Celsus

Hi Anat,

Unfortunately, I'm not a linguist, and I'm not familiar with the linguistic research. If you want to check the grammatical differences, you're going to need to take Hebrew, and I can't help you on that since I'm not a Hebraist either. You could ask spin, he might have something for you.

Joel

Anat

I'm a native Hebrew speaker, but never thought to comb through the HB with grammar in mind. There are forms every child will identify as 'Biblical' but whether they all show up evenly or some are associated with some texts is not clear to me.

Anat

Haven't forgoten you, Benni72.

Since I can't read Russian I guess I can't access Nemirovskii's ideas directly. Is his approach that statements regarding history made in the Bible are true unless clearly impossible (eg giving birth at extremely advanced ages) or clearly contradicted by external evidence?

The Biblical stories couldn't have possibly been written down prior to the 8th century BCE, as that is when literacy first emerges among Israel. So whatever original written version there was, any basis on previous history must have been through oral traditions. It is also not clear at all that the authors intended to transmit their best approximation of historical truth in a modern sense, nor were they ethnographers preserving traditions as close as possible to the original. Considering the nature of historiography from neighboring cultures at the time, the work is likely to have been intended as propaganda, to promote certain religious and political views.

In the absence of written historical resources, the writers relied on information from their own times. Hence references to places like Jericho, which was meagerly occupied and unfortified in the Late Bronze Age, but might have been sparsely resettled in the 9th century, and significantly more in the 7th. Hence also anachronisms such as mention of camel caravans in the stories about the patriarchs.

The earliest Biblical persona that can be verified clearly from external sources are the Omride kings. OTOH whether or not previous kings existed, archaeological evidence makes a unified kingdom with Jerusalem as its capital extremely unlikely. IOW even if there was a king named David, he couldn't have been more than a head of a clan of a few thousands of people. However, a story of an expanded Davidic kingdom served the purpose of claiming the territories of the fallen northern kingdom to Judah, which had meanwhile grown economically and culturally after the disappearance of Israel.

So what about earlier periods? I'd say, the further back in time, the lower the reliability of described events. I see Nemirovskii does not rely on Biblical accounts for timing - with just 200 years between patriarchs and conquest. What is his opinion of Biblical population numbers of 600,000 men with their families migrating from Egypt to Canaan? How does he deal with the lack of physical evidence for their occupation anywhere in the Sinai Peninsula, nor even in Kadesh-barnea, where the migrants were supposed to have spent most of the time of their wanderings. (OTOH it and other 'stations of the exodus' were known to have been settled in the 7th century BCE - another case of retroactive application of geography from times familiar to the authors.) Also, how does he deal with the estimated population sizes of the hill country in early Iron Age times of only 50,000 or so?

Neither chronology nor geography nor population sizes as given in the Bible match the physical evidence (or lack thereof). I guess it is impossible to rule out that a small group might have migrated from Egypt to Canaan, but that wouldn't be the bulk of the population of Israel.

You mentioned a lengthy conquest process, lasting centuries. Does that mean Nemirovskii ignores the Joshua account completely? That does help avoid many contradictions with archaeology (see Appendix A in Introduction to Biblical Archaeology 3 as well as contradictions between Joshua and Judges such as Jabin ruling in Hatzor in Judges 4 after Joshua had burnt the town down in Joshua 11. Similarly, there are cities that were listed as captured in Joshua but uncaptured in Judges. But even if we ignore Joshua entirely, Judges 1:18 reports the capture of Gaza, Ashkelon and Ekron by the tribe of Judah, when we know those remained Philistine cities well into Monarchic times.

AFAIK some of the enemies mentioned in Judges are anachronistic such as the kingdoms of Aram and Moab - I think it is too early for them to be organized as kingdoms.

In summary, the Biblical account looks self-contradictory, inconsistent with archaeology of late Bronze Age and early Iron Age and more consistent with late Monarchic propaganda, whose intent is to justify territorial claims and the legitimacy of the Davidic king of the time, Josiah, whose religious reforms were supposed to ensure the continued independence of the expanded Judah from foreign rule.

As to the original point about Mesopotamian origin, as much as the Babylonians were hated as conquerors, they must have been admired enough for other reasons - as the cultural center that they were or for some other reason. After all, the leader of those returning from exile was named Zerubbabel, meaning 'seed of Babylon'.

Benni72

Not quite so. He does his best to provide independent arguments for each claim.

Still, the epics of neighboring (and other) cultures, even those written up long after the events (such as Iliad), were shown to contain some historical core deep under the layers of propaganda and mythologization. Nemirovskii tries to find something of the sort in the Bible as well.

According to Nemirovskii, these anachronisms are not that numerous, and show just that the tradition was tampered with (which is beyound doubt anyway), but do not suffice to disprove the authenticity of the core. Is it plausible that the Hebrews forgot their relatively recent history and invented a completely different story? How could it get universally accepted so that no competing accounts survived?

I don't think Nemirovskii would disagree with anything in this paragraph.

Numbers are really one of the least reliable elements of tradition. They can easily be an epical exaggeration, just as 1200 Greek ships in Homer etc.

Given your estimates, even a group of several thousand migrants could be a considerable force in Canaan.

I don't think he ignores the account completely. But the details (including lists of cities taken) can be established, if ever, only by cross-examination of both literary and archaeological evidence.

But they may have existed as tribes (in fact, Moab is mentioned in Egyptian sources as well).

It is quite probable that the conquests of Joshua and his successors were widely exaggerated for this purpose. One can make an elephant from a fly. But one still needs the fly.

Sounds plausible, too. In fact, being a layman, I'm not quite sure about Nemirovskii's points. He is just the only scholar I had a chance to communicate with on the subject. I know he represents a minority view (along with Albright, de Vaux, and the late Dyakonov), so thank you very much for introducing me to some of the mainstream arguments. :notworthy

Anat

Would people 'forget' their recent history and invent an alternative one? Of course they will. They do it all the time. Look at any controversial topic in recent history. People are inspired by heroic stories, and if such a story supports a certain ideology proponents of said ideology will spread the appropriate rumor or glorify their hero of choice. I don't want to get into politics so I won't get into details of examples unrelated to the Bible. (In the book 'Collapse of Chaos' by Jack Cohen and Ian Stuart an alien says something along the lines of 'Lies. We find them very useful in the education of children.')

As for the Bible: Take the Bible's account of some of Judah's kings just prior to Josiah. Hezekiah is portrayed as a righteous king whose piety saved Jerusalem from Assyria. However Assyrian records, confirmed by archaeological finds show that Hezekiah's rebellion against Assyria resulted in the conquest of the fortified city of Lachish and the whole Shephelah region, the most productive part of Judah. OTOH his son, Manasseh, is portrayed as an evil idolatrous king. But Manasseh's moderate policy of subjugation to Assyria preserved the integrity of what remained of Judah and ensured peace throughout his long rule. Moreover, the loss of the Shephelah was compensated for by expanding agriculture into the deserts. Judah prospered from involvement in the Arabian trade and the export of olive oil. These economic developments are likely to be the result of central policy that dealt with populations that were depossessed by the loss of the Shephela and running agriculture in unfavorable locations. Yet within a generation the assessment of the two kings became contrary to their actual achievements, purely for ideological reasons.

Going further back exaggerations and total fictionalizations of the past are even more plausible, as can be obviated from the legends of the glorious empire of David and Solomon, compared with the material evidence from those supposed times.

As for the patriarchs - is Nemirovskii's dating to the 14th century BCE based on legal documents? You say the anachronisms aren't numerous - that might be because the general nomadic lifestyle hasn't changed much over millenia. It was thought that some customs displayed in Genesis reflect the reality of the times of the Nuzi tablets, but there are also Assyrian documents indicating similar laws.

Benni72

It was just that - change of assesment criteria from political to religious ones. This does happen often in modern history as well. Some facts get forgotten, other ones exaggerated. But inventing a whole alternative timeline is a horce of another color.

His dating is based on many sources, in particular on steles of the XIXth Egyptian dynasty, where Israelites and related tribes get mentioned for the first time, while the Amarna letters are still unaware of them. Also, there is a Mesopotamian text describing the withdrawal of some Sut(h)ians (probable ancestors of Hebrews et al, as one can see comparing their genealogies with biblical ones) to the West.

Anat

Note how few times Ur is mentioned as Abraham's birth place. Are there any locations other than Genesis 11: 27-32 and Genesis 15:7? And calling it Ur of the Chaldees is obviously an exilic version. IMO prior to the exile the tradition was that the patriarchs came from Haran. (And I suspect that there was an earlier tradition in which only Jacob was from Haran, and Abraham's origin from there was added when the traditions about them were united to become the story of a single lineage.) Joshua 24:2-3 mentions origin 'beyond the river' without specifying a place. The Ur origin was tacked on to give more prestige to Abraham, as coming from a major cultural center and as inspiration for following his footsteps by the returnees.

