Shur”
In the Patriarchal narratives, there are three occurrences of שור : SWR or $WR [with Hebrew unpointed orthography not distinguishing between sin/S and shin/$] as a geographical place name, at Genesis 16: 7 and 25: 18, and also at Genesis 20:
1. In this first post, I will focus exclusively on “Shur” at Genesis 16: 7 and 25: 18.
I. “Shur” : שור at Genesis 16: 7; 25: 18
שור = sA wa ra = “[the land whose ruler is said to be the] sole/wa son/sA of Ra/ra” = “Egypt”
The universally-held view of “Shur” at Genesis 16: 7 and 25: 18 consists of the following three elements, each of which is highly questionable: (i) the sibilant is shin/$, not sin/S; (ii) plene spelling applies; and (iii) “Shur” is the Hebrew common word $WR, meaning “wall”. How questionable is that analysis? The sibilant could just as easily be sin/S as shin/$, since unpointed Hebrew orthography does not distinguish between those two phonemes. It is highly unlikely that an ancient geographical place name would feature plene spelling. It indeed is my opinion that there is no plene spelling whatsoever of proper names in the Patriarchal narratives. And finally, there is no non-biblical attestation that Egypt, or the border of Egypt, or some place near Egypt, was ever referenced by the west Semitic word for “wall”. Isn’t it high time that we on the b-hebrew list consider an alternative analysis of “Shur” at Genesis 16: 7 and 25: 18?
* * *
Regardless of one’s linguistic theory of the case, it definitely seems that at Genesis 16: 7 and 25: 18, “Shur” appears to be synonymous with “Egypt” (with the other two possibilities being “the northeastern border of Egypt” or “some specific place near the northeastern border of Egypt”):
Genesis 16: 7: “And the angel of the LORD found her [Hagar] by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur.” Hagar was from Egypt, and she was contemplating returning to Egypt. She was found “by the fountain on the way to Egypt”. Or having the same meaning (though being a bit awkward here), Hagar was found “by the fountain on the way to the northeastern border of Egypt”.
Genesis 25: 18: “And they [Ishmael’s descendants] dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt, as thou goest toward Assyria: and he died in the presence of all his brethren.” Ishmael’s descendants dwelt from Havilah in Arabia unto Egypt, that is to say, unto the northeastern border of Egypt (but not i-n Egypt proper), and from there all the long way east to Assyria.
Thus at Genesis 16: 7; 25: 18, “Shur” effectively appears to mean “Egypt”.
There is no non-biblical support for $WR/“wall” meaning “Egypt” (or “the northeastern border of Egypt” or “a specific place near the northeastern border of Egypt”). Accordingly, we should ask whether “Shur” may be a Patriarchal nickname for “Egypt”. If so (my view), then might “Shur” be based on three super-simple E-g-y-p-t-i-a-n words that effectively mean “Egypt”, instead of being, as ordinarily supposed, the Hebrew common word for “wall”?
If the intended spelling at Genesis 16: 7; 25: 18 is SWR with a sin/S (rather than $WR with a shin/$, as heretofore supposed), with Hebrew orthography being neutral/ambiguous as to that issue, then that would be the expected Hebrew spelling of the following three super-simple and very well-known Egyptian words: sA wa ra. Per Hebrew defective spelling, an Egyptian aleph [A] or Egyptian ayin [a] as the second element in a CV syllable was treated as a vowel, and was never represented by any Hebrew letter. (I discussed that issue in some detail in my analysis [on a different thread] of “Potiphar” and “Potipherah”. The Hebrew letters PR at the end of the name “Potiphar” are universally, and rightly, viewed as representing pA ra, using defective Hebrew spelling, where no Hebrew letter represents Egyptian aleph [A] or Egyptian ayin [a] in these standard CV Egyptian syllables.) sA and wa and ra are three of the simplest and best-known Egyptian words: sA means “son”; wa means “only”; and ra means “the Egyptian sun-god Ra”. The ultra-literal meaning is son-only-Ra, but that clearly means: “the only son of Ra”. Now remember that, very importantly, every pharaoh’s grandest title was sA ra, whose literal meaning is “son of Ra”. sA wa ra simply adds the notion [via wa = “only”] of being the “only” son of Ra. Thus the intended meaning of SWR as sA-wa-ra as a geographical place name would be: “[the land whose ruler is said to be the] only/wa son/sA of Ra/ra”, that is, “Egypt”. No place other than Egypt would be characterized by the phrase “only son of Ra”.
Now consider that scholars in fact do not know what SWR or $WR means as a geographical place name, and they are well aware that they are in the dark here. The conventional view is that this geographical place name is based on (being essentially the same as) the Hebrew common word $WR, meaning “wall”. Yet there is no non-biblical support for such a proposition. BDB Theological Dictionary notes that on the conventional view, the spelling and pronunciation of “Shur” are thought to be identical to the Hebrew common noun meaning “wall”, and then adds: "[Shur is] often supposed to denote properly the 'wall' or line of fortresses, built by Egyptian kings across isthmus of Suez; but dubious."
No non-biblical source ever refers to Egypt as $WR (as “wall” or otherwise). Thus the conventional view of “Shur” is, as BDB Theological Dictionary aptly puts it: “dubious”.
As opposed to that dubious conventional view, please consider now my suggestion above that SWR may be an apt Patriarchal nickname for “Egypt”, based upon three super-simple and very well-known E-g-y-p-t-i-a-n words: sA wa ra. The meaning of those Egyptian words fits perfectly, as Egypt is the only place in the world that ever had a ruler who claimed to be the “only”/wa “son”/sA of “Ra”/ra. The expected Hebrew rendering of sA-wa-ra is SWR : שור.
If so, then “Shur” : שור at Genesis 16: 7; 25: 18 is SWR with a sin/S, not, as ordinarily supposed, $WR with a shin. And there is no plene spelling, as the interior vav/W is a consonantal W. Finally, rather than being the Hebrew common word “wall”, SWR (with a sin) is an apt Patriarchal nickname for “Egypt”, which consists of the expected Hebrew rendering of the following three simple and well-known E-g-y-p-t-i-a-n words: sA wa ra.
Near the end of Akhenaten’s Great Hymn to the Aten, one sees the following two phrases (referring to Akhenaten): wa-n-ra sA ra. Those two phrases are translated as follows: “sole-one-of-Ra, son of Ra”. An abbreviated version of wa-n-ra sA ra, having the identical meaning, would be: sA wa ra. Thus particularly in the Amarna Age, sA wa ra would be an ideal Patriarchal nickname for Egypt, because its pharaoh at that time proclaimed to one and all that he was sA wa ra: the one and only son of Ra/Aten. In my opinion, the best possible Patriarchal nickname for “Egypt” as of Year 13 in the Amarna Age is sA wa ra : SWR : שור (the exact Hebrew letters we see for “Shur” in the received Hebrew text), since Akhenaten loudly boasted to the world that he was the sole son of Ra -- sA wa ra. (Is that neat or what?)
* * *
Though of relatively minor importance for the analysis of “Shur” at Genesis 16: 7 and 25: 18 (though it will prove to be of critical importance for the analysis of “Shur” at Genesis 20: 1), we should now consider that, in my view, the Patriarchal narratives were originally, in the Late Bronze Age during the Amarna Age, a written cuneiform text. If so, then the cuneiform spelling of “Shur” at Genesis 16: 7; 25: 18 (on my theory of the case) was probably: ZA(586)-wa-ri. We know from the Amarna Letters that cuneiform sign ZA(586) could be either Sa or Ca, that is, either sin/S or ssade/C (followed by the vowel A):
“ZA(586) is not only the standard sign for /za/ and /ṣa/, it also has the value /sà/ in many instances [in the Amarna Letters]. …[O]ther examples pertain to west Semitic terms, ma-as-sà, (EA 365: 14, 23, 25), tu-sà-ax-mi (EA 244: 8), or geographic names, KUR.MEŠ Sà-al-xi (EA 126: 5), URU Ul-la- sà (EA 117: 42; 60: 23) and note URU Ul-la-às-sà (EA 140: 19) and URU Qí-in- sà (EA 174: 12; 175: 10; 176: 10.” Anson F. Rainey, “Canaanite in the Amarna Tablets” (1996), pp. 16-17.
So on my theory of the case, “Shur” at Genesis 16: 7; 25: 18 was originally written in cuneiform during Late Amarna as ZA(586)-wa-ri. Those three cuneiform signs were then transformed into alphabetical Hebrew (for the first time) in 7th century BCE Jerusalem. If the Jewish scribe in 7th century BCE Jerusalem decided (correctly) that the ambiguous first cuneiform sign intended to render sin/S, not ssade/C or zayin/Z (which he did), then the expected alphabetical Hebrew spelling of the three cuneiform signs ZA(586)-wa-ri would be: SWR : שור, that is, precisely the three Hebrew letters that we see in the received text. Yet subsequent readers of the unpointed Hebrew text might nevertheless interpret (misinterpret) those Hebrew letters in this mysterious geographical place name as embodying shin/$, instead of the intended sin/S, because unpointed Hebrew orthography [ש] does not distinguish between sin/S and shin/$. It is irrelevant that the vowels in the Hebrew common word $WR are not A in all three syllables, or if the Hebrew common word $WR has only 2 syllables or only a single CVC syllable [“Shur”], because in all events the Hebrew letters could be precisely what we see in the received text, as long as cuneiform sign ZA(586) was (correctly) interpreted as meaning sin/S, rather than ssade/C. (That applies whether Hebrew vav/W in the Hebrew common word $WR is the vowel U or the consonant W.) What was intended for this geographical place name were the sounds sa-wa-ra, with three syllables, with sin/S (not shin/$) as the first phoneme, and using defective spelling, as the Hebrew rendering of the Egyptian words sA wa ra. The original cuneiform writing was ZA(586)-wa-ri, and predictably this comes out in the received text as SWR : שור (with a sin/S and no plene spelling). Linguistically, it all makes perfect sense.
As we will see in a later post on this thread, the situation may be very different as to these various factors in analyzing “Shur” at Genesis 20: 1. [Hint: ssade/C may have been intended at Genesis 20: 1, with the cuneiform original being ambiguous as to, and not distinguishing between, sin/S vs. ssade/C. In addition, the intended vowels may be quite different at Genesis 20: 1 as opposed to Genesis 16: 7; 25: 18, since defective Hebrew spelling does not record the vowel in a CV syllable. That is to say, “Shur” at Genesis 20: 1 may well be a completely different place, with a different name and different spelling, than the “Shur” at Genesis 16: 7; 25: 18, despite the fact that the received text has S/$-W-R : שור in all three cases. (Is this getting exciting or what?)]
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
"Shur"
Forum rules
Members will observe the rules for respectful discourse at all times!
Please sign all posts with your first and last (family) name.
Members will observe the rules for respectful discourse at all times!
Please sign all posts with your first and last (family) name.
-
Isaac Fried
- Posts: 1783
- Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 8:32 pm
Re: "Shur"
With no recourse to "Egyptian", $UR שׁוּר may be just a variant of ישרוֹן = שׁרוֹן $ARON, 'flat land', a מישׁוֹר, land that is ישׁר, 'even'.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
Isaac Fried, Boston University
-
Jim Stinehart
- Posts: 352
- Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 11:33 am
Re: "Shur"
Isaac Fried:
You wrote: “With no recourse to "Egyptian", $UR שׁוּר may be just a variant of ישרוֹן = שׁרוֹן $ARON, 'flat land', a מישׁוֹר, land that is ישׁר, 'even'.”
