Tanach Thoughts

An Assyrian inscription from the time of Tiglath Pilesser III describes a list of kings that were conquered and subsequently gave tribute to the Assyrian king reads: "I installed Idi-bi'li as a Warden of Marches on the border of Musur. In all the countries which...[I received] the tribute of Kushtashpi of Commagene ( Kummu ḫ u ), Urik of Qu'e, Sibitti-be'l of Byblos,...Enil of Hamath, Panammu of Sam'al, Tarhulara of Gumgum, Sulumal of Militene,...Uassurme of Tabal, Ushhitti of Tuna, Urballa of Tuhana, Tuhamme of Ishtunda,...[Ma]tan-be'l of Arvad, Sanipu of Bit-Ammon, Salamanu of Moab,...Mitinti of Ashkelon, Jehoahaz ( Ia- ú - ḫ a-zi ) of Judah ( Ia- ú -da-a-a ) , Kaushmalaku of Edom ( Ú -du-mu-a-a ), Muzr[i...] ( Ḫ a-a-nu- ú -nu ) of Gaza ( Ḫ a-za-at-a-a ) (consisting of) gold, silver, tin, iron, antimony,4 linen garments with multicolored trimmings, garments of their native (industries) (being made of) dark purple wool...all kinds of costly objects be they pr...

Long time no see guys. In-between balancing school and homework, ideas for posts have been little to practically non-existent. But earlier this week I finally thought up of something that is blog-worthy, in my humble opinion (and since I run this blog, that humble opinion is what goes around here... ;)) The first word in the post's title was not really my choice: Last night I told over my new idea to a friend from university and he said: "Hmm. Interesting conspiracy theory..." Personally, I would have gone just with "theory", and I told him that. He proceeded to explain why he thought it was a conspiracy theory, but let's not get into that (he also believes it's wrong to term "Biblical archeology" with any word that has anything to do with the Tanach, AKA the Bible...we won't get into that either today). About a month ago, the archeology department had a field trip to Mt. Gerizzim, and after that we went to meet some of the leaders of the S...

 No...this is not a post about that infamous Israeli cootie ...Kinah is a town or city mentioned in Yehoshua 15:22 as being on the border between Yehudah and Edom. Though we did not go to the ruins of the actual town last Thursday, we did go to the ruins of the fortress that guarded the town and also collected toll payments from merchants that travelled the "Spice Road" that passed near Kinah. The fortress is presumed by most to have been built around the time of King Yoshiyahu (end of the Assyrian period), but a doctorate student who came with us said that her doctorate involves, among other things, her hypothesis that the fortress was actually built earlier than that - during the Neo-Assyrian period. Kinah, on the other hand, we know from Tanach, is much older than that. And, get this - it's possible that the name is related to the Kenites who, according to Shoftim 1:16 came out of the City of Dates and settled near Arad (Kinah being near Arad)! In Hebrew - קיני - קינ...

 After finishing Divrei Hayamim for the first time (and going through certain chapters several more times after that), I sat back and realized that of all of the tens and hundreds of thousands of people from the two and a half tribes from ever haYarden, we only have a handful of names. We have tribal leaders from the time of the desert, we have some later shoftim and assistants of David and Shlomo, we have a speculated king from Gad (Menachem) and we have some tribal leaders from other generations. That's about it. It comes down to maybe 100 names. Two and a half tribes cut down to about ten minyans. That's sad. After comparing the list to that of Judea - Yehudah, Levi and Binyamin - I thought, man, why don't we have a Chronicles version for the 10 Lost Tribes? But that's actually not true. We had  one, or at least commonly believed to have had one. But like the Lost Tribes, it got lost. It's only ever mentioned in the Tanach, not actually inserted into it. It was c...