B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

As we saw in my prior post, the grammar of Genesis 20: 1 will not work on the conventional geographical understanding of that verse: a Gerar southeast of Gaza is not located “between” Kadesh-barnea and a Shur that is viewed as being on the northwest corner of the Sinai Desert.

But wait. We previously noted that the “scholarly” view of Genesis 20: 1 makes no references whatsoever to any historical inscriptions.

The fact that there are no historical inscriptions of “Shur” as a place near Egypt has allowed some scholars to get creative and propose locating Shur wherever it might suit their fancy. Consider for example the following w-i-l-d proposal by the scholar who is generally considered to be the finest historian there ever was of the early Hebrews:

“Shur [is] north of Kadesh on the main road leading to Gerar.” Nadav Na’aman, “Ancient Israel and Its Neighbors: Interaction and Counteraction” (2005), p. 273. In support of this bizarre location of the “Shur” referenced at Genesis 20: 1, Na’aman cites Alt (1935) and Aharoni (1956). Na’aman expressly states in this connection that (i) he sees “from there” in Genesis 20: 1 as meaning “from Egypt” (!), and that (ii) he sees Genesis 20: 1 as being one of several conflicting traditions by multiple authors (who did not know each other’s work) about Abraham coming north out of Egypt.

Such a flight of pure fancy by this reputable historian is possible because scholars readily admit that there is no historical inscription for “Shur”:

1. No geographical place name similar to “Shur” is attested outside of the Bible. The traditional explanation of this mysterious place name is as follows: “Oft[en] supposed to denote properly the ‘wall’ or line of fortresses, built by Egyptian kings across isthmus of Suez; but dub[ious]….” “BDB” (1906), p. 1004.

2. “ ‘…Shur’ (Gen 20: 1). The possibility must be left open, however, that Shur…[instead of referring, as usually assumed, to] ancient fortifications…near the border of Egypt…could refer to a more specific locality not yet identified.” Merrill C. Tenney, “The Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible, Volume 5” (2010).

How can scholars assert that there are multiple 1st millennium BCE authors of the Patriarchal narratives, none of whom know anything specific about an actual Patriarchal Age, when those scholars never c-o-n-s-i-d-e-r referring to historical inscriptions in interpreting a Biblical passage such as Genesis 20: 1? The “scholarly” view of Genesis 20: 1 does not cite a single historical inscription for (i) “Gerar” or (ii) “Kadesh” or (iii) “Shur”. This, despite the fact that, as we have seen on this thread, all three such geographical place names have historical inscriptions that place them in Late Bronze Age Upper Galilee.

The p-i-n-p-o-i-n-t historical accuracy of the Patriarchal narratives will be forever hidden as long as we allow university scholars to propound a totally inaccurate underlying geography for this magnificent Biblical text, which “scholarly” view does not even purport to reference any historical inscriptions whatsoever.

There’s nothing wrong with the received text of Genesis 20: 1 (except that the sin/shin/ש as the first letter in “Shur” [Tyre] should be a ssade/צ). Rather, what’s wrong is the completely erroneous, totally non-historical (involving no historical inscriptions whatsoever) interpretation of this verse by university scholars.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

In prior posts on this thread, I have noted that there is not a single historical inscription in the ancient world that supports the ultra-southerly scholarly view of the following three geographical place names at Genesis 20: 1: “Kadesh” or “Shur” or “Gerar”. But what about “the נגב”?

The phrase at Genesis 20: 1 translated by KJV as “the south [נגב] country” has been universally assumed to reference the Negev Desert. But there is no historical inscription from the ancient world to support such interpretation.

As far as I can tell, נגב was not used as a proper name (“Negev” or “the Negev” or “the Negev Desert”) for the area south of Canaan prior to the 19th century A.D.:

1. “We do not have any pre-biblical (Bronze Age or second millennium BC) texts, Egyptian or otherwise, which use the word [Negev]. I am not sure concerning classical period references to the region. It is true that the Negev as such does not serve as a name for any administrative region….” July 6, 2008 e-mail from Steve Rosen, Professor of Archaeology, Ben-Gurion University.

2. “In Arabic, the Negev is known as al-Naqab or an-Naqb (‘the [mountain] pass’), though it was not thought of as a distinct region until the demarcation of the Egypt-Ottoman frontier in the 19th century and has no traditional Arabic name.” Wikipedia. During the British Mandate it was called Beersheba sub-district.

3. “t's not clear when the word נגב (negeb) became a name. … Here at Abarim Publications we're notoriously unhip, and we prefer to not transliterate the word נגב as the proper name Negeb or Nege[v] but to translate it as south, South or the South Land.”

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By stark contrast, נגב is attested in the Late Bronze Age as referencing a city in eastern Lower Galilee, at item #57 on the 15th century BCE Thutmose III list of places in Canaan.

The phrase “the south [נגב (NGB)] country” at Genesis 20: 1 was not intended to reference the Negev Desert. (It is highly unlikely that Abraham would be portrayed as passing through the Negev Desert in order to dwell in the Sinai Desert. That makes no sense, especially after Abraham has just been told by YHWH, twice, that Sarah will soon be getting pregnant with Isaac.) Rather, the phrase “the south [נגב (NGB)] country” was intended to reference the country of Adami-the-נגב, through which Abraham must pass (after leaving Bethel) in order to be able to dwell and sojourn in Upper Galilee. That city in eastern Lower Galilee had been called simply נגב in the Late Bronze Age, per item #57 on the 15th century BCE Thutmose III list of places in Canaan. (By the 7th century BCE, that town went by a somewhat different name (per Joshua 19: 33): Adami-the-נקב (NQB).)

If we are willing to look at historical inscriptions from the ancient world, we find that all four of the above geographical place names at Genesis 20: 1 are attested Late Bronze Age references to Galilee.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois