Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Will:

If you become interested in this topic, the other good scholarly source to consult is Daniel E. Fleming, “Time at Emar: The Cultic Calendar and the Rituals from the Diviner’s Archive” (2000).

Fleming notes that the term "head of the year" is known to have been used of both the first and seventh months in first millennium Assyria.  Records from Ur III some 2000 years earlier feature semi-annual rites.  Many other authors have recognised the importance of both spring and autumn in sacred and civil calendars in the ancient near east.  Fleming's own study was primarily focused on Late Bronze Emar.  Bickerman 1968 and Cohen 1993 are both cited as favouring a six month "year", although Bickerman bases this on religious festivals, while Cohen prefers an astronomical approach based on the two equinoxes.  Cohen indeed uses the term “equinox year” to describe this.  The Hebrew Bible shows some relics of this two-axis approach, with the autumnal "turn of the year" of Exodus 34: 22 balanced by the spring "return of the year" of 2 Samuel 11: 1, together with the prominence of both spring and autumn festivals.

Fleming concludes, "All three of these regions [Israel, Mesopotamia and Hittite Anatolia] show less interest in a single new year than in the two axes about which the year revolves".  It is clear that all around the Fertile Crescent, religious observations came to be located at or near these axes;  in the case of Israel these became the festivals of Unleavened Bread and of Ingathering.

In my own opinion, the Patriarchal narratives are an ancient written text, and as such we should consider whether an archaic meaning of shanah was used in setting forth people’s stated ages in terms of 6-month periods -- “equinox years”.  That results in every age of every person in the Patriarchal narratives being reasonable.

By contrast, the non-archaic meaning of shanah is used in setting forth periods of time the first Hebrews are portrayed as working in eastern Syria/Naharim and in Egypt.  The early Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives knew both the archaic and the non-archaic meaning of shanah, and he used each in appropriate ways.  That insight enables us to come up with an internal chronology of the Patriarchal narratives that is perfect in all regards, without a single mistake or unreasonable age.  For example, we can compute all of the following:

1.  Jacob’s 12^th named child [counting daughter Dinah], Joseph, was born 12 tenfold years after Abraham’s birth.

2.  Jacob’s 13^th named child, Benjamin, was born 13 tenfold years after Abraham’s birth, when Jacob was the same age [50 years] as Abraham had been at Isaac’s birth.

3.  The Patriarchal narratives end with Joseph’s death at un-doubled age 55 years, and since Joseph was born in Year 120, that means the Patriarchal Age is portrayed as lasting 175 years, being 17½ tenfold years.

4.  Abraham dies at  e-x-a-c-t-l-y  the half-way point of the Patriarchal Age, dying at stated age 17½ tenfold shanah [which is age 87½ in 12-month years].

5.  Abraham’s father Terah dies 17½ years after Isaac’s birth.

6.  Sarah has been barren for 17½ years when Abraham first meets YHWH.

7.  Judah is born 17½ years after the centennial of Abraham’s birth.

And on and on.  Every number in the Patriarchal narratives is absolutely perfect, and fits right into an internal Patriarchal timeline that is fully coherent to a fault.  Accordingly, we should not be content with how university scholars view these matters:

"The over-all chronological scheme [of the Patriarchal narratives] remains obscure."  E.A. Speiser, "The Anchor Bible:  Genesis”, (1962), at p. 126.

In fact, the internal chronology of the Patriarchal narratives is perfect in all regards, including being internally consistent and never using impossible ages.

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois