George Athas: You wrote: “Jim, Pleasetry to be less verbose. That's all I have to say about that.”
We would all like to know, and learn from, your view of thelongstanding Biblical mystery that my post addressed. In your opinion, why is a person with avirgin pure west Semitic name, )BYMLK [“Abimelech”], portrayed as being “king of the Philistines” at Genesis 26: 1, 8,whereas we would expect an actual Philistine, such as “the chief captain of hishost” at Genesis 21: 32, to have a non-west Semitic name like PYKL [“Phicol”]? In that connection, is it a pure coincidencethat Biblical Abimelek in chapters 20, 21 and 26 of Genesis has the identicalname as the historical Abimelek of the Amarna Letters [such as Amarna Letter EA155], and that the Amarna Letters refer to foreign mercenaries being presentalong the coast immediately north of Galilee? I presume that you reject my proposed solution, which sees those twoAbimeleks as being one and the same person [a native west Semitic princeling appointed as the new ruler of Tyre/Sur by pharaoh Akhenaten, who in Year 13 was relying on foreign mercenaries for contested access to water wells on the mainland of northwest Galilee], sees Biblical GRR [“Gerar”] asbeing the Late Bronze Age spelling of “Galilee”, and sees those foreignmercenaries referred to in the Amarna Letters as being the Biblical “Philistines” [including Phicol] who arereferenced in the Patriarchal narratives [as opposed to the classic Philistinesof later date, who are referenced in later books of the Bible]. What is your view of this longstandingBiblical mystery? Jim Stinehart Evanston, Illinois
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