As for the ties with Aram - the northern part of Palestine was an area of conflict between the Israeli kingdom and the Arameans and was under Aramean control much of the time (see the Tel Dan stele and Aramean findings there, but also evidence for destruction by Aram in sites from the Jezreel valley northwards). There is reason to suspect that the population in northern Israel had a significant Aramean component, as evidenced by ostraca in Aramaic in many Iron Age II sites.

Since Aram first appeared in the Iron Age, and became a kingdom in the 9th century the background to the Jacob-Laban story cannot come from before those times.

Regarding the acts of the patriarchs in Canaan - we have Abraham erecting an altar in Bethel, later Jacob arriving there, apparently unaware of the place's significance until his dream of the angels, naming the place Bethel, and at a later time erecting an altar there, and then later, in monarchic times it is a major cultic center - first of the northern cult, but later it is reclaimed for YHWH worship by Josiah. Doesn't this look like later legends invented to explain, or give more authority to the sanctity of a cultic center?

Anyway, my problem with 'core of truth' scenarios is that when one peels away the obvious later additions and anachronisms, the obvious exaggerations and mythifications, considers those elements of historical background that aren't specific to any particular period, and all that is left is 'our ancestors came from Haran, and we are related to the people of the nearby countries'. Big deal. If there was any migration from Haran, then within a few centuries the whole population of Canaan would be a mixture of Canaanite and Haranite origin (even from the biblical text - consider that Abraham's shepards weren't celibate, and Jacob's 10 eldest sons married local women). So what we have is a subpopulation using this migration story to set itself apart from its immediate neighbors.

The story of the exodus, wandering in the wilderness and conquest: Since the expulsion of the Hyksos the Egyptian border was under tight control. And there is no evidence for the wandering period. What is the largest group that could escape from Egypt unnoticed and cross the desert without leaving a sign?

OK, so then we arrive at the conquest. The central hill area of Canaan had flourishing city life in the Middle Bronze Age, but not much of that remained in the late Bronze Age. From 220 sites it is down to 25. There wasn't much to conquer in the first place. (This doesn't necessarilly mean the hill country was devoid of population, but settled people may have reverted to nomadism, either due to climatic factors or political ones). Where the settled population was concentrated in the Late Bronze age was along the coast and in the planes and valleys, along the commercial routes. those were canaanite city-states, controlled by Egypt. Much of that region remained uncaptured according to both Joshua and Judges. OTOH we do know the Sea Peoples did invade in the 12th century, and that the Philistines established themselves along the southern coastal plane, while collapsing Egyptian rule in the area. Other than Shishak's campaign in 922 BCE, the Egyptians disappear until the 7th century BCE.

Whether the Israelites infiltrated into the hill country from across the Jordan, or if they were refugees from Canaanite cities in other areas of Palestine, or just plain hill-country herdsmen that were forced into subsistence agriculture due to the collapse of the Canaanite cities (their source of grain and other produce until then), military campaigns played a minor if any role in their settlement process. In monarchic times they did have a well organized military, especially the northern kingdom. And whether the Israelites arrived from outside or formed within Canaan, at least culturally they weren't that different from the Canaanites, especially linguistically.

I agree that in late monarchic times there must have been a tradition about migration from Egypt, as evidenced by mention by various prophets. That tradition might have been based on an actual migration or on the freedom from Egyptian control as a result of the invasion of the Sea Peoples. Without physical evidence for migration I wouldn't take such a tradition as history.

The example I gave about the assessment of Hezekiah vs Manasseh goes beyond difference in emphasis. In Hezekiah's case a military defeat is being sold as a miraculous deliverance. And this is about a recent king relative to the presumed author. Also, Manasseh's economical achievements are credited to earlier kings, Solomon and Azariah/Uzziah. How much easier was it to produce a fictionalised account of earlier periods?

Benni72

Anat, thank you very much for your questions. Unfortunately, my spare time is quite limited at the moment. I hope to be able to answer you on the week-end.

Benni72

In fact, Nemirovskii argues that the Haran story was a later addition, not only for the reasons you mentioned, but also due to the fact that it was far off any reasonable way from the Lower Mesopotamia to Canaan at the time. Ur (without mentioning the Chaldeans) may have been original. But what really seems to be an ancient element, is Abraham's stay in Damascus. It isn't stated explicitly, but a vague phrase in Gen. 15:2 may be possibly understood (and here I have to rely on Nemirovskii's command of Hebrew) as a corruption of "I don't have a heir I could leave my feud - that is, Damascus - to". Moreover, there was a independent local narrative about Abraham in Damascus, cited by Pompeus Trogus, a Hellenistic writer. If it was a later invention, why wasn't the author more explicit on the subject?
Likewise, the names of Abraham's ancestors Heber, Peleg and Rehau that symbolize crossing the Euphrates, dividing lands etc. also seem to belong to a genuine tradition, where they could have been first mentioned as events and later personified. Other versions of the same tradition, that seem to different for having been borrowed from Hebrews, are found in Arabic sources.

Yes, it does, but these legends do not necessarily belong to the "historical core" according to Nemirovskii.

Sorry, how does this contradict Nemirovskii's argument?

I don't think the control was really tight during the invasion of the Sea Peoples - and it is Nemirovskii's timing of the Exodus. He also claims that Hebrew is the only Semitic language that uses a dual form for the name of Egypt, similarly to the Egyptian language itself, which is also consistent with the tradition of Egyptian sojourn where the form could have been borrowed. As for the number, even some Bibilcal scholars translate it as "600 families" rather than "600 thousand".

How could it be established in the absence of written sources?

I agree that this version is quite plausible. But the evidence I cited before (and Nemirovskii has more) still needs explanation.

Anat

The Haran-Ur distance cuts both ways. If they both shouldn't be taken as part of the same story, that in itself doesn't tell us which of them is more likely. However, Haran is the central location of the Jacob cycle. At least Jacob, the wandering Aramite, was believed to be from there. Ur is hardly mentioned at all and removing it doesn't change the story much.

The reading of Gen 15:2 requires the verse to have completely changed from its original, as the syntax clashes heavily with Nemirovskii's reading. But whichever way, it isn't important. Which author do you expect to be more explicit? The one of the version that had Abraham from Haran? The one who had Abraham from Ur? I don't think any author claimed Abraham was from Damascus, only that Eliezer was from there.

Most of the genealogical information in Genesis is considered to be exilic or post-exilic and to represent place names that were known at the time. Note that it includes Arabian tribes that were not known to Israelites/Judahns before the establishment of trade in the late 8th, early 7th century and nations like Assyria that rise to power in the 8th century. (And the assignment of ancestry of tribes to one of the Noachide lineages reflects ideology rather than historical or cultural ties.)

The point is - what remains of this supposed 'historical core'? Is there enough 'meat' left for it to make a difference? What I see as more important is that the non-historical elements of the story tell about ideologies and beliefs of later times.

The control was tight on land, the Sea Peoples attacked from the sea.

So? There was Judahite presence in Egypt in late monarchic times (as mercenaries in the Egyptian army) and later, as people left collapsed Judah in Babylonian times. There was Egyptian presence in Palestine since the 7th century. A good time for cultural influence, considering this is close to the time the stories are thought to have been composed.

Never saw this reading. So, roughly 3000 people (what is the carrying capacity of desert land for herdsmen anyway?) Why would they need to conquer Canaan at all? Late Bronze Age Canaan, just prior to the Sea Peoples invasion, had city states in the planes and lower hills overlooking them, but the central hill (supposed territories of Simeon, Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim and Manasseh) was mostly nomadic, with very few small permanent settlements. There wasn't much to conquer in a military campaign. 3000 nomads could just join the locals without being noticed much. The Iron Age I population of the hill country is estimated at about 50,000, in 250 sires, about 90% in the northern half (Samaria hills) and 10% in the southern part (Judah). It is controversial whether this growth is the result of settlement of local nomads, settlement of population from the planes or settlement of nomads from outside, and your mini-exodus could be part of the latter. But for the majority of the hill country population to be derived from an invading population, one would have to see a cultural change, which isn't observed (though it was thought to have been). At most, one sees variations within a culture that is attributable to changes of lifestyle.

It isn't important. What matters is that there needn't actually have had to be a mass exodus from which the whole nation descended for such a story to be believed. The existence of a story doesn't mean it should be taken literally or even semi-literally.