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  • From: jimstinehart AT aol.com
  • To: klriley AT alphalink.com.au, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] asherah (purim???)
  • Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2012 08:19:00 -0400 (EDT)


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







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