Karl:
You wrote: “Again you contradict yourself, in that you recognize that the
quickest route from Egypt to Bethel while avoiding the heat of the lowlands
is through Beersheba, then up to Hebron, then along the ridge-line to
Bethel. Especially if they wanted to avoid destroying the crops of the
coastline
cities by the grazing of their huge flocks. Have you not admitted that
yourself earlier?”
Nothing could be farther from the truth. If one is at the northern edge of
the Negev upon coming out of Egypt, and wants to proceed to Bethel, which
is the situation here, then the logical way to go, especially if one has many
animals in tow, is through the Shephelah by way of the Diagonal Route.
Because it is on the diagonal, it is shorter than going to Bethel by way of
Hebron. Much more importantly, though, it enables the animals to avoid the
mountains entirely. The Diagonal Route starts at Lachish and proceeds
northeast to the eastern Aijalon Valley, then by way of the two Beth-horons one
enters hill country. The more famous route in the rest of the Bible at that
point is to go to the right to Gibeon [and then on further right to Jerusalem],
but by turning left instead of right, here in the truly ancient Patriarchal
narratives [where there is no concern about Jerusalem] one came straight to
Bethel. [Although Abram himself went to the top of a tall mountain at
Bethel to worship YHWH, presumably the animals stayed near the bottom of the
mountain.]
It would make no sense for Abram and Lot to take the longer route, which
would require them to drive the animals, exhausted from the long trip from
Egypt, all the way up to the mountains at Hebron. So the logical way to get to
Bethel from the northern edge of the Negev is by way of the Aijalon Valley,
taking the Diagonal Route through the lovely Shephelah, not by way of the
towering mountains near Hebron.
Moreover, the Hebrew text suggests that when between the northern Negev and
Bethel, and o-n-l-y in that precise locale, Abram proceeded “by stages”.
Here is Robert Alter’s translation of Genesis 12: 9 and Genesis 13: 3:
“[After leaving Bethel,] Abram journeyed onward by stages to the Negeb.”
“[In returning to Bethel from Egypt,] he went on by stages from the Negeb
up to Bethel….”
JPS 1985 uses almost the same language, in particular using the phrase “by
stages” at both Genesis 12: 9 and Genesis 13: 3.
If Abram had gone up to Mt. Hebron, it would then have been impossible to
travel “by stages” along the Ridge Route from Hebron to Bethlehem. The
Ridge Route follows the narrow ridge, and there is no space to go left or
right:
“In the section between Hebron and Shechem it [the Ridge Route] follows a
single track corresponding approximately to the watershed, and the deep
wadis on both sides prevent any deviation to the right or left.” Yohanan
Aharoni, “The Land of the Bible: A Historical Geography” (1979), at p. 57.
“…the
Patriarchs’ Road. The original path would have been three or four feet wide,
…a stone-riddled trail winding around the mountains to avoid steep climbs.”
Bruce Feiler, “Walking the Bible” (2005), at p. 51.
Thus the only practical way to take a large number of animals “by stages”
from the northern Negev to Bethel was by way of the Aijalon Valley, along
the Diagonal Route through the Shephelah. The lush Shephelah was much more
congenial to grazing livestock than the rugged mountains near Hebron, much
less the narrow, rocky Ridge Route north from Hebron. The Ridge Route between
Hebron and Bethlehem was so harsh and narrow that there were no cities
there, with no place to rest the animals, whereas cities are a dime a dozen, as
are ideal places for pasturage, for Abram and all the animals proceeding “by
stages” along the Diagonal Route through the lush Shephelah.
From a mountaintop near Bethel, Lot and Abram were able to see both of the
only two places which they had recently traversed together: (i) the greater
Jordan River Valley [including the east end of the incredibly fertile
Jezreel Valley, which in addition to having the finest farmland in all of
Canaan
also featured an important international trade route through Canaan], and
(ii) the rural paradise of the Shephelah. Lot chose the soft city life of the
richest part of Canaan, the eastern Jezreel Valley, which then left Abram
the Shephelah, including the eastern Aijalon Valley as a locale ideal for
sheep and goats and virtuous tent-dwellers. There is no basis whatsoever in
the text for your fanciful claim that Lot may have “traveled around the land
before this event”. No, the two regions of Canaan that Lot and Abram
provisionally divvied up between themselves were (i) the greater Jordan River
Valley, north of the Dead Sea, and (ii) the Shephelah; those were the only two
places in Canaan the two men traversed together.
If we could just get the underlying geography right, these stories
practically tell themselves.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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