Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Tory:

Consider also that Jim Stinehart doesn’t know Biblical Hebrew language. Hence he has misconstrued the word עמק (MQ.

(MQ merely refers to a low place, lower than its surrounding territory. It can be a small hollow all the way to a large valley. It has nothing to do with “a low tract of land of wide extant, fit for corn …, and suited for battlefields.” as being necessary to its definition.

Indeed there is a low place between Hebron and Kiryat Arba, a valley that loops north around Hebron, then generally west. Today it is filled with fields, but if it weren’t, it would be a good place to set up an encampment with enough tents to house a few hundred people, probably a larger encampment than that which housed Jacob, his family, his slaves and their families. That small valley fits the definition of “Valley of Hebron” where Jacob had his encampment.

Concerning your second point, that we have properly identified ancient places—even historians and archeologists recognize that not all sites have been well identified. An example being Ai near Bethel. But for others, there’s no question. Ai was abandoned and forgotten. Others, such as Jerusalem and Hebron, except for the Babylonian Exile, were continuously inhabited from the time of their founding to today. Hence there’s no believable question as to their identities.

Concerning your third point, writing materials indicating which script was used—it’s now admitted that proto-Hebrew script existed long before the Exodus of ca. 1445 BC, predating the story of Sinuhe. There’s no reason to assume that Moses wrote down the histories in any language other than Hebrew.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 1:27 AM, Tory Thorpe <torythrp AT yahoo.com> wrote:

Jim Stinehart:

You wrote: Genesis 37: 14 in fact says that the Patriarchs’ XBRWN is “a low tract of land of wide extent, fit for corn land…, and suited for battlefields” : (MQ.  

Fascinating. I too question some conventionally accepted sites with places named in the biblical narratives. Have you considered that even tent-dwelling Asiatics living within and just outside Egypt's borders in Canaan may have been just educated enough to read and write hieratic? I find it a bit difficult to picture nomads moving about laden down with so many clay tablets in Akkadian. …. It can also be written in hieratic, much easier. I would think if the patriarchal narratives were composed as early as the 14th century BC by "Hebrews" near Egypt, hieratic was the script used and parchment or leather was the writing material most of the time.

Tory Thorpe

Tel Aviv, Israel