1. That wouldn’t work for referencing the Sinai, as the northeast border of Egypt, since the Sinai is mountainous. The conventional view, which sees the proper name here as being identical to the Hebrew common word for “wall”, $WR, sees the northern Sinai being referenced by this term, as the northeast border of Egypt, which at times featured a “wall” of Egyptian forts.
2. Although Egypt proper is “flat”, I am not aware of any people characterizing Egypt in that way. The Egyptians themselves referred to their land by reference to the fine “black” soil along the Nile River, saying nothing about the terrain being flat.
In the Patriarchal narratives, the Hebrews always talk about going “down” to Egypt, focusing on the fact that Egypt is at a “lower elevation” than Canaan. No Hebrew ever mentions that Egypt was “flat” land, as opposed to southern Canaan being “hilly”.
* * *
In a word, I see no historical basis for thinking that a reference to “flat land” would connote “Egypt”, since although Egypt proper is “flat land”, no ancient peoples of which I am aware ever referenced the fact that Egypt is “flat land”. Similarly, although Egypt at times did have a “wall” of forts guarding its northeast border, and the Egyptian word for “wall” was sometimes used as part of an Egyptian phrase referencing such border forts, nevertheless nothing is attested in the non-biblical ancient world that the west Semitic word for “wall”, namely $WR, was ever used by anyone to reference “Egypt”.
Rather, I see the Biblical name here as being SWR, being an apt Patriarchal nickname for “Egypt” during the Amarna Age. SWR is the expected Hebrew rendering of sA wa ra, meaning “the only son of Ra” in Egyptian, with Egypt being the only place on earth whose ruler proclaimed himself to be sA wa ra: “[the] only son of Ra”.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
You wrote: “With no recourse to "Egyptian", $UR שׁוּר may be just a variant of ישרוֹן = שׁרוֹן $ARON, 'flat land', a מישׁוֹר, land that is ישׁר, 'even'.”
1. That wouldn’t work for referencing the Sinai, as the northeast border of Egypt, since the Sinai is mountainous. The conventional view, which sees the proper name here as being identical to the Hebrew common word for “wall”, $WR, sees the northern Sinai being referenced by this term, as the northeast border of Egypt, which at times featured a “wall” of Egyptian forts.
2. Although Egypt proper is “flat”, I am not aware of any people characterizing Egypt in that way. The Egyptians themselves referred to their land by reference to the fine “black” soil along the Nile River, saying nothing about the terrain being flat.
In the Patriarchal narratives, the Hebrews always talk about going “down” to Egypt, focusing on the fact that Egypt is at a “lower elevation” than Canaan. No Hebrew ever mentions that Egypt was “flat” land, as opposed to southern Canaan being “hilly”.
* * *
In a word, I see no historical basis for thinking that a reference to “flat land” would connote “Egypt”, since although Egypt proper is “flat land”, no ancient peoples of which I am aware ever referenced the fact that Egypt is “flat land”. Similarly, although Egypt at times did have a “wall” of forts guarding its northeast border, and the Egyptian word for “wall” was sometimes used as part of an Egyptian phrase referencing such border forts, nevertheless nothing is attested in the non-biblical ancient world that the west Semitic word for “wall”, namely $WR, was ever used by anyone to reference “Egypt”.
Rather, I see the Biblical name here as being SWR, being an apt Patriarchal nickname for “Egypt” during the Amarna Age. SWR is the expected Hebrew rendering of sA wa ra, meaning “the only son of Ra” in Egyptian, with Egypt being the only place on earth whose ruler proclaimed himself to be sA wa ra: “[the] only son of Ra”.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
-
Jim Stinehart
- Posts: 352
- Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 11:33 am
Re: "Shur"
II. “Shur” : שור at Genesis 20: 1
שור = cuneiform mistake for the intended צור = cu-ur-ri = “Tyre”
A. Non-Linguistic Analysis
As will be discussed in a later post (but not this post), the cuneiform rendering of “Tyre” is ambiguous as to whether the initial sibilant is sin/S or ssade/C. So if the Patriarchal narratives started out as a cuneiform text in the Late Bronze Age (my view), it would be exceedingly easy to get שור and צור mixed up.
In this post, however, what will be discussed is the non-linguistic issue of which set of Hebrew letters would make more sense at Genesis 20: 1: שור or צור? [Because my computer has a terrible time handling Hebrew letters (in particular often, but entirely unpredictably, reversing the letter order when I send a post to the list), for the rest of this post I will write these two possibilities as $WR vs. CWR (even though it would be more appropriate to write S/$WR vs. CWR, with sin vs. shin, in addition to sin vs. ssade, being issues that will be important in my next post concerning cuneiform).]
If the received text is correct that $WR was intended, then the result is absurd. Just after Abraham has been told for the second time that old Sarah will finally bear Isaac as Abraham’s proper heir within the next 12 months, Abraham allegedly picks that moment to begin sojourning, idiotically, in the Sinai and Negev Deserts, for the only time in his life. Per my prior post, all agree that $WR (or SWR) means “Egypt” (or possibly “the northeastern border of Egypt”). In that context, QD$ would of necessity mean Kadesh-Barnea, located on the border between the Sinai Desert and the Negev Desert. NGB would then of course mean the Negev Desert. GRR makes no linguistic sense on this view, but by implication GRR is universally viewed as allegedly intending to represent some unknown place in the general vicinity of Gaza. Because 100% of analysts have adopted this interpretation of Genesis 20: 1, no one seems to realize how ridiculous it is on the substantive merits. The l-a-s-t place that Abraham would go, immediately prior to Isaac’s birth, is the Sinai Desert – Negev Desert area! That area was so rugged and dry in the Late Bronze Age that tent dwellers herding sheep and goats could not live there.
Although oddly not focusing on the obvious absurdity of Abraham choosing to go to and/or sojourn in the Sinai Desert, scholars readily acknowledge that the universal view of Genesis 20: 1 makes no sense, since GRR/Gaza is viewed as being located a great distance north of both $WR/the border of Egypt/Sinai Desert and QD$/Kadesh-Barnea, so that it would be impossible to sojourn in GRR between $WR and QD$:
“The received verse division [of Genesis 20: 1] causes trouble, at least on the surface. It suggests that to be settled between Kadesh and Shur was the same thing as sojourning in Gerar [which is precisely my own view, as set forth below]. By taking 1c as a temporal protasis to vs. 2, we obtain a statement that is immediately clear: in the Negeb, Abraham ranged with his herds from Kadesh to Shur; in the course of that stay, he paid a visit to Gerar [meaning that Abraham idiotically spent most of his time in or near the forbidding Sinai Desert/Shur, only “pa[ying] a visit to Gerar”/Gaza(!); such heroic attempt by Speiser to reinterpret what Genesis 20: 1 obviously says is explicitly refuted by Genesis 21: 34, which explicitly reports that far from merely “pay[ing] a visit to Gerar” to see Abimelek where, per Genesis 20: 2, Abimelek is “king of Gerar” and per Genesis 26: 1 Abimelek is “king of the Philistines”: “And Abraham sojourned in the Philistines' land [very near Abimelek] many days.”]. This natural [!] interpretation has the added advantage of automatically clearing up a geographic problem, since Gerar (near Gaza) does not fit readily ‘between Kadesh and Shur’.” E.A Speiser, “The Anchor Bible Genesis” (1962), p. 148.
Note how the received text of Genesis 20: 1 has to be tortured to try to forcefit the universally-held views of the geographical references therein. As is so often the case for the issues I raise concerning the Patriarchal narratives, both of the following are equally true: (i) today’s scholars unanimously hold a position; yet (ii) today’s scholars nevertheless readily acknowledge that such position, though unanimously-held, has terrible weaknesses that make it virtually untenable.
Now consider how Genesis 20: 1 would be interpreted if, contra the unanimous received opinion of such verse, what was intended there was not $WR (which is what the received text has), but rather was CWR (my view). As all would agree, CWR is the expected spelling of “Tyre”, located on the far northwest corner of Upper Galilee (whose princeling ruler in Year 13, per the Amarna Letters, was Abimelek, just as in the Patriarchal narratives, with Abimelek being the only person in either the Bible or the Amarna Letters who frets about contested access to valuable water wells). If CWR/Tyre was the intended reference, that would then mean that QD$ is not Kadesh-Barnea in the Sinai Desert, but rather must be one of the several places called QD$ located in Galilee, most likely the QD$ that was later called Kadesh-Naphtali in eastern Upper Galilee. GRR now makes perfect sense as Gariree, with GRR being a Late Bronze Age variant of Galilee/GLYL, per KRR as item #80 on the Thutmose III mid-15th century BCE list of places in Canaan (where per the spelling of “Megiddo” at item #2 on such list, we know that Egyptian K maps to Hebrew gimel/G). NGB must in turn then be an abbreviated reference to the city of Adami-NGB in eastern Lower Galilee, with such NGB also appearing on the T III list (as item #57). If the intended spelling was CWR (not $WR as heretofore universally supposed), then Genesis 20: 1 is saying that Abraham first made a beeline for Tyre in the northwest corner of Upper Galilee, and then sojourned in Galilee between Tyre in northwest Upper Galilee and Kadesh-Naphtali in eastern Upper Galilee.
Here is my interpretation of Genesis 20: 1 (using KJV nomenclature, except changing all the geographical references per the foregoing analysis):
“And Abraham journeyed from thence [Bethel, north] toward [and past] Adami-NGB [in eastern Lower Galilee], and dwelled between Kadesh-Naphtali [in eastern Upper Galilee] and Tyre [in northwestern Upper Galilee], and sojourned in Galilee.”
Note how naturally Genesis 20: 1 reads if the $WR in the received text is viewed as being a mistake for CWR (my view), as opposed to the tortured reading of Genesis 20: 1 by Speiser above. Sojourning in GRR/Galilee is indeed sojourning between QD$ [Kadesh-Naphtali in eastern Upper Galilee] and CWR [Tyre in northwestern Upper Galilee], precisely as the Hebrew text reads. On a more practical level, the rolling hills of western Upper Galilee near CWR/“Tyre” were just as attractive a place for tent dwellers herding sheep and goats as was Hebron in southern Canaan, completely unlike the Sinai Desert/$WR, which was too rugged and dry to permit the herding of sheep and goats (at least in the Late Bronze Age).
Abraham gets to faraway Tyre so quickly that there is just enough time for old Sarah to get pregnant when they are at Tyre, with Isaac still being born just before Abraham turns age 101 shaneh (which by the way in context must be 101 “turns of the year”, being the archaic meaning of shaneh that is found in several places in the Bible, that is, 101 spring and fall harvest festivals/New Years; Abraham is thus age 50 in 12-month years, and Sarah is the reasonable age of 45 years in 12-month years when she semi-miraculously bears Isaac in old age [by the standards of the ancient world]).
Abraham, you see, has to endure and pass one last test, before YHWH grants Abraham and old Sarah the divine gift of fertility, and Abraham is divinely anointed as Hebrew Patriarch #1. That final test is to be willing to stomach the outside chance that Abimelek, whose name might possibly mean “[human] Father of the King”, could possibly be the biological father of Isaac. Abraham must trust YHWH that such is not the case (and in fact Abimelek never touches old Sarah), even though absent divine faith Abraham could not be absolutely 100% sure that Abraham, rather than Abimelek, was the biological father of Isaac.
Thus all aspects of Genesis 20: 1 make complete sense, on all levels, if and only if the $WR that we see in the received text is a mistake for CWR (per an ambiguous cuneiform sign, as will be discussed in detail in a later post), with CWR being what was originally intended.
I see the “Shur” at Genesis 20: 1 as being a completely different place, having a different name with a different spelling, than the “Shur” at Genesis 16: 7; 25: 18. In my view, the “Shur” at Genesis 20: 1 is “Tyre”, whereas the “Shur” at Genesis 16: 7; 25: 18 is, by contrast (per my prior posts on this thread), an apt Patriarchal nickname for “Egypt”. The intended reference at Genesis 20: 1 was to CWR, not to $WR. The intended reference at Genesis 16: 7; 25: 18 was to SWR [sA wa ra], not to $WR. Though for different reasons in each place (and contra the title of this very thread), the KJV transliteration of “Shur” turns out to be wrong in both places!
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
שור = cuneiform mistake for the intended צור = cu-ur-ri = “Tyre”
A. Non-Linguistic Analysis
As will be discussed in a later post (but not this post), the cuneiform rendering of “Tyre” is ambiguous as to whether the initial sibilant is sin/S or ssade/C. So if the Patriarchal narratives started out as a cuneiform text in the Late Bronze Age (my view), it would be exceedingly easy to get שור and צור mixed up.
In this post, however, what will be discussed is the non-linguistic issue of which set of Hebrew letters would make more sense at Genesis 20: 1: שור or צור? [Because my computer has a terrible time handling Hebrew letters (in particular often, but entirely unpredictably, reversing the letter order when I send a post to the list), for the rest of this post I will write these two possibilities as $WR vs. CWR (even though it would be more appropriate to write S/$WR vs. CWR, with sin vs. shin, in addition to sin vs. ssade, being issues that will be important in my next post concerning cuneiform).]
If the received text is correct that $WR was intended, then the result is absurd. Just after Abraham has been told for the second time that old Sarah will finally bear Isaac as Abraham’s proper heir within the next 12 months, Abraham allegedly picks that moment to begin sojourning, idiotically, in the Sinai and Negev Deserts, for the only time in his life. Per my prior post, all agree that $WR (or SWR) means “Egypt” (or possibly “the northeastern border of Egypt”). In that context, QD$ would of necessity mean Kadesh-Barnea, located on the border between the Sinai Desert and the Negev Desert. NGB would then of course mean the Negev Desert. GRR makes no linguistic sense on this view, but by implication GRR is universally viewed as allegedly intending to represent some unknown place in the general vicinity of Gaza. Because 100% of analysts have adopted this interpretation of Genesis 20: 1, no one seems to realize how ridiculous it is on the substantive merits. The l-a-s-t place that Abraham would go, immediately prior to Isaac’s birth, is the Sinai Desert – Negev Desert area! That area was so rugged and dry in the Late Bronze Age that tent dwellers herding sheep and goats could not live there.
Although oddly not focusing on the obvious absurdity of Abraham choosing to go to and/or sojourn in the Sinai Desert, scholars readily acknowledge that the universal view of Genesis 20: 1 makes no sense, since GRR/Gaza is viewed as being located a great distance north of both $WR/the border of Egypt/Sinai Desert and QD$/Kadesh-Barnea, so that it would be impossible to sojourn in GRR between $WR and QD$:
“The received verse division [of Genesis 20: 1] causes trouble, at least on the surface. It suggests that to be settled between Kadesh and Shur was the same thing as sojourning in Gerar [which is precisely my own view, as set forth below]. By taking 1c as a temporal protasis to vs. 2, we obtain a statement that is immediately clear: in the Negeb, Abraham ranged with his herds from Kadesh to Shur; in the course of that stay, he paid a visit to Gerar [meaning that Abraham idiotically spent most of his time in or near the forbidding Sinai Desert/Shur, only “pa[ying] a visit to Gerar”/Gaza(!); such heroic attempt by Speiser to reinterpret what Genesis 20: 1 obviously says is explicitly refuted by Genesis 21: 34, which explicitly reports that far from merely “pay[ing] a visit to Gerar” to see Abimelek where, per Genesis 20: 2, Abimelek is “king of Gerar” and per Genesis 26: 1 Abimelek is “king of the Philistines”: “And Abraham sojourned in the Philistines' land [very near Abimelek] many days.”]. This natural [!] interpretation has the added advantage of automatically clearing up a geographic problem, since Gerar (near Gaza) does not fit readily ‘between Kadesh and Shur’.” E.A Speiser, “The Anchor Bible Genesis” (1962), p. 148.
Note how the received text of Genesis 20: 1 has to be tortured to try to forcefit the universally-held views of the geographical references therein. As is so often the case for the issues I raise concerning the Patriarchal narratives, both of the following are equally true: (i) today’s scholars unanimously hold a position; yet (ii) today’s scholars nevertheless readily acknowledge that such position, though unanimously-held, has terrible weaknesses that make it virtually untenable.
Now consider how Genesis 20: 1 would be interpreted if, contra the unanimous received opinion of such verse, what was intended there was not $WR (which is what the received text has), but rather was CWR (my view). As all would agree, CWR is the expected spelling of “Tyre”, located on the far northwest corner of Upper Galilee (whose princeling ruler in Year 13, per the Amarna Letters, was Abimelek, just as in the Patriarchal narratives, with Abimelek being the only person in either the Bible or the Amarna Letters who frets about contested access to valuable water wells). If CWR/Tyre was the intended reference, that would then mean that QD$ is not Kadesh-Barnea in the Sinai Desert, but rather must be one of the several places called QD$ located in Galilee, most likely the QD$ that was later called Kadesh-Naphtali in eastern Upper Galilee. GRR now makes perfect sense as Gariree, with GRR being a Late Bronze Age variant of Galilee/GLYL, per KRR as item #80 on the Thutmose III mid-15th century BCE list of places in Canaan (where per the spelling of “Megiddo” at item #2 on such list, we know that Egyptian K maps to Hebrew gimel/G). NGB must in turn then be an abbreviated reference to the city of Adami-NGB in eastern Lower Galilee, with such NGB also appearing on the T III list (as item #57). If the intended spelling was CWR (not $WR as heretofore universally supposed), then Genesis 20: 1 is saying that Abraham first made a beeline for Tyre in the northwest corner of Upper Galilee, and then sojourned in Galilee between Tyre in northwest Upper Galilee and Kadesh-Naphtali in eastern Upper Galilee.
Here is my interpretation of Genesis 20: 1 (using KJV nomenclature, except changing all the geographical references per the foregoing analysis):
“And Abraham journeyed from thence [Bethel, north] toward [and past] Adami-NGB [in eastern Lower Galilee], and dwelled between Kadesh-Naphtali [in eastern Upper Galilee] and Tyre [in northwestern Upper Galilee], and sojourned in Galilee.”
Note how naturally Genesis 20: 1 reads if the $WR in the received text is viewed as being a mistake for CWR (my view), as opposed to the tortured reading of Genesis 20: 1 by Speiser above. Sojourning in GRR/Galilee is indeed sojourning between QD$ [Kadesh-Naphtali in eastern Upper Galilee] and CWR [Tyre in northwestern Upper Galilee], precisely as the Hebrew text reads. On a more practical level, the rolling hills of western Upper Galilee near CWR/“Tyre” were just as attractive a place for tent dwellers herding sheep and goats as was Hebron in southern Canaan, completely unlike the Sinai Desert/$WR, which was too rugged and dry to permit the herding of sheep and goats (at least in the Late Bronze Age).
Abraham gets to faraway Tyre so quickly that there is just enough time for old Sarah to get pregnant when they are at Tyre, with Isaac still being born just before Abraham turns age 101 shaneh (which by the way in context must be 101 “turns of the year”, being the archaic meaning of shaneh that is found in several places in the Bible, that is, 101 spring and fall harvest festivals/New Years; Abraham is thus age 50 in 12-month years, and Sarah is the reasonable age of 45 years in 12-month years when she semi-miraculously bears Isaac in old age [by the standards of the ancient world]).
Abraham, you see, has to endure and pass one last test, before YHWH grants Abraham and old Sarah the divine gift of fertility, and Abraham is divinely anointed as Hebrew Patriarch #1. That final test is to be willing to stomach the outside chance that Abimelek, whose name might possibly mean “[human] Father of the King”, could possibly be the biological father of Isaac. Abraham must trust YHWH that such is not the case (and in fact Abimelek never touches old Sarah), even though absent divine faith Abraham could not be absolutely 100% sure that Abraham, rather than Abimelek, was the biological father of Isaac.
Thus all aspects of Genesis 20: 1 make complete sense, on all levels, if and only if the $WR that we see in the received text is a mistake for CWR (per an ambiguous cuneiform sign, as will be discussed in detail in a later post), with CWR being what was originally intended.
I see the “Shur” at Genesis 20: 1 as being a completely different place, having a different name with a different spelling, than the “Shur” at Genesis 16: 7; 25: 18. In my view, the “Shur” at Genesis 20: 1 is “Tyre”, whereas the “Shur” at Genesis 16: 7; 25: 18 is, by contrast (per my prior posts on this thread), an apt Patriarchal nickname for “Egypt”. The intended reference at Genesis 20: 1 was to CWR, not to $WR. The intended reference at Genesis 16: 7; 25: 18 was to SWR [sA wa ra], not to $WR. Though for different reasons in each place (and contra the title of this very thread), the KJV transliteration of “Shur” turns out to be wrong in both places!
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
-
Isaac Fried
- Posts: 1783
- Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 8:32 pm
Re: "Shur"
1. I think that the geography of the ancients was restricted to what they saw around them. It is hard to imagine the ancients characterizing an entire country the size of Egypt. A man standing on a bank of the Nile and observing the two narrow צרים, fertile, strips extending along the river would conceivably characterize the land as מצרים, 'the narrows, the straits'
2. The Sinai peninsula is flat along the mediterranean coast. Some years ago I took a bus trip from Tel Aviv to Cairo to see the pyramids, and as far as I can remember we went most of the route (דרך שוּר?) through a dusty and arid plane. What caught my attention in this desolate landscape were the open barrels thoughtfully placed every few miles along the route and periodically filled with water by a tanker making the arounds for the benefit of of the local Bedouins roaming this thirsty desert.
3. You are right in saying that שׁוּר may mean 'even, spread-out', as well as 'straight'; it may mean 'a plane', or it may mean 'a line'. Today, [tbody]שוּרה[/tbody] (Job 24:11) is commonly used for an arrangement in a line. טוּר is 'series', and תוֹר is 'queue', as in עוֹמד בתוֹר 'standing in line'. שׁיר is 'song', being a linear string of evocative words. All coming from דוּר זוּר סוּר and צוּר, 'spread, collect'.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
2. The Sinai peninsula is flat along the mediterranean coast. Some years ago I took a bus trip from Tel Aviv to Cairo to see the pyramids, and as far as I can remember we went most of the route (דרך שוּר?) through a dusty and arid plane. What caught my attention in this desolate landscape were the open barrels thoughtfully placed every few miles along the route and periodically filled with water by a tanker making the arounds for the benefit of of the local Bedouins roaming this thirsty desert.
3. You are right in saying that שׁוּר may mean 'even, spread-out', as well as 'straight'; it may mean 'a plane', or it may mean 'a line'. Today, [tbody]שוּרה[/tbody] (Job 24:11) is commonly used for an arrangement in a line. טוּר is 'series', and תוֹר is 'queue', as in עוֹמד בתוֹר 'standing in line'. שׁיר is 'song', being a linear string of evocative words. All coming from דוּר זוּר סוּר and צוּר, 'spread, collect'.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
-
Isaac Fried
- Posts: 1783
- Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 8:32 pm
Re: "Shur"
Seems to me that it is unrealistic to think that Abraham would have descended with his flocks and herds into the teeming city of צוֹר Tyre, on the Mediterranean Sea, in what is now Lebanon. He and his incomparably beautiful wife would not have lasted there, among the teeming multitudes not one single day.
Rather, Abraham appears to have prefered the relative safety of the, semi arid, sparsely populated, not easily accessible, highlands to the south of Jerusalem.
Later he descended into the southern desert by באר שבע, where he came in contact with the margin of the plain population, who first thing to do was to confiscated his wife. His stint to Egyptian territory ended in a similar fiasco, and he returned to the desert and then to Hebron.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
Rather, Abraham appears to have prefered the relative safety of the, semi arid, sparsely populated, not easily accessible, highlands to the south of Jerusalem.
Later he descended into the southern desert by באר שבע, where he came in contact with the margin of the plain population, who first thing to do was to confiscated his wife. His stint to Egyptian territory ended in a similar fiasco, and he returned to the desert and then to Hebron.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
-
Jim Stinehart
- Posts: 352
- Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 11:33 am
Re: "Shur"
Isaac Fried:
1. You wrote: “Seems to me that it is unrealistic to think that Abraham would have descended with his flocks and herds into the teeming city of צוֹר Tyre, on the Mediterranean Sea, in what is now Lebanon. He and his incomparably beautiful wife would not have lasted there, among the teeming multitudes not one single day.”
I agree that Abraham and Sarah would not live in the city proper of Tyre, that’s for sure. But it would make all the sense in the world for them to start out living within eyesight of the island city of Tyre in the far northwest corner of Upper Galilee, and then gradually move south along the coast of western Upper Galilee (as referred to later at Genesis 26: 18-22), building water well after water well in the very best part of Canaan in which to dig water wells (near the coast of western Upper Galilee, as Israeli geologists wisely determined shortly after the birth of the modern state of Israel).
Then, just as Abraham’s family reached what in the Bronze Age was the huge forest that at that time separated Upper Galilee from Lower Galilee (which huge forest has sadly disappeared entirely today), they would logically have turned east and “gone up”/עלה to Beersheba of Galilee (not the more famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert) to build their final water well, “up” in the foothills (which is why Isaac later, following his father’s exact footsteps as it were, had to “go up”/עלה to get to that Beersheba, that is Beersheba of Galilee, at Genesis 26: 23).
The rolling hills of Upper Galilee are in fact ideal for tent-dwelling herders of sheep and goats. Everything makes logical sense.
Besides, consider that Lot’s provisional claim to the northern two-thirds of Canaan (having provisionally been granted to Lot by Abram, but definitely being subject to subsequently being overridden by YHWH) had just now (in the immediately preceding chapter) been definitively revoked by YHWH, with the destruction of Lot’s Sodom located in the Jezreel Valley. So Abraham was now extremely anxious to skedaddle to the far northwest corner of Upper Galilee to perfect his divine claim to a-l-l of Canaan, including (but not limited to) the fine, lush Jezreel Valley from which Lot had just now been divinely expelled, and all of loverly Galilee as well, with its verdant, gracious rolling hills. There’s no way that Abraham would waste his time trying to eke out a hardscrabble existence in a desert! He’s got God on his side regarding a divinely-based claim to a-l-l of Canaan, and 318 armed men to boot (Genesis 14: 14), so why should Abraham settle for living in a desert, when all the lovely, attractive parts of Canaan were right there before him, at his divine disposal?
[The only natural reading of Genesis 13: 9 is that Lot chose the greater Jordan River Valley, specifically including the lush Jezreel Valley (which contains the main tributary to the Jordan River), n-o-r-t-h of Bethel, as Lot’s share of Canaan. Lot then duly proceeded to go there by first going straight east of Bethel to the Jordan River Valley, where by dipping his foot into the Jordan River Lot thereby laid claim to all of the greater Jordan River Valley (including the Jezreel Valley), and by implication all of Canaan north of Bethel. At the Jordan River east of Bethel, Lot then turned north (not south) to proceed north along the Jordan River until he got to the lush Jezreel Valley, where Lot could enjoy the soft life of living in rich cities. Per Genesis 13: 9, Abram of course went the opposite direction, to sojourn south of Bethel (where as always Abram, unlike Lot, righteously remained living modestly in tents).]
In a word, e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g makes perfect sense on that view of the case.
But it would make no sense for Abraham to idiotically choose to begin wandering in the foreboding Sinai Desert and the unattractive Negev Desert for the first time, at the very moment when YHWH has just now promised for the second time that old Sarah will bear the long-awaited Isaac as Abraham’s proper heir within 12 months from now. Not. That simply makes no logical sense, no matter how universally each and every university scholar fervently embraces that traditional view of the underlying geography of the Patriarchal narratives.
2. You wrote: “Rather, Abraham appears to have preferred the relative safety of the, semi arid, sparsely populated, not easily accessible, highlands to the south of Jerusalem.”
Though that traditional view is universally shared by 100% of university scholars, ask yourself this question. If you, like Abram at Genesis 14: 14, were a tent-dwelling herder of sheep and goats who had 318 armed men at your beck and call, and also had God on your side, would you decline to live in the nirvana pastureland of the largely-deserted northern two-thirds of the Ayalon Valley, and instead choose to live with your 318 armed men in “the relative safety of the semi-arid, sparsely populated, not easily accessible, highlands to the south of Jerusalem”? Does that make logical sense? Moreover, note that on three separate occasions, at Genesis 13: 18; 14: 13; 18: 1, the text e-x-p-l-i-c-i-t-l-y says that the Patriarchs’ “Hebron” was located at “Ayalon” [with the אלן that we see there being the ancient, defective spelling of “Ayalon”]. No matter how many times, and how unanimously, all university scholars s-a-y that the אלן we see at Genesis 13: 18; 14: 13; 18: 1 allegedly is not the defective spelling of “Ayalon”, that don’t make it so.
Furthermore, please consider the Biblical Hebrew nomenclature used here (your long suit). As you doubtless are well aware, the “highlands to the south of Jerusalem”, when referenced anywhere else in the Bible, almost invariably, and not at all surprisingly, use the nomenclature of “hill/mountain”/הר and “going up”/עלה, and do n-o-t use the nomenclature “valley”/עמק. But when it comes to the Patriarchs’ “Hebron”, note that the reference there, by stark contrast, is to a “valley”/עמק (Genesis 37: 14), and most tellingly, the Patriarchs’ “Hebron” is n-e-v-e-r linked in the Patriarchal narratives with either “hill/mountain”/הר or “going up”/עלה! Yes, university scholars unanimously try to reassure us that not to worry, surely each one of the allegedly multiple authors of the Patriarchal narratives allegedly simply “forgot” in 40 chapters of text to ever mention at any point, in passing or otherwise, that the Patriarchs “go up”/ עלה to the “hill/mountain”/ הר of the high elevation spot in the “highlands to the south of Jerusalem” where the Patriarchs’ “Hebron” is allegedly located. But should we trust that fact-free unanimous scholarly view? Honestly, is that more likely than my own view that although the Patriarchs’ “Hebron” and King David’s first capital city also called “Hebron” share the same n-a-m-e , nevertheless prior to the 6th century BCE final editing of the Hebrew Bible, no earlier Biblical author ever thought of the Patriarchs’ “Hebron” and King David’s first capital city also called “Hebron” as being located anywhere in the same general vicinity, much less as being one and the same place?
3. You wrote: “Later he descended into the southern desert by באר שבע, where he came in contact with the margin of the plain population, who first thing to do was to confiscated his wife.”
No, that Beersheba is Beersheba of Galilee, not the more famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert. Although it is true that the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert is located at an ever-so-slightly higher elevation than Gaza, nevertheless the ultra-gradual increase in elevation in height as one travels s-o-u-t-h from Gaza to the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert would not be expected to be characterized in Biblical Hebrew as “going up”/ עלה to such Beersheba in the Negev Desert. By sharp contrast, starting from the west coast of Upper Galilee after building a long string of wells there, if one then turned east and “went up” into the foothills of the mountains of western Upper Galilee to the Beersheba of Galilee located at the boundary between Upper and Lower Galilee, per Genesis 26: 23 cited above, the marked increase in elevation is so notable that naturally Biblical Hebrew would describe “going up” into such foothills as עלה.
Consider now I Kings 19: 3, where Elijah is reported to run 100 miles from Jezreel to the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert. Though we are not told Elijah’s itinerary, we know that based on well-established trade routes, by far the fastest way to make that trip would be to proceed south and southwest down the west coast of Canaan to Gaza, and then from just south of Gaza to turn south by southeast to go to Beersheba of Galilee. If so, which seems logical, then the final leg of Elijah’s long trip would have been identical to the traditional view of the path Abraham allegedly took in going from גרר [“Gerar”], which is traditionally (though erroneously) thought to have been located near Gaza, to the Beersheba that is traditionally (though erroneously) thought to be the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert. Now look at the Hebrew verb that is used at I Kings 19: 3. Elijah does not “go up”/עלה to the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert, when proceeding south to there from Gaza. No way. Rather, just as one would expect (using normal Hebrew wording), Elijah is said to “go”/בוא to the Beersheba in the Negev Desert.
Thus whereas one would “go up”/ עלה to the Beersheba in Galilee if one started from the west coast of the southwest corner of Upper Galilee, going from the low-lying coastal area to the much higher elevation foothills of western Upper Galilee, just as surely one would simply “go”/ בוא to the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert, if one went there from any site near Gaza, as there is only an imperceptibly slight rise in elevation level as one proceeds south from Gaza. Isaac Fried, the language of Biblical Hebrew is your long suit. Do you see the linguistic argument I am making here? Do you find it convincing? Excluding Genesis 26: 23 that we are examining here, it’s clear that nowhere else in the Bible is anyone ever said to “go up”/ עלה to the famous Beersheba located in the Negev Desert, which lies at the bottom of a basin, and is at only an imperceptibly higher elevation than the coast of Canaan.
4. You wrote: “His stint to Egyptian territory ended in a similar fiasco, and he returned to the desert and then to Hebron.”
Abraham was too smart and powerful ever to consider idiotically sojourning in the desert. Not. Yes, he had to pass through the desert in going to and from Egypt, but Abraham never sojourned in the desert. True, “he returned…to Hebron”. But the Patriarchs’ “Hebron” was located in the sparsely-populated, nirvana pastureland of the northern Ayalon Valley (which was too dry in the Late Bronze Age to support peasant farming), not in the more marginal hill country south of Jerusalem as ordinarily supposed.
Isaac Fried, I am well aware that you have 100% of university scholars on your side as to all of the above issues. But on my controversial view of the case, university scholars will never appreciate the great antiquity, or spectacular historical accuracy in a Bronze Age context, of the truly ancient Patriarchal narratives as long as they unanimously repeat the traditional, clearly-erroneous geographical misconceptions of the traditional view of the underlying geography of the Patriarchal narratives.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
1. You wrote: “Seems to me that it is unrealistic to think that Abraham would have descended with his flocks and herds into the teeming city of צוֹר Tyre, on the Mediterranean Sea, in what is now Lebanon. He and his incomparably beautiful wife would not have lasted there, among the teeming multitudes not one single day.”
I agree that Abraham and Sarah would not live in the city proper of Tyre, that’s for sure. But it would make all the sense in the world for them to start out living within eyesight of the island city of Tyre in the far northwest corner of Upper Galilee, and then gradually move south along the coast of western Upper Galilee (as referred to later at Genesis 26: 18-22), building water well after water well in the very best part of Canaan in which to dig water wells (near the coast of western Upper Galilee, as Israeli geologists wisely determined shortly after the birth of the modern state of Israel).
Then, just as Abraham’s family reached what in the Bronze Age was the huge forest that at that time separated Upper Galilee from Lower Galilee (which huge forest has sadly disappeared entirely today), they would logically have turned east and “gone up”/עלה to Beersheba of Galilee (not the more famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert) to build their final water well, “up” in the foothills (which is why Isaac later, following his father’s exact footsteps as it were, had to “go up”/עלה to get to that Beersheba, that is Beersheba of Galilee, at Genesis 26: 23).
The rolling hills of Upper Galilee are in fact ideal for tent-dwelling herders of sheep and goats. Everything makes logical sense.
Besides, consider that Lot’s provisional claim to the northern two-thirds of Canaan (having provisionally been granted to Lot by Abram, but definitely being subject to subsequently being overridden by YHWH) had just now (in the immediately preceding chapter) been definitively revoked by YHWH, with the destruction of Lot’s Sodom located in the Jezreel Valley. So Abraham was now extremely anxious to skedaddle to the far northwest corner of Upper Galilee to perfect his divine claim to a-l-l of Canaan, including (but not limited to) the fine, lush Jezreel Valley from which Lot had just now been divinely expelled, and all of loverly Galilee as well, with its verdant, gracious rolling hills. There’s no way that Abraham would waste his time trying to eke out a hardscrabble existence in a desert! He’s got God on his side regarding a divinely-based claim to a-l-l of Canaan, and 318 armed men to boot (Genesis 14: 14), so why should Abraham settle for living in a desert, when all the lovely, attractive parts of Canaan were right there before him, at his divine disposal?
[The only natural reading of Genesis 13: 9 is that Lot chose the greater Jordan River Valley, specifically including the lush Jezreel Valley (which contains the main tributary to the Jordan River), n-o-r-t-h of Bethel, as Lot’s share of Canaan. Lot then duly proceeded to go there by first going straight east of Bethel to the Jordan River Valley, where by dipping his foot into the Jordan River Lot thereby laid claim to all of the greater Jordan River Valley (including the Jezreel Valley), and by implication all of Canaan north of Bethel. At the Jordan River east of Bethel, Lot then turned north (not south) to proceed north along the Jordan River until he got to the lush Jezreel Valley, where Lot could enjoy the soft life of living in rich cities. Per Genesis 13: 9, Abram of course went the opposite direction, to sojourn south of Bethel (where as always Abram, unlike Lot, righteously remained living modestly in tents).]
In a word, e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g makes perfect sense on that view of the case.
But it would make no sense for Abraham to idiotically choose to begin wandering in the foreboding Sinai Desert and the unattractive Negev Desert for the first time, at the very moment when YHWH has just now promised for the second time that old Sarah will bear the long-awaited Isaac as Abraham’s proper heir within 12 months from now. Not. That simply makes no logical sense, no matter how universally each and every university scholar fervently embraces that traditional view of the underlying geography of the Patriarchal narratives.
2. You wrote: “Rather, Abraham appears to have preferred the relative safety of the, semi arid, sparsely populated, not easily accessible, highlands to the south of Jerusalem.”
Though that traditional view is universally shared by 100% of university scholars, ask yourself this question. If you, like Abram at Genesis 14: 14, were a tent-dwelling herder of sheep and goats who had 318 armed men at your beck and call, and also had God on your side, would you decline to live in the nirvana pastureland of the largely-deserted northern two-thirds of the Ayalon Valley, and instead choose to live with your 318 armed men in “the relative safety of the semi-arid, sparsely populated, not easily accessible, highlands to the south of Jerusalem”? Does that make logical sense? Moreover, note that on three separate occasions, at Genesis 13: 18; 14: 13; 18: 1, the text e-x-p-l-i-c-i-t-l-y says that the Patriarchs’ “Hebron” was located at “Ayalon” [with the אלן that we see there being the ancient, defective spelling of “Ayalon”]. No matter how many times, and how unanimously, all university scholars s-a-y that the אלן we see at Genesis 13: 18; 14: 13; 18: 1 allegedly is not the defective spelling of “Ayalon”, that don’t make it so.
Furthermore, please consider the Biblical Hebrew nomenclature used here (your long suit). As you doubtless are well aware, the “highlands to the south of Jerusalem”, when referenced anywhere else in the Bible, almost invariably, and not at all surprisingly, use the nomenclature of “hill/mountain”/הר and “going up”/עלה, and do n-o-t use the nomenclature “valley”/עמק. But when it comes to the Patriarchs’ “Hebron”, note that the reference there, by stark contrast, is to a “valley”/עמק (Genesis 37: 14), and most tellingly, the Patriarchs’ “Hebron” is n-e-v-e-r linked in the Patriarchal narratives with either “hill/mountain”/הר or “going up”/עלה! Yes, university scholars unanimously try to reassure us that not to worry, surely each one of the allegedly multiple authors of the Patriarchal narratives allegedly simply “forgot” in 40 chapters of text to ever mention at any point, in passing or otherwise, that the Patriarchs “go up”/ עלה to the “hill/mountain”/ הר of the high elevation spot in the “highlands to the south of Jerusalem” where the Patriarchs’ “Hebron” is allegedly located. But should we trust that fact-free unanimous scholarly view? Honestly, is that more likely than my own view that although the Patriarchs’ “Hebron” and King David’s first capital city also called “Hebron” share the same n-a-m-e , nevertheless prior to the 6th century BCE final editing of the Hebrew Bible, no earlier Biblical author ever thought of the Patriarchs’ “Hebron” and King David’s first capital city also called “Hebron” as being located anywhere in the same general vicinity, much less as being one and the same place?
3. You wrote: “Later he descended into the southern desert by באר שבע, where he came in contact with the margin of the plain population, who first thing to do was to confiscated his wife.”
No, that Beersheba is Beersheba of Galilee, not the more famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert. Although it is true that the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert is located at an ever-so-slightly higher elevation than Gaza, nevertheless the ultra-gradual increase in elevation in height as one travels s-o-u-t-h from Gaza to the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert would not be expected to be characterized in Biblical Hebrew as “going up”/ עלה to such Beersheba in the Negev Desert. By sharp contrast, starting from the west coast of Upper Galilee after building a long string of wells there, if one then turned east and “went up” into the foothills of the mountains of western Upper Galilee to the Beersheba of Galilee located at the boundary between Upper and Lower Galilee, per Genesis 26: 23 cited above, the marked increase in elevation is so notable that naturally Biblical Hebrew would describe “going up” into such foothills as עלה.
Consider now I Kings 19: 3, where Elijah is reported to run 100 miles from Jezreel to the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert. Though we are not told Elijah’s itinerary, we know that based on well-established trade routes, by far the fastest way to make that trip would be to proceed south and southwest down the west coast of Canaan to Gaza, and then from just south of Gaza to turn south by southeast to go to Beersheba of Galilee. If so, which seems logical, then the final leg of Elijah’s long trip would have been identical to the traditional view of the path Abraham allegedly took in going from גרר [“Gerar”], which is traditionally (though erroneously) thought to have been located near Gaza, to the Beersheba that is traditionally (though erroneously) thought to be the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert. Now look at the Hebrew verb that is used at I Kings 19: 3. Elijah does not “go up”/עלה to the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert, when proceeding south to there from Gaza. No way. Rather, just as one would expect (using normal Hebrew wording), Elijah is said to “go”/בוא to the Beersheba in the Negev Desert.
Thus whereas one would “go up”/ עלה to the Beersheba in Galilee if one started from the west coast of the southwest corner of Upper Galilee, going from the low-lying coastal area to the much higher elevation foothills of western Upper Galilee, just as surely one would simply “go”/ בוא to the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert, if one went there from any site near Gaza, as there is only an imperceptibly slight rise in elevation level as one proceeds south from Gaza. Isaac Fried, the language of Biblical Hebrew is your long suit. Do you see the linguistic argument I am making here? Do you find it convincing? Excluding Genesis 26: 23 that we are examining here, it’s clear that nowhere else in the Bible is anyone ever said to “go up”/ עלה to the famous Beersheba located in the Negev Desert, which lies at the bottom of a basin, and is at only an imperceptibly higher elevation than the coast of Canaan.
4. You wrote: “His stint to Egyptian territory ended in a similar fiasco, and he returned to the desert and then to Hebron.”
Abraham was too smart and powerful ever to consider idiotically sojourning in the desert. Not. Yes, he had to pass through the desert in going to and from Egypt, but Abraham never sojourned in the desert. True, “he returned…to Hebron”. But the Patriarchs’ “Hebron” was located in the sparsely-populated, nirvana pastureland of the northern Ayalon Valley (which was too dry in the Late Bronze Age to support peasant farming), not in the more marginal hill country south of Jerusalem as ordinarily supposed.
Isaac Fried, I am well aware that you have 100% of university scholars on your side as to all of the above issues. But on my controversial view of the case, university scholars will never appreciate the great antiquity, or spectacular historical accuracy in a Bronze Age context, of the truly ancient Patriarchal narratives as long as they unanimously repeat the traditional, clearly-erroneous geographical misconceptions of the traditional view of the underlying geography of the Patriarchal narratives.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
-
Isaac Fried
- Posts: 1783
- Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 8:32 pm
Re: "Shur"
Just for the glory of Hebrew etymology: It appears to me that מצרים 'Egypt', and צוֹר 'Tyre', are both from צר 'narrow'. Egypt for the cultivated strips along the Nile, and Tyre for the close channel that separated the island from the mainland.
Isaac Fried, Boston University
Isaac Fried, Boston University
-
Jim Stinehart
- Posts: 352
- Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 11:33 am
Re: "Shur"
In a prior post of mine on this thread, we saw that on substantive, non-linguistic grounds, it would make perfect sense for “Shur” at Genesis 20: 1 to be a mistake for an intended צור, meaning “Tyre”, whereas by stark contrast, if the שור [SWR or $WR] that we see in the received text was in fact intended, meaning “Egypt” or “Sinai” or the like, then Genesis 20: 1 makes no logical sense at all.
