At p. 300 of his book on Genesis, Prof. Robert Alter characterizes Genesis
49: 26 in the received Masoretic Text as follows: “The Masoretic Text is
not really intelligible at this point”.
At p. 458 of his book on Genesis 16-50, Prof. Gordon Wenham explains how he
“emends” the Masoretic Text of Genesis 49: 26:
“Emending MT HWRY ‘my ancestors’ to HRRY-(D…’steadfast mountains’.”
Although Alter and Wenham edit out the reference at Genesis 49: 26 in the
Masoretic Text to “my ancestors”, their explanations of their emended
version of Genesis 49: 26 in each case nevertheless focus on ancestors! Wenham
states at p. 487: “Here Jacob, the man preoccupied with acquiring blessing
from his earliest days [from his ‘ancestor’/father Isaac], now reflects on
his success.” Alter says at p. 300: “The apparent sense of the whole line
is: the blessings granted Joseph and his fathers [Jacob and Jacob’s ‘
ancestors’] will be even greater than the blessings manifested throughout time
in
the natural world….”
Yet Alter has replaced the Masoretic Text’s “my ancestors” with “timeless
heights”, and Wenham has replaced “my ancestors” with “steadfast mountains
”.
Do people on the b-hebrew list think that it’s a good idea to follow
scholarly advice and abandon the Masoretic Text’s reference to “my ancestors”
at
Genesis 49: 26, as allegedly being “not really intelligible”, and emend
that word to mean either “timeless heights” [Alter] or “steadfast mountains”
[Wenham]?
If one uses emendation to edit out the reference to “my ancestors” at
Genesis 49: 26 in Jacob’s final blessing of Joseph, doesn’t one thereby lose
one of the most fundamental points in the entirety of the Patriarchal
narratives, namely that each Patriarch painfully, but correctly, chooses as his
rightful successor a non-favorite son whose birth mother is the Patriarch’s
original main wife #1? In explaining why Jacob had at Genesis 49: 8-10 picked
Judah, rather than Joseph, to be the leader of the next generation of
Hebrews, so that such grand blessing could not now be given to Joseph, don’t we
rightly expect at Genesis 49: 26 for Jacob to reference the Patriarchal
succession decisions made by “my ancestors” as overriding Jacob’s personal
favoritism of his favorite son Joseph, instead of there allegedly being an
emended
reference at such point to either “timeless heights” or “steadfast mountains
”?
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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