Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Genesis 12: 5: Are "Souls" Slaves?
Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 09:14:27 +0200
Jim,
1. I have no idea what it is you're blaming poor Ezekiel for, and I'm not
going to read through all of your overly-long posts to find out. Do you
think that he wrote Exodus-Numbers?
2. No where does the Patriarchal narrative state that God spoke to the
Patriarchs in Hebrew. I have no idea what language Abraham spoke. Even if he
did speak a form of "Hebrew", all languages evolve, and Abraham's Hebrew
could have been as different from classical Biblical Hebrew as Middle
English is from our English. We don't know, because the Bible doesn't tell
us. The various books of the Bible are written in the language of their
intended audience, with occasional reference to someone, ususally a
non-Israelite, speaking strangely or in a foreign language, such as Laban's
"yegar sahaduta" or the story of Joseph's pretending to need an interpreter,
when it serves the author's purpose. Most authors, ancient and modern, do
the same.
3. There is no evidence of "Hebrews" in Late Bronze Age Canaan. It has been
shown that the so-called "Habiru" or "Apiru" of the Amarna texts are NOT
"Hebrews" in the biblical sense of an ethnicity. Some scholars even deny an
etymological connection between the terms, although that is still debated.
4. You are correct, that the biblical Hebrew language is related more
closely to Canaanite than to any Mesopotamian language, even Aramaic. Which
is indeed one indication (there are others) that "genetically" speaking, the
Iron Age Israelites were largely descended from the population of LBA Canaan
or its environs. But the Patriarchal narratives make it very clear that
"home" was in Mesopotamia: Terah sets out from Ur (wherever that is - I'm
not insisting on the famous Sumerian city) on his way to Canaan, but stops
in Haran and dies there. The text does not say why he set out or why he
stopped in Haran, so neither do we. Two of his sons stay there, but God
tells Abraham to keep going "to the land which I will show you", which turns
out to be Canaan. Nothing about this indicates that their original home was
in Canaan. They have no relatives there.They have no property there.
Abraham's servant and later Jacob go back to the family in Haran to get
wives. The story is clear: Abraham "the 'Ivri" came from 'Ever Hannahar' -
"across the river", meaning the Euphrates.
5. And yes, there is a dissonance between the Israelites' apparent
"Canaanite" origins and their own tradition that their ancestors had come
from "across the river" (although remember, this is the story that the
authors of the Bible gave us. We don't really know how commonly accepted
this narrative was in Iron Age Israel). I can see two main options: The
first is that the whole story was invented for ideological purposes - in
order to show that the Israelites, God's people, are not REALLY "dirty
Canaanites". The second is that this narrative did occur (in some form) and
that the Patriarchs' descendants, although demographically very few in
number, were influential enough so that their narrative was accepted as a
part of the "national narrative" - again, at least by the writers of the
Bible.