Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Nir:

This is in the context of listing all of Jacob’s sons and daughters,
grandsons and granddaughters, at the time Jacob moved to Egypt. There were
a whole slew of sons, but only two daughters mentioned (Dinah was also
listed).

Such an imbalance between males and females is highly unusual, but not
unheard of, even in modern days. (Several years ago there was a little news
story, about one column inch in a newspaper, about a family that was
celebrating the first birth of a daughter in over a century of sons only.
Trivia that was unimportant, so forgotten until recently reminded of it.)

It looks like later writers are making a mountain out of a molehill.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 10:07 AM, Nir cohen - Prof. Mat.
<nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>wrote:

> in relation to the misterious mention of serah's mention in genesis
> 46:17, i found the following source fascinating:
>
>            http://www.bibleandjewishstudies.net/articles/serah.htm
>
> it appears that serah is mentioned three times in genesis and several times
> in the jewish and samaritan tradition. besides jim's questions, this raises
> two additional aspects:
>
> (i) was serah mentioned in 46:17 in relation to the rabbinical
> tradition of her role in making two important revalations connected with
> joseph? this raises the following issue: can we get a better idea
> of the biblical dating issue by including extra-biblical sources?
> i suppose this point was examined somewhere.
>
> (ii) was serah mentioned because of inheritance issues, similar to those
> mentioned in relation to CLOFXAD's daughters?
>
> nir cohen
>
>