Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Prof. George Athas:

To my assertion that we should expect the Biblical text to give us a clue as 
to what the Baker’s horrible crime was, you replied:  “Nope. Why should it? 
The biblical text says what it says, and that's just how it is. Such gaps are 
common in storytelling. Your expectations may be different, but I fear they 
have led you to look for things that simply aren't in the text.  Maybe the 
Baker's crime was that his mother taught him to handle his gun?”

A Baker would not be expected to be a military man, and so would not be 
expected to use weapons.  [I do not understand scholarly humor, so I will not 
comment further on your odd remark about a gun.]

More importantly, though, you assert that I have unreasonable expectations as 
to what the Biblical text should tell us, which allegedly “have led [me] to 
look for things that simply aren't in the text.”  That raises the key 
question as to whether CLY XRY at Genesis 40: 16 indicates a treasonous dream 
that contradicts Pharaoh’s new Year 12 anti-XRY policy.  To address that key 
issue, let’s compare straight up how it happened that such historical pharaoh 
broke off relations with the XRY state of Naharim in Year 12, 7th month, with 
what Jacob does 12.7 tenfold years after Abraham’s birth.  The historical 
material comes largely from Amarna Letters EA 27-29.  The Biblical material 
is in part at Genesis 31: 30-36.

1.  Each of Pharaoh and Jacob had been forced to marry a woman from Naharim 
against his will.  [Historically, it was a diplomatic marriage that was 
supposed to be for Pharaoh’s father, but he died.  Biblically, Jacob wanted 
to marry only statuesque Rachel, but could only do so by agreeing not to 
annul the prior marriage to Leah into which he had been tricked.]  Both the 
Amarna Letters and Genesis 24: 10 refer to eastern Syria as “Naharim”.

2.  The father of each of Pharaoh and Jacob had gotten along swimmingly with 
his in-laws from Naharim.

3.  The father-in-law from Naharim of each of Pharaoh and Jacob calls the 
semi-monotheist “brother”.  At Genesis 29: 15 Laban calls Jacob his 
“brother”, even though they’re not literally brothers.  In the Amarna 
Letters, the king of the XRY state of Naharim calls Pharaoh “brother”, 
meaning fellow king.

4.  Although the semi-monotheist had many grievances against his 
father-in-law from Naharim, the last straw in both cases was the same unique 
event, which only happened once in 5,000 years of human history.  In each 
case, the irate father-in-law from Naharim imperiously demanded that certain 
family statues be handed over to him by his semi-monotheistic son-in-law from 
far to the west, but such statues were never handed over.  [In Genesis, 
that’s the teraphim.  In the Amarna Letters, that’s the solid gold statues 
that were supposed to become part of a family mausoleum in Naharim.]

*       *       *

Chapter 15 of Genesis is more of the same.  (i) QYN-Y at Genesis 15: 19;  
(ii) QNZ-Y at Genesis 15: 19;  (iii) XT-Y at Genesis 15: 20;  (iv) PRZ-Y at 
Genesis 15: 20;  (v) GRG$-Y at Genesis 15: 21;  and (vi)  YBWS-Y at Genesis 
15: 21:  those are six different non-west Semitic names for the XRY.  Genesis 
15: 18 says that Canaan is to be divinely reserved for the Hebrew 
semi-monotheists, and that the XRY will in due course be displaced by the new 
Hebrews.

*       *       *

We see that chapters 15, 27, 31 and 40 of Genesis, collectively, strongly 
support Pharaoh’s controversial new policy as of Year 12 of breaking with the 
XRY state of Naharim.

If chapter 40 of Genesis is referring to Year 13, and if XRY in the phrase 
CLY XRY at Genesis 40: 16 has the same meaning as XRY at Genesis 14: 6, then 
everything makes complete sense on all levels.  Historically, everything 
checks out.  And, we would then know precisely what the treasonous nature was 
of the Baker’s dream of three CLY XRY.

You write:  “I fear..your expectations…have led you to look for things that 
simply aren't in the text.”  Yet look at what  i-s  in the text.  Rebekah 
reams out the XRY at Genesis 27: 46, per the following paraphrase:  “I loathe 
my life because of the XRY women.  If Jacob marries a local XRY woman like 
these [the XRY wives of Jacob’s older twin brother Esau], what good will life 
be to me?”  Jacob reams out his father-in-law Laban from the XRY heartland in 
Naharim at Genesis 31: 36:  “And Jacob was wroth, and chode with Laban….”  
Both historically and Biblically, the last straw leading to the break between 
the early semi-monotheist and his irate father-in-law from far-off Naharim 
are family statues that are imperiously demanded but never turned over.  YHWH 
explicitly grants Canaan to the Hebrews, as opposed to the XRY, at Genesis 
15: 18-21.  Finally, the Baker is duly impaled three days after Joseph 
divines the Baker’s dream of three CLY XRY at Genesis 40: 16.

If all these various stories in Genesis are looked at from the vantage point 
of Year 13, then  e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g  makes sense, including the key phrase 
CLY XRY at Genesis 40: 16.  Then at long last I could join with you, and 
heartily agree that as to chapter 40 of Genesis:  “No mystery.  No enigma.”  
In my opinion, it’s simply a matter of doing an historical linguistic 
analysis of the Hebrew phrase CLY XRY from a Year 13 perspective.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois