Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Kevin Riley:

You wrote:  “Or, as many would argue, the events in Genesis revolving around 
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob occurred centuries before the Amarna letters were 
written.  Therefore there is no reason at all why Jacob could not call his 
son Asher for a number of reasons, a connection with Asherah being only one 
possiblity.”

(1)  If “the events in Genesis revolving around Abraham, Isaac and Jacob 
occurred centuries before the Amarna letters were written”, then no goddess 
Asherah is attested in that early period.

(2)  Moreover, I do not know any mainstream university scholars today who 
assert that “the events in Genesis revolving around Abraham, Isaac and Jacob 
occurred centuries before the Amarna letters were written”.  Rather, 
university scholars assert that the Patriarchal narratives were composed by 
multiple authors, each of whom post-dates the Bronze Age, and none of whom 
knew any specific historical events that occurred in the Bronze Age.

I am the one who posits an earlier composition date for the Patriarchal 
narratives than does the academic mainstream.

Asher is portrayed as being born way out east in Naharim [Genesis 24: 10] in 
eastern Syria, a locale where the goddess Asherah was unknown.  Both the name 
“Naharim” and the pagan goddess Asherah were unknown “centuries before the 
Amarna letters were written”.  Nothing in the received text suggests in any 
way, shape or form that Asher was named after the pagan goddess Asherah.  

There’s nothing out there to support your way-out-of-the-mainstream claim 
that the Patriarchal narratives were composed, and reflect a time period that 
occurred, “centuries before the Amarna letters were written”.  Nor would such 
a proposed ultra-early date for the Patriarchal narratives be consistent with 
the pagan goddess Asherah even being known at that time.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois