Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Chris Watts:

 

You wrote:  “Are you saying that, for example, the first five books of Moses were written when? in your opinion.”

 

Let me first answer in terms of xireq compaginis, and then I’ll answer your question in more general terms.

 

1.  Xireq Compaginis.  In the Amarna Letters from mid-14^th century BCE Canaan proper [excluding Lebanon], the only use of xireq compaginis is by the scribe of the Hurrian princeling ruler of Jerusalem, IR-Heba.  Likewise, in the entire Hebrew Bible, the only use of xireq compaginis in prose [excluding poetry and proper names] is in the Patriarchal narratives.   That suggests both that (i) the Patriarchal narratives are older than the rest of the Bible, and that (ii) the same scribe who was retained by the first tent-dwelling Hebrews in south-central Canaan to record the Patriarchal narratives on cuneiform clay tablets may have been one and the same person as the scribe who a few years earlier had worked for IR-Heba, the Hurrian princeling ruler of Jerusalem in the Amarna Letters.  Is that exciting or what?  Here’s the scholarly documentation of the foregoing.

 

Per Wm. Moran [the editor of the Amarna Letters] and Robert Hendel [a famed Hebrew language expert] (the latter in 2012), we know that the archaic xireq compaginis was occasionally used in Amarna Letters from Jerusalem and Lebanon.  “[Re the first word at Genesis 49: 11:] The usage of the infinitive absolute with final i (usually called a xiriq campaginis) is known from the fourteenth century Amarna Letters from Jerusalem and Byblos[, Lebanon].”  Ronald Hendel, “Historical Context”, in Craig A. Evans, Joel N. Lohr, David L. Petersen, editors, “The Book of Genesis: Composition, Interpretation, Reception” (2012), pp. 52-53.  Thus the only use of xireq compaginis from Canaan proper in the Amarna Letters is by the scribe of IR-Heba, the Hurrian princeling ruler of Jerusalem. 

 

Several of the peculiarities of this particular scribe are found in the Patriarchal narratives, leading one to surmise that after leaving IR-Heba’s employ in Jerusalem, this particular scribe may have been the very person who was retained by the first tent-dwelling Hebrews to record the Patriarchal narratives on cuneiform tablets.  For example, Scott C. Layton of Harvard University notes that the only use of xireq compaginis in non-poetic common words in the Hebrew Bible is in the Patriarchal narratives.  “[T]he xireq compaginis is definitely an archaic morpheme.  With the exception of two occurrences of this morpheme in Genesis 31: 39 [in the Patriarchal narratives], a prose passage, all the remaining instances [in the Bible] are confined to poetry [and proper names, including] Gen. 49.11 [in the Patriarchal narratives]….”  Scott C. Layton, “Archaic Features of Canaanite Personal Names in the Hebrew Bible” (1990), p. 116.

 

2.  Now let me answer more directly the question that you asked.  I see the Patriarchal narratives as having been composed, and written down on about 50 cuneiform clay tablets, in the mid-14^th century BCE.

 

By contrast, as to all the rest of the Bible, I basically go with mainstream scholarly opinion.  Thus I see the rest of the “five books of Moses”, including chapter 36 of Genesis but excluding all the rest of the Patriarchal narratives, as having multiple authors and as not having been recorded in writing until well into the 1^st millennium BCE.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois