Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

John Leake:

1.  You wrote:  “What seems fairly sure to me (ignoring any theological point of view) about the redactor of Genesis is: (1) he regarded Abram as an Aramaean.”

That clearly is not true. 

(a)  In the 14^th century BCE, an “Aramean” was any west Semitic-speaking person who lived in eastern Syria, with the term at that early date not yet connoting ethnicity, other than to deny that the person was Hurrian.  In the Patriarchal narratives, Abraham is  n-e-v-e-r  characterized as being an Aramaean.  Rather, Bethuel and Laban are stated at Genesis 25: 20 to be “Arameans”, precisely to distinguish them from Abraham!  Bethuel and Laban, unlike Abraham, live in eastern Syria.  Umpteen centuries later, the author of Deuteronomy 26: 5 said that “My father was a wandering Aramean” [according to some translations], but there’s nothing of that kind in the Patriarchal narratives.

(b)  Rather than “the redactor of Genesis”, we should be speaking about “the early Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives”.  Only a single author could feature 7 out of 7 firstborn sons being portrayed as getting the shaft and properly so:  (i) Haran, (ii) Lot, (iii) Ishmael, (iv) Esau, (v) Reuben, (vi) Er, (vii) Manasseh.  Only a single author would feature most couples in the Patriarchal narratives as consisting of a native west Semitic-speaking husband and a wife whose mother was an ethnic Hurrian:  Abraham and Sarah;  Isaac and Rebekah;  Laban and his wife;  Jacob and both Leah and Rachel.  [Note that Rebekah, Leah and Rachel are all born in the heart of Hurrianland in eastern Syria, and that we’re not told the names of their mothers.]  Only a single author would feature each and every Patriarch having such a difficult time siring a son by his favorite main wife.  And only a single author in the Amarna Age would base the entire internal timeline of the Patriarchal narratives on the length of Akhenaten’s reign:  more than ½-way through his Regnal Year 17, hence the number 17½:  Abraham dies at age 17½ tenfold shanah;  the Patriarchal narratives end with Joseph’s death 17½ tenfold years after Abraham’s birth;  with Mark Cohen, the leading expert on ancient calendars, stating that shanah to the early Hebrews meant the “turning of the year”, being a 6-month period, we see that Terah dies at age 205 shanah, which is age 102½ years, having sired Abram at age 70 shanah, which is age 35 years;  that means that Terah dies when Abraham is age 67½ years [102½ - 35 = 67½].  That in turn means that the time elapsed after the initial fulfillment of the Covenant with Isaac’s birth when Abraham was age 100 shanah, being age 50 years, and Terah’s death when Abraham is age 67½ years, is [67½ - 50]:  17½ years!  No “redactor of Genesis’ could possibly have such a monolithic viewpoint that never varies one iota throughout the entirety of the Patriarchal narratives.  Rather, that’s the telltale sign of “a single early Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives”.  

2.  You wrote:  “he can't explain Abraham, hence the problematic etymologizing of name.”

Au contraire, Genesis 17: 5 gives us the  e-x-a-c-t  meaning of the name )B R HM, a name that is not attested outside of the Bible in ancient times [though )B RM and variants thereon such as )B -Y- RM are, by sharp contrast, frequently attested outside of the Bible in ancient times].  The one and only reason this name )B R HM has baffled scholars for over 3 millennia now is that no one is comfortable recognizing R as a theophoric, since it’s ra, a divine name coming from Egypt.  But that just shows that the Patriarchal narratives are really  o-l-d , because their composition predates the time when Egypt did anything wrong to the Hebrews.  When Donald Redford floats the mainstream idea that the Patriarchal narratives were ginned up in 7^th century BCE Jerusalem, he seems to overlook the cardinal fact that in the 7^th century BCE, Egyptians under pharaoh Necho killed the Hebrews’ beloved King Josiah.  You’ve got to go all the long way back to Year 14 of the Amarna Age to find a time when the Hebrews sincerely hoped that Egypt might be on their side as the Hebrews hoped to avoid being driven out of their beloved homeland in south-central Canaan.  [No, pharaoh Akhenaten didn’t lift a finger to help the Hebrews, but the early Hebrews sincerely hoped that Akhenaten would help them.]

3.  You wrote:  “RHM. Given the rather pastoral context of the Arabic rhm - rihma….”

Please tell us when this word RHM is first attested.  Such word did not exist when the Patriarchal narratives were composed, and set forth in writing using Akkadian cuneiform to write Canaanite/pre-Hebrew words on clay tablets [per the Amarna Letters, but using west Semitic words, not Akkadian words], during the Amarna Age in the mid-14^th century BCE.  [Those original cuneiform clay tablets, stored safely in the Temple, were transformed into alphabetical Hebrew in 7^th century BCE Jerusalem, using the spelling and grammar for Hebrew common words that was au courant in 7^th century BCE Jerusalem.  That’s why the spelling and grammar of Hebrew common words in most of the Patriarchal narratives is virtually indistinguishable from the spelling and grammar of Hebrew common words in the second half of II Samuel.  But no updates at all were made to the proper names in the Patriarchal narratives, which are still today in the received text utterly redolent of Year 14 of the Amarna Age.]

The Patriarchal narratives are much older, and much more accurate historically [in a Years 12-14 context], than university scholars realize.  That’s why the Patriarchal narratives are way friendlier toward Egypt than we ourselves are comfortable with today.  The Patriarchal narratives are really  o-l-d !

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois