Prof. Yigal Levin:
You wrote: “In summary, there is NO evidence that anyone ever counted
each half year as a "shanah". The ONLY reason to think so is if one insists on
both taking the rather long lives of various biblical figures literally,
and not believing that if God decided to grant someone a very long life he
would do so. And then what do you do with Adam's 930 years? Assume that he
counted each month as a year, and so lived 77.5 years?”
1. Adam is not in the Patriarchal narratives. Adam is presented in the
Bible as being a pre-historical figure. The question at hand, though, is
whether shanah has the archaic meaning of a 6-month period when setting forth
stated ages of people in the Patriarchal narratives.
2. You criticize the approach of “taking the rather long lives of various
biblical figures literally, and not believing that if God decided to grant
someone a very long life he would do so”. Abraham’s father Terah, who is
said to live to age 205 shanah at Genesis 11: 32, could not live to age 205
years in 12-month years, absent a miracle. Why would YHWH grant Terah a
miraculously long life? Ishmael, who is said to live to age 137 shanah at
Genesis 25: 17, could not live to age 137 years in 12-month years, absent a
miracle. Why would YHWH grant Ishmael a miraculously long life? But if
shanah in the Patriarchal narratives means a 6-month period in setting forth
people’s stated ages, then Terah lives to the age of 102½ years [where such
long life is needed so that Terah can be portrayed as dying 17½ years
after Isaac’s birth, with Abraham then dying at stated age 17½ tenfold
shanah],
and Ishmael lives to age 68½ years.
3. Your conventional approach also does not make sense regarding “boys”
/nar. Several years after Ishmael is stated to be age 13 shanah at Genesis
17: 25, which you take to be age 13 years in 12-month years, Ishmael is
repeatedly stated to be a “boy”/nar at Genesis 21: 14-21, Hagar is portrayed
as carrying him into the wilderness [Genesis 21: 14], and at Genesis 21: 17
Ishmael is said to cry in the wilderness. None of that makes sense for a
male in the ancient world who was several years past age 13 in 12-month
years. But it makes perfect sense if Ishmael was un-doubled age 6½ years when
he was circumcised, and Ishmael is a boy age 9½ years when he is exiled by
his father Abraham.
4. A-l-l ages in the Patriarchal narratives make perfect sense on all
levels if shanah has the archaic meaning of a 6-month period in setting
forth stated ages of persons. By sharp contrast, if shanah in the Patriarchal
narratives always means a 12-month year, then virtually no stated ages make
sense: Ishmael is too old at approximately age 16 years in 12-month years
to be a boy/nar who is carried into the wilderness by his mother Hagar,
and Terah could not possibly live to age 205 years in 12-month years.
If the o-n-l-y miraculous age in the Patriarchal narratives were Sarah
giving birth to Isaac at stated age 90 shanah, then perhaps one might accept
your suggestion of “believing that if God decided to grant someone a very
long life he would do so”. But in fact, e-v-e-r-y stated age in the
Patriarchal narratives is way too old to be believable, if shanah has the
non-archaic meaning of a 12-month year in all instances. Contra your
assertion
that “there is NO evidence that anyone ever counted each half year as a ‘
shanah’", the evidence is right there in the last 40 chapters of Genesis.
Beginning with Abraham’s father Terah, e-v-e-r-y stated age of a person in
the Patriarchal narratives makes perfect sense, on all levels, if and only
if shanah is given the archaic meaning of referencing a 6-month period in
that particular context.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
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