First of all, it usually isn't a matter of "proof" when it comes to historical evidence; history is more a matter of probabilities and preponderance of evidence. Sure one could say that there were different Korahs (and Calebs and Hebrons and .... etc.), but the more general observation to be made is that the same names pertaining to the same locations co-occur in biblical sources, sometimes affiliated with Edom and sometimes affiliated with Judah (or in this case, the tribe of Levi in Judah). This is especially the case since these are really toponyms and ethnonyms (tribal and clan names), not personal names. We think of them as personal names because they are formally presented in genealogies, but this was a literary device to indicate political/cultural affiliation. It would be rather like saying Chicago and Peoria were sons of Illinois, and Illinois was the son of America. A good example of this is the Table of Nations in Genesis 10, which presents the seventy nations of the earth as derived in orderly fashion from the offspring of Noah's sons. One of the sons of Japheth was Javan (Greece, i.e. the Ionians), and the sons of Javan were Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Rodanim which refer to Mediterranean locales including Alashiah, Tartessos, Kition, and Rhodes (cf. also Isaiah 23:1, 66:19, Ezekiel 27:6-7). Mitzraim (Egypt) was similarly a son of Ham and the sons of Mizraim included Pathrusim (Upper Egypt, cf. Isaiah 11:11, Jeremiah 44:1, Ezekiel 30:14) and Naphtuhim (Lower Egypt), and these names have geographical meaning in the Egyptian language. It is similar with the twelve sons of Jacob; these are characters in the patriarchal narratives but they personify the twelve tribes of Israel and construe them ideologically as sharing a common, single origin by descent. That the tribal names were not originally PNs can be seen in the appropriate geographical meaning of the names: Naphtali ("height", pertaining to the highland country), Ephraim ("fertile", pertaining to the farmlands), Benjamin ("sons of the south," pertaining to the southerly location of Benjamin). As for Levi, it is notable that the tribal name is identical to the gentilic "Levite", which may indicate that the former is a secondary adaptation of the latter. One may compare the clan name "Kenite" as the gentilic of the word for "metal smith" (a profession, or social class), and "Levite" would be the gentilic of the term meaning "pledged", i.e. the Levites were "pledged ones" (priests), and so the name reflects the origin of the name as referring to a social class; only later did the "Levites" become construed as a "tribe" by descent. And so I would argue that the names discussed in my last post were also first toponyms (Hebron and Libnah were important towns in southern Judah) and clan names (i.e. the Hebronites and Libnites living in Hebron and Libnah) before they became eponyms. Libnah ("whiteness"), for instance, has geographical meaning and may pertain to a mound of chalk located near the town. The Chronicler makes Caleb a descendent of Judah, with Hebron designated as a Calebite and Korah as a son of Hebron. This is aimed to explain how the Calebites, Hebronites, and Korahites were clans in Judah (cf. Joshua 15:13-14 which places the Calebites in the town of Hebron). Another OT source construes Hebron, Korah, and Libnah as Levite clans (from the tribe of Levi instead of Judah) living in the tribe of Judah. It is unlikely that these were totally different clans from the former. Other OT sources present Calebites as Edomites from the clan of Kenaz (whereas elsewhere Kenaz and Caleb are named as brothers descended from Judah, or the Kenizzites comprise a pre-Israelite Canaanite tribe), the Libnites as siding with Edom in the war against Judah, and Korah as a son of Edom. So the same towns and clans were alternatively construed as associated with the tribe of Judah, or with Levites living in Judah, or with Edom. This disparity reflects the complex history of Judah. Edomites moved northward following the expansion of the Nabataeans, and following the destruction of Jerusalem in the Neo-Babylonian period, Edomites settled much of the land of Judah and so there was considerable conflict in the early post-exilic period between the returnees and the Edomites living in the land. Hebron remained in Edomite hands until the Maccabean wars of the second century BC.
Were 'alien residents' Second Class Israelites?
by The Searcher 32 Replies latest watchtower bible
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John Kesler
Thank you for your detailed response, Leolaia. I am curious about one thing you said:
One may compare the clan name "Kenite" as the gentilic of the word for "metal smith" (a profession, or social class)...
Is it your opinion that Kenite derives from the profession of metal smith rather than from Adam and Eve's son Cain? Is Cain the eponymous ancestor of the Kenites, as a way to explain why the Kenites are so fierce? In Balaam's oracle, quoted below from the JPS Tanakh, Is Kain a proper name?
21 He saw the Kenites and, taking up his theme, he said:
Though your abode be secure,
And your nest be set among the cliffs,
22 Yet shall Kainbe consumed,
When Asshur takes you captive.In short, what is the relationship between Kenite/Cain/metal smith?
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Leolaia
Yes, we have in the Balaam oracle a reference to the Kenites via their eponym Cain, which is in accord with other metonymic uses of eponyms to refer to peoples in the same text (cf. the references to Jacob and Eber). The connection with J's primeval Cain is especially clear in the preceding reference to the Moabites as the "sons of Seth" (v. 17), and the Kenites are described as settled in a secure dwelling place which has resonance with the wandering character of the Kenites in J (which bears a similarity with the nomadic Rechabites, possibly the source of J's Kenite tradition). The Balaam materials seem to present a Transjordanian tradition of the background of the southern Levantine peoples that is distantly related to the traditions found in Genesis. That there is a prehistory to the underlying traditions is evident in the strong similarity between the Sethite and Kenite genealogies in J and P (essentially the same names in different forms in mostly the same order). The connection with metalworking (qayin "metal-smith") is of course overt in J's Kenite genealogy: Tubal-cain (a compound with qayin "metal-smith") is the inventor of metalworking, the first who "forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron" (Genesis 4:22). This works into the genealogy the primary trade associated with the Kenites. The Balaam oracle interestingly refers to the Kenites' "nest" (qinneka, a pun on qeni "Kenite") as "set among the cliffs (sela`)" (Numbers 24:21), and the thought is very close to what is said about the Edomites in Obadiah 3-4 who "live in the clefts on the cliffs (sela`) and make your home on the heights" and "make your nest (qinneka) among the stars". The Kenites have Midianite and Edomite ties in the OT, and the Edomite mountain fortress was called Sela` (modern Umm al-Biyara, the highest mountain at Petra), which was a major copper site. The largest copper mining and smelting site in the ANE however was at Khirbat en-Nahas ("copper ruin" in Arabic) in Midianite and Edomite territory. This site seems to be connected with the Kenites in the Chronicler. In 1 Chronicles 4:12, we read that "Tehinnah [was] the father of Ir-Nahash, these were the men of Rechab" (LXX); this is clearly an instance of a toponym (Ir-Nahash, possibly "copper town") being worked into a genealogy; compare v. 14, where Joab is stated to be "the father of Ge Harashim [i.e. "valley of the craftsmen"] It was called this because its people were craftsmen", clearly the name was originally a toponym (as the comment explicitly states). Ir-Nahash is usually identified with Khirbet en-Nahas, it is mentioned in close connection with the "valley of the craftsmen", and the Rechabites were a prominent Kenite clan (cf. the cognate genealogy in ch. 2 which refers to "the Kenites who came from Hammath, the father of the Rechabites"). Moreover the LXX posits the Rechabites of Ir-Nahash as "the brother of Eshlon the Kenizzite" and this is reminiscent of the adjacent listing of Kenites and Kenizzites in Genesis 15:19. So the biblical evidence is pretty strong that the Kenites were connected with the Edomite industry of copper smelting, and since the name means "metal smith," the name probably arose first as a professional name for the trade, and then became adopted as a clan name by those families engaged in the trade, and then became an ethnonym, and finally gave rise to an eponym (Cain) referring to the genealogical ancestor of this group.
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John Kesler
...since the name means "metal smith," the name probably arose first as a professional name for the trade, and then became adopted as a clan name by those families engaged in the trade, and then became an ethnonym, and finally gave rise to an eponym (Cain) referring to the genealogical ancestor of this group.
I find this a very likely scenario. Thanks for your thoughts.
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mP
the story of cain also states that he is protexted from all punishment by god even though he murdered his brother abel. xians have tried their best to make sense of this story resulting in absurdity. the story cant be about justice or jydgement because cain is never hekd to account or corrected in anyway. there are also strange words about cain being worried about other cities possibily hunting him down. this is where god states he will punish anyone hurting cain seven times and that cain shall receive a mark to identify his special status. like many stories in the bible, xians have lost major portions of the story by failing to realise what the names of charactrs mean. many characters are parables, they are making political statements. smiths were very special in thosebdays. the were godlike in that they created metal implements from seemingly useless formd. the rulers no doubt want to stress and tell the masses that under no cfircumstances were smiths to be harmed under penalty of death. this is the real message behind the cain or blacksmith story.
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Leolaia
There is actually a lot of interesting stuff in the Judahite genealogies of ch. 4 of 1 Chronicles. I gave two examples of obvious toponyms presented as PNs (Ir-Nahash and Ge Harashim), but there are many others, such as Bethlehem, Tekoa, and Beth-Rapha, and if you compare the names in this section with the list of conquered Canaanite cities in the tribal allotment of Judah in Joshua 15, you will find that many are identical (such as Zorah in Joshua 15:22 and 1 Chronicles 4:2, Ethnan/Ithnan in Joshua 15:23 and 1 Chronicles 4:7, Ziph in Joshua 15:24, 55 and 1 Chronicles 4:16, Eshtemoa in Joshua 15:50 and 1 Chronicles 4:17, Gedor in Joshua 15:58 and 1 Chronicles 4:17, Sokoh in Joshua 15:35, 48 and 1 Chronicles 4:17, Zanoah in Joshua 15:34, 56 and 1 Chronicles 4:17, Keilah in Joshua 15:44 and 1 Chronicles 4:19, and Mareshah in Joshua 15:44 and 1 Chronicles 4:21). So what is Canaanite in one tradition is Judahite in another.
There are also interesting connections with the patriarchal traditions in Genesis. In v. 21, the "men of Cozeba" and "Laadah the father of Mareshah" are mentioned as among the sons of Shelah, the son of Judah (cf. Joshua 15:44 where Mareshah and Achzib are mentioned together as towns in Judah), and in Genesis 38:5 we read that Judah married " the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua" and she gave birth to Shelah at Chezib. The two names are probably related and it is interesting that the tradition makes the descendents of Shelah have Canaanite ancestry; this is probably a historical memory of the fact that the people who were Canaanites in the LBA became Israelites/Judahites in the IA (a change in political and ethnic identity). Shua, moreover, has an analogue in the Shuhah of v. 11, who is explicitly designated as a Kenite (i.e. of Edomite or Midianite origin). There is also the problem of the Kenizzites, affiliated with the Kenites in Genesis 15:19. The reference to "Eshlon the Kenizzite" in v. 12 (LXX) directly precedes the listing of the sons of Kenaz in v. 13, who is given a Judahite genealogy. The connection between the two is clear from such passages as Numbers 32:12, Joshua 14:5, 14 where "Caleb son of Jephunneh" (mentioned in 1 Chronicles 4:15) is termed a Kenizzite, whereas for the Chronicler (and elsewhere) Caleb son of Jephunneh was mentioned directly after the sons of Kenaz but not directly linked to him (whereas Othniel, brother of Caleb in Joshua, is stated to be the son of Kenaz). And in addition to the pre-Edomite Kenizzites in Genesis 15:19, there was also an Edomite Kenaz. The sons of Eliphaz the firstborn of Esau/Edom were Teman, Omar, Zepho, Kenaz, Korah, Gatam, and Amalek (Genesis 36:15). This includes the eponym Amalek for the Amalekites, just as Kenaz is the eponym for the Kenizzites. "Teman" connects directly with the Judahite "Temani", the son of Ashhur through Naarah (1 Chronicles 4:6); Temani is a gentilic form, making him the ancestor of the Temanite people (cf. Job 2:11 where Eliphaz is described as a Temanite). "Zepho" is cognate to the Ziph and Ziphah in 1 Chronicles 4:16 and notice that Zepho is affiliated with Korah. In 1 Chronicles 2:42-43, we read that Korah, Mareshah, and Ziph are clans of Caleb "the brother of Jerahmeel".
The detailed asides in ch. 4 of 1 Chronicles also give additional information. In addition to the asides about Ir-Nahash and Ge Harashim, it is stated that Mered son of Ezrah married Bithiah, daughter of Pharaoh, which gave birth to Miriam, Shammai, and Ishbah father of Eshtemoa (v. 17-18). This clearly attests intermarriage between Judahites and foreign elements in the population; in this case, Egyptian (the name Miriam also is consistent with an Egyptian theme). The next verse (v. 19) moreover refers to "Eshtemoa the Maakathite", and this is another Canaanite ethnonym, cf. Joshua 13:13: " But the Israelites did not drive out the people of Geshur and Maakah, so they continue to live among the Israelites to this day" (compare Deuteronomy 3:14). And Maakah in 1 Chronicles 2:48 is named as the (Canaanite?) concubine of Caleb the brother of Jerahmeel. So Eshtemoa, while a Maakathite (a Canaanite according to Joshua), is reckoned as a Judahite by the Chronicler. Finally, we have this material at the end of the Judahite genealogy:
1 Chronicles 4:21-23: "The sons of Shelah son of Judah: Er the father of Lekah, Laadah the father of Mareshah and the clans of the linen workers at Beth Ashbea, Jokim, the men of Kozeba, and Joash and Saraph, who ruled in Moab and Jashubi Lehem. (These records are from ancient times.) They were the potters who lived at Netaim and Gederah; they stayed there and worked for the king."
