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Originally Posted by Clouseau
Even if the Kenites were descended from a man named Cain, it does not mean that the man was Cain the son of Adam.
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It's the same name, spelled the same way. John Kesler astutely adduced Num 24:21-22, where the parallelism explicitly identifies the Kenites with Cain. Seems you are grasping at straws here if you must propose multiple Cains.
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Originally Posted by Clouseau
A motive to justify Kenite fierceness does not seem to have been necessary.
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The relationship between the Israelites and the Kenites is murky in the biblical stories. Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, was a Kenite, so there were alliances between the Israelites and the Kenites. The Kenites are generally regarded positively throughout the Hebrew Bible. For example, Yael, wife of Heber the Kenite, killed Sisera, an enemy of Israel (Judg 4). But for a different relationship, see 1 Sam 30:29.
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Originally Posted by Clouseau
There is no certainty about the origin of the Kenites, and several views have been proposed. Most scholars identify the Kenites with the Midianites or a sept thereof.
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Kenites are identified with Amalekites and Midianites, on geographical grounds. But where was Midian? The most extensive biblical material on Midian is contained in Judg 6-8. Israel is oppressed by Midian for seven years (Judg 6:1) and is redeemed by Gideon. Gideon, however, was a northern hero from the tribe of Manasseh. Everything in the story of Gideon suggests that the Midianites are a northern transjordanian tribe (
e.g. Judg 7:12, which identifies Midianites as a "people of the East;"; it is the northern tribes of Naphtali, Asher, and Manasseh who pursue them in Judg 7:23). Are P's Midianites from the Balaam pericope (Moabites in J) the same people as those in the books of Exodus and Judges? We really don't know. Where was Midian? We really don't know that either. Some scholars have suggested that Midian was comprised of a geographically shifting confederation of tribes. The association with Kenites is based on locating Midian to the southeast.
The peculiar relationship between the Israelites and the Kenites may also have something to do with the emergence of YHWH from the south (Seir in the oldest texts). From Bronze Age Egypt we know of Midianite "shasu of YHW" -- itinerant Bedouin-like peoples who were attached to what was apparently some deity with the name YHW.
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Originally Posted by Clouseau
A motive to justify Kenite fierceness does not seem to have been necessary.
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Yet it is Cain's behavior which seems to be the basic etiological element in the Genesis pericope.
10-13-2007, 11:58 AM
