Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Jonathan Mohler:

 

Thank you so much for being somewhat amenable to my assertion that Rebekah may have been implied to be age 15 years when she married Isaac.  We at least agree she wasn’t age 3!

 

1.  You wrote:  “The idea of a half year "shanah" is a nice theory.  But even it suffers from what it would do the stories of the patriarchal accounts.  Pharaoh's exchange with Jacob comes to mind.  60 years would hardly deserve Pharaoh's comment: ‘How many are the days of the years of your life?’”

 

Au contraire, that is a brilliant line in the Bible.  Jacob is stated age 130 shanah, meaning that he is age 65 years, in 12-month years.  In the ancient world, only a very spry 65-year-old could lead a large number of people from Canaan to Egypt!  Very few people lived to age 65 in the ancient world, yet Jacob not only lives that long, he at that advanced age leads all the Hebrews from Canaan into Egypt.

 

But by not saying 65 but rather stating that Jacob was age 13 tenfold shanah, that focuses attention on the number 13 [a focus which would not be possible if shanah were being used with its non-archaic meaning of a 12-month year].  Note that just after Jacob is said to be age 13 tenfold shanah, Joseph is portrayed as doing what historically happened in Year 13 of Akhenaten’s 17-year reign:  Joseph confiscates much valuable land along the Nile River for Pharaoh at firesale prices.

 

Similarly brilliant is the statement at Genesis 47: 28 that Jacob was an early monotheistic leader of his people in Egypt for 17 shanah, knowing that historically Akhenaten was an early monotheistic leader of his people in Egypt for 17 years.

 

We begin to see that by using shanah with the archaic meaning of a 6-month period, the early Hebrew author ingeniously lets us know the  e-x-a-c-t  years in which these various historical events occurred.

 

2.  You wrote:  “The idea is novel, but there is no direct entailment between equinoxes and a six month year.  Additionally, it can't overcome the fact that they kept twelve-month years.  The very mention of a seventh month, which may or may not suggest that they acknowledged the equinox, entails a twelve-month year.  The language above simply shows that they recognized a turning point in the year.”

 

Yes.  And accordingly, a brilliant early Hebrew author could decide to set forth the stated ages of all people in the Patriarchal narratives in terms of how many “turning points in the year” had transpired, that is, in terms of “equinox years”, being periods of 6 months.   W-h-y  did he make that seemingly odd choice?  Because it instantly doubled his chances of using effective numerical symbolism, such as allowing the stated age of 65-year-old Jacob to recall Year 13 [per Jacob’s stated age being 13 tenfold shanah].  One key proof that the early Hebrew author did in fact choose that gambit is that  e-v-e-r-y  age throughout the Patriarchal narratives, beginning with Abraham’s father Terah, makes perfect sense on all levels, if and only if shanah is viewed as having its archaic meaning of a 6-month period.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois