Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Kevin Riley <klriley AT alphalink.com.au>]

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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