Let me in this post summarize some of what I said in two of my prior posts on this thread, as important background as to the question of whether Genesis 20: 1 references Tyre (located in the far northwest corner of Upper Galilee).
(i) Immediately after Lot was expelled from Canaan by the divine destruction of Lot’s Sodom (whose geographical location I myself see as being the lush Jezreel Valley, not any locale in the general vicinity of the Dead Sea as ordinarily supposed, per Genesis 13: 9), Abraham left the Patriarchs’ “Hebron” in southern Canaan and made a beeline for Tyre (per my interpretation of Genesis 20: 1 that we are discussing on this thread). One of the reasons for doing that was to perfect Abraham’s divinely-based claim to a-l-l of Canaan, now that YHWH had just now, only one day previously, definitively dispossessed Lot from having any claim to Canaan at all by the divine destruction of Lot’s Sodom. While at Tyre, Abraham interacts with the same “Abimelek” who, by that same name, was the princeling ruler of Tyre in Year 13 of Late Amarna, with Abimelek being the only person in the Bible or the Amarna Letters who was consumed with the issue of contested access to valuable water wells. Then:
(ii) Abraham gradually traveled straight south from Tyre, moving south along the coastline of western Upper Galilee, and just slightly inward from the coast digging well after well (an itinerary and activity that we learn later in chapter 26 of Genesis when Isaac literally re-traces the footsteps of his father Abraham). This itinerary for this activity is largely confirmed by the notable fact that Israeli geologists have confirmed that that particular area is the best place in all of greater Canaan to dig water wells. By sharp contrast, in the area near the famous Beersheba of the Negev Desert, such Beersheba is so famous and important precisely because there is no other place in that general vicinity where permanent wells can be dug. Thus Abraham digging, and Isaac later re-digging, a long series of wells over which Abimelek quarrels greatly with each Patriarch, makes perfect sense in the geographical context of western Upper Galilee, at and near the little-known Beersheba of Galilee, while making no sense at all near the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert. And then:
(iii) When Abraham reached the vast forest which at that time separated Upper Galilee from Lower Galilee (a forest that went out of existence in the 1st millennium BCE), Abraham then logically turned east, and “went up”/עלה into the foothills of the rolling hills/mountains of western Upper Galilee to the little-known Beersheba of Galilee, being a completely different place than the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert. We know that this is the little-known Beersheba in Galilee, rather than the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert, because a generation later Isaac re-traces the exact steps of his father Abraham and “goes up”/עלה to that Beersheba (of Galilee), which is at a much higher elevation than the coast from which each Patriarch had come (Genesis 26: 23). By sharp contrast, the story of Elijah running from Jezreel to the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert largely confirms what we would otherwise expect anyhow -- the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert is at only an imperceptibly higher elevation than the coastline of Canaan north by northwest from the Beersheba in the Negev Desert, so that even if a person went to the Beersheba in the Negev Desert from the coastline north by northwest of there near Gaza (or, for that matter, from any other direction whatsoever, as long as the starting point is anywhere in Canaan [as opposed to a starting point in low-elevation Egypt]), such person would not be said in Hebrew to “go up”/עלה to the Beersheba in the Negev Desert, which is situated in the bottom of a basin. Rather, per I Kings 19: 3, any such person would in Hebrew be said to “go”/בוא to the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert. The Bible never says, not surprisingly, that anyone ever “went up”/עלה to the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert, because geologically and geographically (if the starting point is anywhere in Canaan, not Egypt), that’s a darn impossibility!
(iv) The 6th century BCE II Chronicles 1: 13 made up out of whole cloth the totally false claim that גרר [“Gerar”] is allegedly located near the northeastern border of Egypt. That total falsehood was part of a comprehensive plan in the 6th century BCE that was deftly and cleverly designed (and would prove to be totally successful) to try to re-position the Patriarchs as being, retroactively, southern Hebrews, so that the Patriarchs would then be beloved in post-exilic Jerusalem. In fact, we know from item #80 on the mid-15th century BCE Thutmose III list of places in Canaan that גרר is a dead ringer for the Late Bronze Age name for Galilee, with the older name, vintage the Patriarchal Age, being גרר, whereas the 1st millennium BCE name later became גליל. Or to say the same thing another way using only English, Gariree later became Galilee.
(v) The conventional, traditional geography of the Patriarchal narratives is, unfortunately, accepted by 100% of today’s scholars (including atheistic scholars and Biblical Minimalists and a-l-l other scholars), in addition to being the religious view. It is dead wrong, however, in seeing Abraham and Isaac as allegedly sojourning for many years somewhere in the general vicinity of the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert. What the text actually says, if one is willing to give zero weight to the totally bogus II Chronicles 1: 13 from the 6th century BCE Persian Era period, and also consider (as is the main subject of this thread) that the “Shur” at Genesis 20: 1 may have been an intended reference to Tyre, is that for years Abraham and Isaac sojourned in western Upper Galilee, starting out at Tyre, that is “Shur”, with שור at Genesis 20: 1 being a scribal error for what had originally been intended to be צור, based on the original writing being in cuneiform from the Late Amarna time period. The cuneiform of the Amarna Letters was, as will be explored in some detail in my next post, utterly incapable of distinguishing ש from צ, that is, sin from ssade, and alphabetical Hebrew in turn was unable to distinguish orthographically, in unpointed text, between sin and shin, both of which were always rendered, prior to the Middle Ages, as ש.
Based on researching these various matters for over 15 years now, it is my considered opinion that scholars will never appreciate the truly great antiquity of the Patriarchal narratives, or its spectacular, pinpoint historical accuracy in a Late Bronze Age historical context, until and unless scholars reassess the conventional geographical understanding of the Patriarchal narratives. In my opinion, the original geographical orientation of the Patriarchal narratives was deliberately changed in the 6th century BCE, in a successful attempt by Persian Era editors, mainly by a series of deft (and very short) editorial additions to the Patriarchal narratives [and without making any other changes whatsoever to the sacred text of the Patriarchal narratives], but also on occasion by gratuitous remarks made in their own 6th century BCE compositions (such as II Chronicles), to impose a new, bogus ultra-southerly geographical reorientation of the underlying geography of the Patriarchal narratives. They did this not because they were bad guys, but rather because, on the contrary, they sincerely felt that Judaism might die as a religion unless the Patriarchs became beloved figures, and the only way that would happen in post-exilic Jerusalem (these 6th century BCE authors and editors decided) was to re-position the Patriarchs, retroactively, as allegedly having been southern Hebrews.
With that as background, my next post on this thread will show how easy it would have been for an intended צור to come out, mistakenly, as שור in the received text of Genesis 20: 1.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
Let me in this post summarize some of what I said in two of my prior posts on this thread, as important background as to the question of whether Genesis 20: 1 references Tyre (located in the far northwest corner of Upper Galilee).
(i) Immediately after Lot was expelled from Canaan by the divine destruction of Lot’s Sodom (whose geographical location I myself see as being the lush Jezreel Valley, not any locale in the general vicinity of the Dead Sea as ordinarily supposed, per Genesis 13: 9), Abraham left the Patriarchs’ “Hebron” in southern Canaan and made a beeline for Tyre (per my interpretation of Genesis 20: 1 that we are discussing on this thread). One of the reasons for doing that was to perfect Abraham’s divinely-based claim to a-l-l of Canaan, now that YHWH had just now, only one day previously, definitively dispossessed Lot from having any claim to Canaan at all by the divine destruction of Lot’s Sodom. While at Tyre, Abraham interacts with the same “Abimelek” who, by that same name, was the princeling ruler of Tyre in Year 13 of Late Amarna, with Abimelek being the only person in the Bible or the Amarna Letters who was consumed with the issue of contested access to valuable water wells. Then:
(ii) Abraham gradually traveled straight south from Tyre, moving south along the coastline of western Upper Galilee, and just slightly inward from the coast digging well after well (an itinerary and activity that we learn later in chapter 26 of Genesis when Isaac literally re-traces the footsteps of his father Abraham). This itinerary for this activity is largely confirmed by the notable fact that Israeli geologists have confirmed that that particular area is the best place in all of greater Canaan to dig water wells. By sharp contrast, in the area near the famous Beersheba of the Negev Desert, such Beersheba is so famous and important precisely because there is no other place in that general vicinity where permanent wells can be dug. Thus Abraham digging, and Isaac later re-digging, a long series of wells over which Abimelek quarrels greatly with each Patriarch, makes perfect sense in the geographical context of western Upper Galilee, at and near the little-known Beersheba of Galilee, while making no sense at all near the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert. And then:
(iii) When Abraham reached the vast forest which at that time separated Upper Galilee from Lower Galilee (a forest that went out of existence in the 1st millennium BCE), Abraham then logically turned east, and “went up”/עלה into the foothills of the rolling hills/mountains of western Upper Galilee to the little-known Beersheba of Galilee, being a completely different place than the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert. We know that this is the little-known Beersheba in Galilee, rather than the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert, because a generation later Isaac re-traces the exact steps of his father Abraham and “goes up”/עלה to that Beersheba (of Galilee), which is at a much higher elevation than the coast from which each Patriarch had come (Genesis 26: 23). By sharp contrast, the story of Elijah running from Jezreel to the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert largely confirms what we would otherwise expect anyhow -- the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert is at only an imperceptibly higher elevation than the coastline of Canaan north by northwest from the Beersheba in the Negev Desert, so that even if a person went to the Beersheba in the Negev Desert from the coastline north by northwest of there near Gaza (or, for that matter, from any other direction whatsoever, as long as the starting point is anywhere in Canaan [as opposed to a starting point in low-elevation Egypt]), such person would not be said in Hebrew to “go up”/עלה to the Beersheba in the Negev Desert, which is situated in the bottom of a basin. Rather, per I Kings 19: 3, any such person would in Hebrew be said to “go”/בוא to the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert. The Bible never says, not surprisingly, that anyone ever “went up”/עלה to the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert, because geologically and geographically (if the starting point is anywhere in Canaan, not Egypt), that’s a darn impossibility!
(iv) The 6th century BCE II Chronicles 1: 13 made up out of whole cloth the totally false claim that גרר [“Gerar”] is allegedly located near the northeastern border of Egypt. That total falsehood was part of a comprehensive plan in the 6th century BCE that was deftly and cleverly designed (and would prove to be totally successful) to try to re-position the Patriarchs as being, retroactively, southern Hebrews, so that the Patriarchs would then be beloved in post-exilic Jerusalem. In fact, we know from item #80 on the mid-15th century BCE Thutmose III list of places in Canaan that גרר is a dead ringer for the Late Bronze Age name for Galilee, with the older name, vintage the Patriarchal Age, being גרר, whereas the 1st millennium BCE name later became גליל. Or to say the same thing another way using only English, Gariree later became Galilee.
