Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Rev. Bryant J. Williams III:

 

You wrote:  “Now, just because our more modern ideas or theories or experience does not match that to what is found in the Tanakh does not mean that what was said is wrong, incorrect, falsehood, etc. The ancients were there, we were not. UNLESS there is something in the TEXT that states otherwise. Just because the Hebrew grammar and syntax may allow for a possibility does not mean that it was probable. There are degrees of certainty: Not possible, not probable, possible, probable, certain. Your theories over the past several years lie in the area of ‘Not possible and Not possible’.”

 

It is “not possible” that Abraham’s father Terah lived to age 205 years in 12-month years.  But what the TEXT says is that Terah lived to age 205 shanah.  The archaic meaning of shanah was a 6-month period.  What the text is actually saying, then, is that Terah lived to age 102½ years in 12-month years.  That is “possible” [though it begins to strain the outer limits of how old a person could live to in the ancient world]. 

 

The reason  w-h-y  Terah is portrayed as living such a long life of 102½ years is to enable Terah to be portrayed as dying 17½ years after Isaac’s birth, with Abraham then dying at age 17½ tenfold shanah, and the Patriarchal Age ending with Joseph’s death 17½ tenfold years after Abraham’s birth.

 

All of the ages in the text are reasonable ages, once one realizes that shanah is being given its archaic meaning of a 6-month period.  And all of the numbers also make symbolic sense as well.

 

I honestly don’t know why you characterize my views as being “Not possible” based on the TEXT.  In fact, I see every stated age as being possible in the text, based on shanah having its archaic meaning of a 6-month period in setting forth people’s ages in the Patriarchal narratives.  I am in fact the one who is asserting that every stated age in the TEXT is in fact “possible” and indeed realistic, with no need to rely on miracles as to any age, much less as to  a-l-l  ages in the Patriarchal narratives.  I am sure you are well aware that one of the attacks on the historicity of the Patriarchal narratives by university scholars is that the Patriarchs’ lifespans are allegedly way too long to be believable:

 

"[P]rodigious life spans [are] attributed to the Patriarchs.”  John J. Collins, "Introduction to the Hebrew Bible" (2004), at p. 84.

 

My theory of the case, which sees shanah as having its archaic meaning of a 6-month period in setting forth stated ages of people in the Patriarchal narratives, totally destroys that scholarly argument against the Patriarchal narratives.  Although I can readily understand people being reluctant to accept my new, controversial ideas, I honestly don’t understand why so many people react so terribly adversely to my ideas.  I’m the one who is defending the believability and historicity of the Patriarchal narratives, by showing that Terah is not portrayed as living to age 205 years in 12-month years, and that Ishmael is not a boy who is carried by his mother Hagar into exile at approximately age 16 years in 12-month years.  I have shown that if shanah in those cases has the archaic meaning of denoting a 6-month period, then Terah lives to age 102½ years, and Ishmael is a boy/nar age 9½ years when he is exiled. 

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois