Kenneth Greifer wrote: “I looked at the quotes and I think they could say
the kings served the other king 12 years, then they rebelled 13 years, and
in the fourteenth year (of their rebelling), the king came to attack them. It
does not literally say ‘in the 13th year’ they rebelled.”
The main problem with that view is that a rebellion rarely lasts 13 years.
A more likely meaning is what I have proposed: “…and Year 13 they rebelled
”.
Consider all the matches to historical Year numbers that follow from that
analysis. It is likely that a coalition of 5 rebellious princelings in
southern Syria did indeed form in Year 13. Many scholars see Year 14 as the
year
in which attackers, featuring a Hittite king who had seized the throne by
virtue of murdering his own older brother named “Tidal” (hence that nasty
Patriarchal nickname), destroyed the coalition of 5 rebellious princelings.
(Scholarly opinion is split as to whether the attackers were comprised of 4
parties, as the Biblical text has it, or rather 2 of those parties only
joined the Hittites a year or so after the Great Syrian War in western Syria
was
fought.)
So Years 13 and 14 work great as a comparison to the historical “four kings
against five”, if the reference is to the Great Syrian War in western
Syria, which indirectly, but surely, potentially threatened Canaan, as the
Hittites at the moment seemed unstoppable and relentless and voracious.
But on this thread I have focused on Year 12, the year before Year 13, as
the exact date on which Abram first settled at the Patriarchs’ Hebron. If
the famous letter of the notorious Canaanite strongman operating out of
Shechem, historical Lab’ayu, is dated “Year 12” (which was the original reading
of the Egyptian hieratic docket number, to which I subscribe, though many
scholars prefer a “Year 32” date), then all of the following references in
chapters 12-13 of Genesis suddenly make complete sense, instead of being
seemingly inexplicable: (1) “the Canaanite” at Genesis 12: 6 and 13: 7 is Lab’
ayu of Shechem, with Shechem being a major city-state/MQWM $KM which for one
year only, Year 12, seemed poised to take control of most of Canaan south of
the Jezreel Valley; (2) “the Perizzite” at Genesis 13: 7 is Hurrian
princeling IR-Xeba of Jerusalem, where “Perizzi” is a Patriarchal nickname
based
on the name of a Hurrian messenger from Naharim/Mitanni in the Amarna
Letters that is a classic Hurrian name also attested at Nuzi [“Naharim” is at
Genesis 24: 10; “Mitanni”, with D and T being interchangeable, is at Genesis
37: 28]; (3) in order to go north from Bethel, Lot goes east, in order to
make a very wide detour to avoid Lab’ayu’s Shechem completely; (4) in
going the opposite of east of Bethel [that is, in proceeding w-e-s-t from
Bethel], Abram comes to the northeast Ayalon Valley, which was a true “rural
paradise” in Year 12 for the Patriarchs, having not a single town or village,
but having all that great land for sheep and goats, and with Abram being
able to provide his own security [later concerns about security are what caused
the early Hebrews to abandon the northeast Shephelah in favor of hill
country, once cisterns came into use so that water supply was no longer an
insurmountable problem in hill country; at the time, in Year 12, hill country
had
lost 90% of its Middle Bronze Age population, largely due to a prolonged
lack of adequate rainfall in the Late Bronze Age]; (5) the oak trees
mentioned three times in the Biblical text as synonymous with the Patriarchs’
Hebron
are reflected by a later town’s name “Elon” in the northeast Shephelah,
showing that oak trees were prominent there, whereas there has never been a
town named “Elon” or anything close to “Oak Tree” in southern hill country;
(6) with the Patriarchs’ Hebron being the eastern Ayalon Valley [not
southern hill country, which was later named XBR by early Hebrews in honor of
the
Patriarchs’ XBRWN, and in later books in the Bible the two different places
become conflated and both are called XBRWN], Abram allies with an Amorite
princeling there [of Gezer in the southwest Ayalon Valley] who historically is
attested as allying with tent-dweller-type peoples [Hapiru, whose lifestyle
in some cases was somewhat similar to the Patriarchs] and Canaanites
[Biblical Eshcol] and Hurrians [Biblical Aner] [all per Genesis 14: 13], with
Abram being so enamored of this Amorite princeling, whose Patriarchal nickname
is “Mamre”, that one of Jacob’s descendants bears this princeling’s actual,
historical name: Milk-Ilu [Genesis 46: 17, where the Amorite word for
deity, Ilu, is changed to the Hebrew word, El]; and (7) although there are no
caves for Sarah’s burial in the northeast Ayalon Valley (and no towns either,
in Year 12), there are caves and [in Year 12] a Hurrian town, whose name
features the consonants R-B, in the southeast Ayalon Valley where Abraham can
buy Sarah’s burial cave from the Hurrian “lord” Ephron.
Note that if the second half of Genesis 14: 4 refers to “Year 13”, as I
think it does, and if Amarna Letter EA 254 refers to “Year 12”, as I think it
does, then e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g in the Biblical text matches to the
well-attested history of southern Canaan in Years 12-14. The p-i-n-p-o-i-n-t
historical accuracy of the Patriarchal narratives in the context of Year 12 is
absolutely stunning. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g checks out perfectly. The
scholarly view that multiple authors in the 1st millennium BCE made this stuff
up
is simply impossible, because no one in the 1st millennium BCE could
possibly have known all those many specific details as to what was going on in
southern Canaan in Years 12-14.
If we take the apparent reference to “Year 13” at Genesis 14: 4 seriously,
we can figure out everything (including who the Girgashites are at Genesis
15: 18-21).
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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