(v) The conventional, traditional geography of the Patriarchal narratives is, unfortunately, accepted by 100% of today’s scholars (including atheistic scholars and Biblical Minimalists and a-l-l other scholars), in addition to being the religious view. It is dead wrong, however, in seeing Abraham and Isaac as allegedly sojourning for many years somewhere in the general vicinity of the famous Beersheba in the Negev Desert. What the text actually says, if one is willing to give zero weight to the totally bogus II Chronicles 1: 13 from the 6th century BCE Persian Era period, and also consider (as is the main subject of this thread) that the “Shur” at Genesis 20: 1 may have been an intended reference to Tyre, is that for years Abraham and Isaac sojourned in western Upper Galilee, starting out at Tyre, that is “Shur”, with שור at Genesis 20: 1 being a scribal error for what had originally been intended to be צור, based on the original writing being in cuneiform from the Late Amarna time period. The cuneiform of the Amarna Letters was, as will be explored in some detail in my next post, utterly incapable of distinguishing ש from צ, that is, sin from ssade, and alphabetical Hebrew in turn was unable to distinguish orthographically, in unpointed text, between sin and shin, both of which were always rendered, prior to the Middle Ages, as ש.
Based on researching these various matters for over 15 years now, it is my considered opinion that scholars will never appreciate the truly great antiquity of the Patriarchal narratives, or its spectacular, pinpoint historical accuracy in a Late Bronze Age historical context, until and unless scholars reassess the conventional geographical understanding of the Patriarchal narratives. In my opinion, the original geographical orientation of the Patriarchal narratives was deliberately changed in the 6th century BCE, in a successful attempt by Persian Era editors, mainly by a series of deft (and very short) editorial additions to the Patriarchal narratives [and without making any other changes whatsoever to the sacred text of the Patriarchal narratives], but also on occasion by gratuitous remarks made in their own 6th century BCE compositions (such as II Chronicles), to impose a new, bogus ultra-southerly geographical reorientation of the underlying geography of the Patriarchal narratives. They did this not because they were bad guys, but rather because, on the contrary, they sincerely felt that Judaism might die as a religion unless the Patriarchs became beloved figures, and the only way that would happen in post-exilic Jerusalem (these 6th century BCE authors and editors decided) was to re-position the Patriarchs, retroactively, as allegedly having been southern Hebrews.
With that as background, my next post on this thread will show how easy it would have been for an intended צור to come out, mistakenly, as שור in the received text of Genesis 20: 1.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
-
Jim Stinehart
- Posts: 352
- Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 11:33 am
Re: "Shur"
II. “Shur” : שור at Genesis 20: 1
שור = cuneiform mistake for the intended צור = cu-ur-ri = “Tyre”
[By the way, the standard English spelling “Tyre” derives from the Greek, and does not do justice to this truly ancient west Semitic (but non-Hebrew) geographical place name.]
B. Linguistic Analysis
It is my theory of the case that the Patriarchal narratives were a cuneiform text in the Amarna Age (mid-14th century BCE) in Late Amarna. As such, the geographical place name in question here at Genesis 20: 1 (i) would have originally been written in cuneiform in the Amarna Age, using cuneiform signs identical to those used in the Amarna Letters, and (ii) then 700 years later, a Jewish scribe in King Josiah’s Jerusalem in the 7th century BCE transformed the original cuneiform clay tablets into alphabetical Hebrew. So we need to consider both how “Tyre” was pronounced, and would have been written in cuneiform, in the Amarna Age, as well as how a Jewish scribe would likely have reduced such cuneiform writing to alphabetical Hebrew in the 7th century BCE.
The Late Bronze Age pronunciation of “Tyre” was probably 3 syllables, being something like So-ur-ri. (See Revue Biblique, 1908, 511, cited by the Catholic Encyclopedia.) The original sibilant sound in this name already no longer existed, but one standard cuneiform rendering per the Amarna Letters had become ssade, probably as an emphatic sin: cur-ri [where the standard transliteration of the Amarna Letters uses c to render ssade/צ]. But per the cuneiform rendering of the second element in Akhenaten’s name in the Amarna Letters as being (among other alternative spellings) either ḫur [EA 26: 46] or ḫu-ur [EA 9: 1], it is very possible that an alternative cuneiform spelling of “Tyre”/cur-ri as a 3-syllable name could well have been: cu-ur-ri.
It should be noted here that the number of cuneiform signs does not always correspond to the number of syllables that a name had. For example, a peculiarity of p-e-r-s-o-n-a-l names in the Amarna Letters (as opposed to geographical place names as here) is that CVC cuneiform signs are almost never used, even though CVC signs are commonplace in many other cuneiform writings. What was pronounced as CVC, and in other contexts written as CVC, was for personal names in the Amarna Letters oddly almost always written as a CV VC sequence of cuneiform signs. Likewise, a CVC cuneiform sign in some instances was shorthand for a 2-syllable word that was actually pronounced CV VC. So we don’t know if “Tyre” in the Amarna Age was pronounced as a 2-syllable or as a 3-syllable name, but that ambiguity will make little difference in our analysis of how an intended צור could easily come out as שור, whose initial sibilant originally was a sin, but was later mistaken for being a shin (since Hebrew orthography does not distinguish between those two Hebrew phonemes). In fact, since this name שור at Genesis 20: 1 has three Hebrew letters, then given the likelihood that defective spelling applies, on my theory of the case it is highly likely that “Tyre” was pronounced as having three syllables in the Late Bronze Age (though not necessarily in the 1st millennium BCE, as we shall see).
Particularly if the cuneiform spelling of Tyre embodied cu-ur-ri, which is one very likely possibility, then the first syllable, cu-, would very likely have been rendered by cuneiform sign ZU(6) which, very importantly, could represent either cu or su (or zu), that is, either ssade or sin or zayin, followed in each case by the vowel U:
“ZU(6) is the standard [cuneiform] sign [in the Amarna Letters] for /zu/ , /ṣu (ṣú) /, /su (sú)/. …sú-ú[-sí-ma] (EA 256: 9).” Anson F. Rainey, Canaanite in the Amarna Tablets (1995), pp. 19-20.
Thus the original cuneiform version of Genesis 20: 1 may well have used the following cuneiform spelling of “Tyre”: ZU(6) – ur – ri.
It might be noted in passing here that if the scribe who recorded the Patriarchal narratives in cuneiform writing for the first Hebrews was (per my own view of the case) the former scribe of IR-Heba, the Hurrian princeling ruler of Jerusalem in the Amarna Letters, then the situation regarding sibilants may have been even murkier than suggested above:
“The Jerusalem letters are known for their deviant use of the sibilant signs in transcriptions of non-Akkadian words (Cross 1962:245 n. 95; 1973:52-53 n. 36; Moran 1975b:152 and 163 n. 51).” Anson F. Rainey, Canaanite in the Amarna Tablets (1995), p. 16.
No matter how you slice it, there was no clarity as to the identity of the initial sibilant in this geographical place name in the cuneiform original.
If the original cuneiform writing of “Tyre” was ZU(6) – ur – ri, then note that the Jewish scribe in 7th century BCE Jerusalem who was tasked with transforming the Patriarchal narratives from cuneiform tablets into alphabetical Hebrew could easily have mistaken this for su – ur – ri with a sin, even though cu – ur – ri with a ssade had been intended, since ZU(6) could be either su or cu. If understood as su – u[r] – ri, then the Hebrew alphabetical rendering would be שור [with a sin, not a shin, where (i) the first of doubled foreign consonants is always omitted in Hebrew orthography, and (ii) the vav/W renders the resulting -u- as its own separate syllable (in defective spelling)]; and such שור with a sin/S was then indistinguishable in unpointed Hebrew writing from שור with a shin/$. What we see in the received unpointed text of Genesis 20: 1 is שור, being either SWR (with a sin/S) or $WR (with a shin/$).
This is defective spelling of what likely was a 3-syllable name (not plene spelling of a 2-syllable or 1-syllable name). As noted above, the presence of three Hebrew letters in the longer of the later two Hebrew spellings of “Tyre” as צור [with the other spelling being צר], where defective spelling probably applied, strongly suggests that the original pronunciation was as a 3-syllable name: cu-u[r]-ri. It is very possible that what had been a 3-syllable pronunciation of this non-Hebrew geographical place name in the Patriarchal Age had gradually morphed into being a 2-syllable or 1-syllable pronunciation in the 1st millennium BCE, hence the two different spellings of “Tyre” in later books of the Bible.
Although one standard Hebrew spelling of “Tyre” in later books of the Bible is, not surprisingly, צור, it is easy to see how the above mistake could have been made at Genesis 20: 1, based on the inherent ambiguity regarding the applicable cuneiform sign.
It is my considered opinion that the $WR or SWR [שור] that we see in the received text at Genesis 20: 1 was originally intended to be CWR/צור. The scribal error here is very understandable, because (i) the cuneiform original on its face was neutral as between ssade/C/צ and sin/S/ש; (ii) a seemingly similar name at Genesis 16: 7; 25: 18 did indeed feature an intended sin (per my first post on this thread); and (iii) the Jewish scribe in 7th century BCE Jerusalem was flying in the dark here, knowing nothing of historical Abimelek at Tyre in Year 13 of Late Amarna who, just like Biblical Abimelek, was consumed with the pressing issue of contested access to valuable water wells, and with גרר seeming ambiguous, since by the mid-1st millennium BCE “Galilee” was always spelled גליל, never גרר, and with the reference to נגב seeming to mean the Negev Desert, in which case a reference to “Egypt”/SWR/שור at Genesis 20: 1 would be in order, while the reference to קדש was totally ambiguous, given how many places in Syro-Canaan went by that name (including both Kadesh-Barnea way down south and Kadesh-Naphtali up north). That Jewish scribe may well have wondered why Abraham would strangely be portrayed at Genesis 20: 1 as sojourning in and near the Sinai Desert, yet the various linguistic factors seemed nevertheless to favor SWR/שור over CWR/צור. So whereas צור had been intended, what came out, erroneously, in the Hebrew alphabetical text was SWR/שור [with a sin/S], which was soon enough further mistaken for $WR/שור [with a shin/$], based on Hebrew unpointed writing not distinguishing between sin/S and shin/$.
[In fairness, I should note that the Jewish scribe in 7th century BCE Jerusalem truly made amazingly few mistakes in transforming ambiguous cuneiform signs into alphabetical Hebrew. In fact, in some ways I wish he would have made a lot more mistakes of that type. If so, Biblical scholars would then realize that the Patriarchal narratives started out as a cuneiform written text in the Late Bronze Age, with only a handful of later-added editorial additions from editors in the 6th century BCE Persian Era post-exilic Jerusalem. But since there are in fact so precious few mistakes regarding sibilants and heths in the received text, Biblical scholars insist that they are sure the Patriarchal narratives did not start out as a cuneiform text, or else the received text would be replete with errors regarding sibilants and heths, since cuneiform basically couldn’t distinguish one sibilant from another, or one heth from another. But the fact of the matter is that such Jewish scribe in King Josiah’s Jerusalem was a consummate scholar who did an unbelievably good job of figuring out what those ambiguous cuneiform signs intended. The good part of that of course is that subject to only a few exceptions (like the one we are seeing here, and also disregarding later-added editorial additions), what you see in the received text of the Patriarchal narratives is what you get -- an incredibly accurate alphabetical Hebrew version of what was originally a cuneiform text from the time period of Late Amarna in the Late Bronze Age.]
It all makes logical sense. The point, of course, is that we today should read the $WR/SWR/שור at Genesis 20: 1 as, completely unlike those same three Hebrew letters at Genesis 16: 7; 25: 18, having intended to be צור. Then an exact match to the attested non-biblical world of Year 13 in Late Amarna comes shining through, with Abimelek of Tyre in the Amarna Letters being one and the same person as Biblical Abimelek in chapters 20, 21 and 26 of Genesis. Each such Abimelek not only has the same name, but also has the same peculiar concern with contested access to valuable water wells, because those two Abimeleks are one and the same person. And instead of Abraham idiotically choosing to sojourn way down south in and near the forbidding Sinai Desert, Abraham very sensibly chose to sojourn way up north (with a-l-l of Canaan, after all, being at his divine disposal), in the wondrous rolling hills of western Upper Galilee [גרר], near “Tyre” [צור] (which per a very understandable, rare scribal error is, unfortunately, שור in the received text).
Everything makes sense, in a Year 13 historical context, once we realize how easily it would have been to go from an intended צור in the original cuneiform text to the שור (that is, either SWR or $WR) that we see today in the received alphabetical Hebrew text.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois
שור = cuneiform mistake for the intended צור = cu-ur-ri = “Tyre”
[By the way, the standard English spelling “Tyre” derives from the Greek, and does not do justice to this truly ancient west Semitic (but non-Hebrew) geographical place name.]
B. Linguistic Analysis
It is my theory of the case that the Patriarchal narratives were a cuneiform text in the Amarna Age (mid-14th century BCE) in Late Amarna. As such, the geographical place name in question here at Genesis 20: 1 (i) would have originally been written in cuneiform in the Amarna Age, using cuneiform signs identical to those used in the Amarna Letters, and (ii) then 700 years later, a Jewish scribe in King Josiah’s Jerusalem in the 7th century BCE transformed the original cuneiform clay tablets into alphabetical Hebrew. So we need to consider both how “Tyre” was pronounced, and would have been written in cuneiform, in the Amarna Age, as well as how a Jewish scribe would likely have reduced such cuneiform writing to alphabetical Hebrew in the 7th century BCE.
The Late Bronze Age pronunciation of “Tyre” was probably 3 syllables, being something like So-ur-ri. (See Revue Biblique, 1908, 511, cited by the Catholic Encyclopedia.) The original sibilant sound in this name already no longer existed, but one standard cuneiform rendering per the Amarna Letters had become ssade, probably as an emphatic sin: cur-ri [where the standard transliteration of the Amarna Letters uses c to render ssade/צ]. But per the cuneiform rendering of the second element in Akhenaten’s name in the Amarna Letters as being (among other alternative spellings) either ḫur [EA 26: 46] or ḫu-ur [EA 9: 1], it is very possible that an alternative cuneiform spelling of “Tyre”/cur-ri as a 3-syllable name could well have been: cu-ur-ri.
It should be noted here that the number of cuneiform signs does not always correspond to the number of syllables that a name had. For example, a peculiarity of p-e-r-s-o-n-a-l names in the Amarna Letters (as opposed to geographical place names as here) is that CVC cuneiform signs are almost never used, even though CVC signs are commonplace in many other cuneiform writings. What was pronounced as CVC, and in other contexts written as CVC, was for personal names in the Amarna Letters oddly almost always written as a CV VC sequence of cuneiform signs. Likewise, a CVC cuneiform sign in some instances was shorthand for a 2-syllable word that was actually pronounced CV VC. So we don’t know if “Tyre” in the Amarna Age was pronounced as a 2-syllable or as a 3-syllable name, but that ambiguity will make little difference in our analysis of how an intended צור could easily come out as שור, whose initial sibilant originally was a sin, but was later mistaken for being a shin (since Hebrew orthography does not distinguish between those two Hebrew phonemes). In fact, since this name שור at Genesis 20: 1 has three Hebrew letters, then given the likelihood that defective spelling applies, on my theory of the case it is highly likely that “Tyre” was pronounced as having three syllables in the Late Bronze Age (though not necessarily in the 1st millennium BCE, as we shall see).
Particularly if the cuneiform spelling of Tyre embodied cu-ur-ri, which is one very likely possibility, then the first syllable, cu-, would very likely have been rendered by cuneiform sign ZU(6) which, very importantly, could represent either cu or su (or zu), that is, either ssade or sin or zayin, followed in each case by the vowel U:
“ZU(6) is the standard [cuneiform] sign [in the Amarna Letters] for /zu/ , /ṣu (ṣú) /, /su (sú)/. …sú-ú[-sí-ma] (EA 256: 9).” Anson F. Rainey, Canaanite in the Amarna Tablets (1995), pp. 19-20.
Thus the original cuneiform version of Genesis 20: 1 may well have used the following cuneiform spelling of “Tyre”: ZU(6) – ur – ri.
It might be noted in passing here that if the scribe who recorded the Patriarchal narratives in cuneiform writing for the first Hebrews was (per my own view of the case) the former scribe of IR-Heba, the Hurrian princeling ruler of Jerusalem in the Amarna Letters, then the situation regarding sibilants may have been even murkier than suggested above:
“The Jerusalem letters are known for their deviant use of the sibilant signs in transcriptions of non-Akkadian words (Cross 1962:245 n. 95; 1973:52-53 n. 36; Moran 1975b:152 and 163 n. 51).” Anson F. Rainey, Canaanite in the Amarna Tablets (1995), p. 16.
No matter how you slice it, there was no clarity as to the identity of the initial sibilant in this geographical place name in the cuneiform original.
If the original cuneiform writing of “Tyre” was ZU(6) – ur – ri, then note that the Jewish scribe in 7th century BCE Jerusalem who was tasked with transforming the Patriarchal narratives from cuneiform tablets into alphabetical Hebrew could easily have mistaken this for su – ur – ri with a sin, even though cu – ur – ri with a ssade had been intended, since ZU(6) could be either su or cu. If understood as su – u[r] – ri, then the Hebrew alphabetical rendering would be שור [with a sin, not a shin, where (i) the first of doubled foreign consonants is always omitted in Hebrew orthography, and (ii) the vav/W renders the resulting -u- as its own separate syllable (in defective spelling)]; and such שור with a sin/S was then indistinguishable in unpointed Hebrew writing from שור with a shin/$. What we see in the received unpointed text of Genesis 20: 1 is שור, being either SWR (with a sin/S) or $WR (with a shin/$).
This is defective spelling of what likely was a 3-syllable name (not plene spelling of a 2-syllable or 1-syllable name). As noted above, the presence of three Hebrew letters in the longer of the later two Hebrew spellings of “Tyre” as צור [with the other spelling being צר], where defective spelling probably applied, strongly suggests that the original pronunciation was as a 3-syllable name: cu-u[r]-ri. It is very possible that what had been a 3-syllable pronunciation of this non-Hebrew geographical place name in the Patriarchal Age had gradually morphed into being a 2-syllable or 1-syllable pronunciation in the 1st millennium BCE, hence the two different spellings of “Tyre” in later books of the Bible.
Although one standard Hebrew spelling of “Tyre” in later books of the Bible is, not surprisingly, צור, it is easy to see how the above mistake could have been made at Genesis 20: 1, based on the inherent ambiguity regarding the applicable cuneiform sign.
It is my considered opinion that the $WR or SWR [שור] that we see in the received text at Genesis 20: 1 was originally intended to be CWR/צור. The scribal error here is very understandable, because (i) the cuneiform original on its face was neutral as between ssade/C/צ and sin/S/ש; (ii) a seemingly similar name at Genesis 16: 7; 25: 18 did indeed feature an intended sin (per my first post on this thread); and (iii) the Jewish scribe in 7th century BCE Jerusalem was flying in the dark here, knowing nothing of historical Abimelek at Tyre in Year 13 of Late Amarna who, just like Biblical Abimelek, was consumed with the pressing issue of contested access to valuable water wells, and with גרר seeming ambiguous, since by the mid-1st millennium BCE “Galilee” was always spelled גליל, never גרר, and with the reference to נגב seeming to mean the Negev Desert, in which case a reference to “Egypt”/SWR/שור at Genesis 20: 1 would be in order, while the reference to קדש was totally ambiguous, given how many places in Syro-Canaan went by that name (including both Kadesh-Barnea way down south and Kadesh-Naphtali up north). That Jewish scribe may well have wondered why Abraham would strangely be portrayed at Genesis 20: 1 as sojourning in and near the Sinai Desert, yet the various linguistic factors seemed nevertheless to favor SWR/שור over CWR/צור. So whereas צור had been intended, what came out, erroneously, in the Hebrew alphabetical text was SWR/שור [with a sin/S], which was soon enough further mistaken for $WR/שור [with a shin/$], based on Hebrew unpointed writing not distinguishing between sin/S and shin/$.
[In fairness, I should note that the Jewish scribe in 7th century BCE Jerusalem truly made amazingly few mistakes in transforming ambiguous cuneiform signs into alphabetical Hebrew. In fact, in some ways I wish he would have made a lot more mistakes of that type. If so, Biblical scholars would then realize that the Patriarchal narratives started out as a cuneiform written text in the Late Bronze Age, with only a handful of later-added editorial additions from editors in the 6th century BCE Persian Era post-exilic Jerusalem. But since there are in fact so precious few mistakes regarding sibilants and heths in the received text, Biblical scholars insist that they are sure the Patriarchal narratives did not start out as a cuneiform text, or else the received text would be replete with errors regarding sibilants and heths, since cuneiform basically couldn’t distinguish one sibilant from another, or one heth from another. But the fact of the matter is that such Jewish scribe in King Josiah’s Jerusalem was a consummate scholar who did an unbelievably good job of figuring out what those ambiguous cuneiform signs intended. The good part of that of course is that subject to only a few exceptions (like the one we are seeing here, and also disregarding later-added editorial additions), what you see in the received text of the Patriarchal narratives is what you get -- an incredibly accurate alphabetical Hebrew version of what was originally a cuneiform text from the time period of Late Amarna in the Late Bronze Age.]
It all makes logical sense. The point, of course, is that we today should read the $WR/SWR/שור at Genesis 20: 1 as, completely unlike those same three Hebrew letters at Genesis 16: 7; 25: 18, having intended to be צור. Then an exact match to the attested non-biblical world of Year 13 in Late Amarna comes shining through, with Abimelek of Tyre in the Amarna Letters being one and the same person as Biblical Abimelek in chapters 20, 21 and 26 of Genesis. Each such Abimelek not only has the same name, but also has the same peculiar concern with contested access to valuable water wells, because those two Abimeleks are one and the same person. And instead of Abraham idiotically choosing to sojourn way down south in and near the forbidding Sinai Desert, Abraham very sensibly chose to sojourn way up north (with a-l-l of Canaan, after all, being at his divine disposal), in the wondrous rolling hills of western Upper Galilee [גרר], near “Tyre” [צור] (which per a very understandable, rare scribal error is, unfortunately, שור in the received text).
Everything makes sense, in a Year 13 historical context, once we realize how easily it would have been to go from an intended צור in the original cuneiform text to the שור (that is, either SWR or $WR) that we see today in the received alphabetical Hebrew text.
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois