George Athas:
You wrote: “This thread is chasing it's tail now, so it will close on Monday.
Participants are allowed one final post. No more posts from Tuesday, please.”
As a university scholar, I believe you are probably committed to the
proposition that the Patriarchal narratives were composed by multiple authors,
all [or at least most] of whom lived in the 1st millennium BCE, and none of
whom had much detailed knowledge about the Bronze Age. Coming from that
scholarly perspective, could you give us your take on the issues that the
others of us have been struggling with on this thread? In particular, we would
all learn [especially me] if you could give us a scholarly perspective on the
following questions that have been raised on this thread:
1. Is the point of Genesis 25: 27 that Esau is shown to be aggressive, and
Jacob is shown to be a future herdsman? Although many fine scholars have
asserted precisely that, how can that in fact be the point, since the very next
story in the text shows Jacob as being even more aggressive than Esau, and at
Genesis 36: 6-7 we learn that Esau ends up being a herdsman just like Jacob?
2. Why would multiple 1st millennium BCE authors portray Abraham as choosing
to sojourn in the towering mountains that surround the city just northwest of
the Judean Desert, and Isaac as choosing to sojourn for decades in the eastern
Sinai Desert [or thereabouts]? The Late Bronze Age was much dryer than normal,
so the entirety of southern Canaan, not to mention the Negev Desert and the
Sinai Desert, were very tough places to live in the Late Bronze Age. I have
noted some Late Bronze Age burials that bear out that contention. If the
Patriarchs and their movements are 1st millennium BCE fiction, why wouldn’t
some of the multiple authors in the 1st millennium BCE portray the Patriarchs
as instead choosing to sojourn in the nice parts of Canaan, such as the
Shephelah and Galilee, which had more water? Wouldn’t 1st millennium BCE
multiple authors remember the “days of old” as being the Late Bronze Age, when
most of southern Canaan, the Negev and the Sinai were very inhospitable places
to live?
3. Why would multiple 1st millennium BCE authors portray Beersheba of the
Negev, of all the dry places, as being a spot where Esau could be fully
confident of always bagging savory wild game? If that is a fictional story
ginned up by multiple authors in the 1st millennium BCE, why wouldn’t they
place that fictional story in the southwest corner of Upper Galilee, at
Beersheba of Galilee, where the hunting had been terrific in the Late Bronze
Age? Why would multiple authors in the 1st millennium BCE say that Isaac went
“up” to the bottom of the drainage basin where Beersheba of the Negev is
located, instead of meaning that Isaac went “up” into the foothills where
Beersheba of Galilee is located?
4. If multiple 1st millennium BCE authors did not want us to think that
Abraham chose to sojourn in the northern Shephelah, then why did they have
Abraham say that he would go the opposite direction as Lot from Bethel, and
then say that Lot went e-a-s-t ? Weren’t they afraid someone would think that
Abraham then proceeded west of Bethel, to the lovely Aijalon Valley? And
what’s with that strange name X-BR-W-N? The city just northwest of the Judean
Desert may have had the name Qiltu in the Bronze Age, and certainly was not
called X-BR-W-N. If those multiple authors in the 1st millennium BCE did not
know that, then why didn’t they copy the city name from the LMLK seals, and
render it as XBRN? Why X-BR-W-N, with that interior vav/W, making it look for
all the world like the Hurrian name xa-vur-u-ne? No one in the 1st millennium
BCE knew Hurrian, for heaven’s sake.
5. Is it a mere coincidence that the Laxi- element in Beer Laxi-Rai sounds
like the Lachi- element in Lachi-$a? And is it likewise a mere coincidence
that Late Bronze Age burials at Lachi-$a have likenesses of the great hunter,
Amenhotep III, and quivers of arrows, and Esau seems to be doing a poor man’s
imitation of the great hunter Amenhotep III by hunting big game with bow and
arrow? Why is it that all the Late Bronze Age burials throughout Canaan seem
to fit the text of the Patriarchal narratives, if and only if Biblical Beer
Laxi-Rai is the historical Valley of Lachi-$a, the Patriarchs’ X-BR-W-N is the
Aijalon Valley, GRR is Galilee, and the Beersheba where Esau hunts big game,
and “up” to which Isaac goes, is Beersheba of Galilee, not Beersheba in the
Negev?
6. George, everyone knows that you reject each and every element of my
proposed new look at the underlying geography of the Patriarchal narratives.
But though on several occasions you have explicitly said that, you have never
given any substantive reasons for your views on that matter. Why would
multiple 1st millennium BCE authors all have agreed to use a local geography
for the Patriarchal narratives that, if the traditional and scholarly views are
right as to the locales, seems utterly absurd on its face? Why don’t the
Patriarchs ever sojourn in the nice parts of Canaan, like the Shephelah and
Galilee? Why does Isaac go “up” to the bottom of a drainage basin? Why does
not a soul in the entirety of the Patriarchal narratives ever go “up” to the
Patriarchs’ Hebron, if that is the highest altitude city in Canaan, and the
Patriarchs allegedly sojourned on the towering mountainsides that surround that
massively fortified fortress of a city?
Why is it that university scholars never seem to address these questions? Karl
and I can go round and round, but wouldn’t the world be a better place if
university scholars would set forth thoughtful, substantive analyses of these
geographical issues?
7. Are there any common words in the entirety of the Hebrew text of the
Patriarchal narratives that, in your considered opinion, are inconsistent with
my contentions that the Patriarchs’ X-BR-W-N is the northern Shephelah, Beer
Laxi-Rai is the southern Shephelah, GRR is Galilee, and the Beersheba of
Abraham and Isaac [though not of Jacob] is Beersheba of Galilee, rather than
Beersheba in the Negev? If all of those questions are somehow ruled out of
order, then what do you see as being the point of Genesis 25: 27? Isn’t the
point that Esau is portrayed in a negative light for aping pharaoh Amenhotep
III’s alleged hunting prowess in engaging in big game trophy hunting that was
of no use to his father Isaac’s community, whereas Jacob was TM, that is,
“proper” and “whole” and “well-rounded” and “a man of the community”, by
helping take care of the large flock of sheep and goats on which the entire
community under Isaac’s leadership depended? Yet if this is all happening in
the eastern Sinai Desert [instead of my view that it’s the Lachish Valley], as
scholars would have it, how can this story be plausible in such a marginal
clime? Why would multiple authors in the 1st millennium BCE choose to place an
allegedly fictional story like this in the eastern Sinai Desert? The
Patriarchs don’t seem like desert people. What is the scholarly perspective on
these issues that the rest of us have been discussing?
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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