Chavoux Luyt: 1. You wrote: “While I am totally comfortable that thepatriarchal narrative might have first been written down in Akkadian cuniform(even likely, since Abraham came from Mesopotamia), I do not see why thealphabet used in the Wadi el-Hol or Serabit inscriptions (from 19th century BCand ~1850 BC) would not have been developed enough by the time of Moses(14th/12th century BC) for the Torah (including the patriarchal narratives) tobe written down in an early alphabetical script. We have evidence of"Asiatics" (which would include the Hebrews) in Egypt using theseearly alphabets, even in Sinai where the Torah was first given.” There is not a single letter, much less a long,sophisticated composition like the Patriarchal narratives, that is attested ascoming out of south-central Canaan in any type of alphabet prior to well into the1st millennium BCE: “The character of the early Proto-Canaanite and later OldCanaanite inscriptions is startlingly different than those produced by thesophisticated scribal institutions and elsewhere in Syria. …The Canaanite linear alphabet in the LB and IronI Ages…[r]ather than turning up on caches of tablets as did the Akkadian and[Ugaritic] alphabetic cuneiform scripts, the earliest examples of the Canaanitelinear alphabet are found on scattered ostraca and vessels at sites throughoutCanaan. Moreover, the Proto-Canaaniteand later Old Canaanite inscriptions tend to be quite brief and prosaic….” Jessica N. Whisenant, “Writing, Literacy, andTextual Transmission: The Production ofLiterary Documents in Iron Age Judah and the Composition of the Hebrew Bible”(2008), p. 148. The o-n-l-y significant writing of any kind that isattested as coming out of south-central Canaan in the Bronze Age consists ofthe Amarna Letters, especially in Years 12-14. That’s it. And that writing is inAkkadian cuneiform. There’s no way that “the alphabet used in the Wadi el-Hol orSerabit inscriptions” could in the 2nd millennium BCE handle thePatriarchal narratives, which are a long, sophisticated composition. Not. 2. You wrote: “The common usage among ANE scribes ofupdating both language and place names would give a good enough explanation forany 7th century BC influence, without the need for a convoluted theory of longtransmission in cuneiform (when the much simpler alphabet were already knownfor centuries).” I have not proposed “a convoluted theory of longtransmission in cuneiform”. Rather, my theoryis as follows. In the year afterAkhenaten’s death, the former scribe of Jerusalem princeling IR-Heba indesperation offered his scribal services to the tent-dwelling first Hebrews whoat that time were living in the northeast Ayalon Valley. That scribe then duly recorded on 50cuneiform tablets the Patriarchal narratives, written in Akkadian cuneiform; but unlike the Amarna Letters, “Canaanite”/pre-Hebrewwas used as the language, rather than the Akkadian language. No Akkadian cuneiform copy was evermade; there was only the one set oforiginal cuneiform tablets. King Davidhad chapters 14 and 49 of Genesis transformed into alphabetical Biblical Hebrewin the 10th century BCE, which is why those two chapters uniquely haveso many archaic elements. But the restof the Patriarchal narratives was transformed into alphabetical BiblicalHebrew, for the very first time, only in late 7th century BCE Jerusalem,under King Josiah. That’s why thespelling and grammar of Hebrew common words in most of the Patriarchal narrativesis virtually indistinguishable from the spelling and grammar of Hebrew commonwords in the second half of II Samuel. [Not long thereafter those original cuneiform tablets were destroyed bythe Babylonians when they sacked Jerusalem and the Temple. Since that day, we have only had copies inalphabetical Hebrew.] Whereas modern conventions were used for Hebrew commonwords, the proper names in the Patriarchal narratives were not updated, nor wasthe substantive content [except for a handful of exceptions, where a smallamount of midrash-type material crept in thanks to various editors over thecenturies]. For the most part, thesubstantive content of the Patriarchal narratives has never changed from Year14 [when it was composed, shortly before it was written down] until thepresent. That is the rational reason whythe Patriarchal narratives have p-i-n-p-o-i-n-t historical accuracyin describing exactly what historically occurred in Years 12-14, when Judaismwas born. Historically and Biblically,the birth of Judaism occurred in south-central Canaan under tryingcircumstances when Egypt had a strange, troubled pharaoh, and a firstborn sonin the Ayalon Valley [Yapaxu] was making life very difficult for thetent-dwelling first Hebrews. JimStinehart Evanston,Illinois
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