To: George.Athas AT moore.edu.au, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Hebrew was linguistically isolated?
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2013 14:31:39 -0400 (EDT)
George Athas:
You wrote:“Jim, Please
try to be less verbose. That's all I have to say about that.”
We would all like to know, and learn from, your view of the
longstanding Biblical mystery that my post addressed.In your opinion, why is a person with a
virgin pure west Semitic name, )BYMLK [“Abimelech”], portrayed as being “king of the Philistines” at Genesis 26: 1, 8,
whereas we would expect an actual Philistine, such as “the chief captain of his
host” at Genesis 21: 32, to have a non-west Semitic name like PYKL [“Phicol”]?In that connection, is it a pure coincidence
that Biblical Abimelek in chapters 20, 21 and 26 of Genesis has the identical
name as the historical Abimelek of the Amarna Letters [such as Amarna Letter EA
155], and that the Amarna Letters refer to foreign mercenaries being present
along the coast immediately north of Galilee?I presume that you reject my proposed solution, which sees those two
Abimeleks as being one and the same person [a native west Semitic princeling appointed as the new ruler of Tyre/Sur by pharaoh Akhenaten, who in Year 13 was relying on foreign mercenaries for contested access to water wells on the mainland of northwest Galilee], sees Biblical GRR [“Gerar”] as
being the Late Bronze Age spelling of “Galilee”, and sees those foreign
mercenaries referred to in the Amarna Letters as being the Biblical “Philistines” [including Phicol] who are
referenced in the Patriarchal narratives [as opposed to the classic Philistines
of later date, who are referenced in later books of the Bible].What is your view of this longstanding
Biblical mystery?
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
Re: [b-hebrew] Hebrew was linguistically isolated?
, (continued)