First of all, we have two more examples of professional guilds reckoned as clans: "the clans of the linen workers at Beth Ashbea" and the "potters who lived at Netaim and Gederah" reckoned among the Shelah clans of Judah (which as mentioned above have a Canaanite origin). And notice too that Jokim, Joash, Saraph, and the "men of Cozeba" are said to have "ruled in Moab"; supposed Judahites here are designated as Moabite rulers (probably not kings but possibly governors). So this points to some fluidity between the peoples of Moab and Judah.
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mP
@leo
preciaely judahite and canaanite are the same, its just some writings are more polished and the seperateness more forceful a bit like wts writings.
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Leolaia
The Chroncler's genealogies are just loaded with interesting information. Here is another tidbit: In ch. 7, we learn that "Machir, father of Gilead" was born to Manasseh, "born of his Aramaean concubine" (v. 14). Machir was the primary branch of the tribe of Manasseh, and in fact has full tribal status in the earliest tribal listing in the Song of Deborah (Judges 5:14; dating possibly as early as the eleventh century BC), which also reckons Machir and Gilead as distinct tribes. Now the tradition in Numbers 32:39-40 states that "the sons of Machir son of Manasseh went to Gilead" and conquered it and drove out all the Canaanites who lived there. The Chronicler however makes Machir have Canaanite ancestry himself, specifically Aramaean, and this accords well with the location of Manasseh near Aramaean territory. The tradition presented here is much like Rebecca and Rachel, natives of Aram Naharaim, marrying Isaac and Jacob in the patriarchal narratives (cf. Machir's wife Maacah which is the same name as one of the Aramaean children of Nahor in Genesis 22:24 and which corresponds to the name of the Maacathites, a Canaanite people who were absorbed into Judah). But this picture is not consistent with what is stated in the Joseph narrative, which claims that Manasseh (who it should be remembered is partially of Egyptian ancestry), Machir, and then Machir's children were born in Egypt, particularly during the Egyptian Sojourn. The Chronicler draws on native traditions that present the tribe of Manasseh (or Machir specifically) as having Aramaean ties back to Manasseh himself which thus imply a continuity of territorial residence in the land of Manasseh that is ignorant of the Sojourn-Exodus-Conquest traditions. And so instead of conquering Gilead from the Canaanites, the Chronicler posits Gilead as the son of Machir; Gilead was part of Manasseh from the very beginning.
And there was also fluidity between the tribes of Manasseh and Judah. In 1 Chronicles 2:21-23, we learn that Hezron the grandson of Judah married "the daughter of Machir the father of Gilead" who bore Segub who "was the father of Jair who controlled twenty-three towns in Gilead" (cf. Numbers 32:41, Deuteronomy 3:14, Joshua 13:30). Also we learn in 1 Chronicles 7:19 that Shechem was the son of Shemida, the grandson of Manasseh, and this varies from the genealogy in Numbers 26:28 that makes Shechem the son of Gilead, the grandson of Manasseh. Both traditions pertain to the town of Shechem, which was located in the land of Manasseh. But Shechem is clearly an old Canaanite town in the patriarchal traditions in Genesis (cf. 12:6-8, 33:18), particularly in the story of Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite (ch. 34). The OT thus has many different traditions relating to the origin of Shechem.
There is also an additional curious fact about the genealogy in Numbers 26:28. This genealogy is very different in form from the one in 1 Chronicles 7:14-19, and yet there is a commonality beneath the surface. In the former, the sons of Gilead are Shechem, Iezer, Helek, Asriel, Shemida, and Hepher, and through Zelophehad there were descendents Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. The latter makes Asriel a son of Manasseh, and names Peresh, Sheresh, Ulam, Rakem, and Bedan through Gilead, and through Hammolecheth there were Ishhod, Abiezer, Mahlah, and Shemida, and then through Shemida there were Ahian, Shechem, Lihki, and Aniam. The lists have Asriel, Mahlah, Shechem, and Shemida in common (though at different points in the genealogy), and there are correspondences in many of the other names: (1) 'I`ezer | 'Abi`ezer, (2) Cheleq | Liqchi, and (3) No`ah | 'Ani`am. This is reminiscent of comparing J's Kenite genealogy and P's Sethite genealogy in Genesis: the genealogies on the surface are distinct but they share a common underlying tradition.
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mP
@Leo
Its amazing in all those geneologoies theres no mention of any ancestor for the most populace areas on earth, namely China and India. How does one explain that these countries with such a late start manage to have such a large population count today!
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Leolaia
The Table of Nations in Genesis 11 was entirely determined by the limited knowledge of the ancient world the Hebrews had at the time Genesis was compiled. If you map out all seventy nations listed therein, the extent of the world spans from Spain in the west, the Black Sea to the north, Iran to the east, and Ethiopia to the south. That's it.