The
Kenizzites were not Hebrews of the tribe of Judah. On the contrary, Abram is
told at
Genesis 15: 18-21 that the Kenizzites are one of 10 peoples in Canaan that
the Hebrews are destined to replace in due course. Caleb was a non-Hebrew
who only as an adult became associated with the Hebrews, and who along with
Joshua is portrayed in the Bible as being the only one willing to push
forward with the Conquest.

Here is a scholarly analysis [with which I agree] of who Caleb was:

“[I]t seems probable that the oldest form of tradition knew Caleb the
Kenizzite, who had guided the spies, as a man living in those regions,
familiar
with the landmarks and the roads, not belonging to Israel but ready to join
them, and encouraging them to act in conformity with the wishes of Moses.”
Pieter Arie Hendrik de Boer, “Oudtestamentische Studien, Part 10” (1954), p.
167.

A very old source states: “and so these Kenezites be descendants of Kenaz,
whose adoption unto Israel took place in the time of Caleb….” Sir William
Smith& John Mee Fuller, “A Dictionary of the Bible” (1863), p. 10.

The point is that Caleb was not an ethnic Hebrew, or member of the tribe of
Judah, by birth. Rather, Caleb was a foreigner, a non-west Semitic native
speaker, who as an adult chose to ally with the Hebrews. One of the most
prominent themes throughout much of the Bible, though oddly ignored by most
analysts, is the fact that the Hebrews are portrayed as absorbing the remnant
of a non-Semitic people in managing, against the odds, to become the
dominant people in non-coastal Canaan. That’s the Song of Deborah [including
Jael
the Kenite], Genesis 15: 18-21, Uriah the Hittite, Araunah the Jebusite,
and: Caleb the Kenizzite. The Bible keeps telling us this same story over
and
over again, yet people do not want to hear what the Bible is saying. Jael
in the Song of Deborah is a non-west Semitic native speaker with a non-west
Semitic name; ditto for Uriah; ditto for Araunah; and ditto for Caleb.
The Bible makes this point repeatedly in Genesis, Numbers, Joshua, Judges,
etc., etc. Why deny that the Bible is saying what the Bible is saying?

Part of the genius of the Hebrews, both historically and as presented in
the Bible, is the Hebrews’ willingness, when needed, to work with, and/or
absorb, small numbers of a non-Semitic people who had previously been dominant
in Canaan, in pursuing the Hebrews’ manifest destiny of becoming the newly
dominant people in non-coastal Canaan. Thus the two key figures in the
Conquest are Joshua and Caleb, one a Hebrew, and one a non-Hebrew by birth,
who
was not a native west Semitic speaker and who did not have a west Semitic
name, but who allied with the Hebrews and helped the Hebrews attain the
Hebrews’
divinely-inspired goals.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

P.S. As to the family relationship between Kenaz, Jephunneh, Caleb and
Othniel, at least three solutions have been proposed:
1. Rashi holds that Othniel was Caleb’s brother by the mother’s side only.
2. Others say that Kenaz was the name of the family. Othniel had the same
biological father as Caleb: Jephunneh.
3. And still others say that Kenaz was the grandfather of both Othniel and
Caleb, with Jephunneh being their biological father.

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