Tanach Thoughts

A few weeks ago, one of my papers was accepted for publication by the Jewish Bible Quarterly! It's a paper on Hoham, king of Chevron (Hebron) during the time of the Israelite conquest of Canaan in Sefer Yehoshua. Yep, my favorite: Writing about details in Tanach no one thinks about twice. In this case, the most anyone's done is suggest etymologies for his name. One scholar suggested an Anatolian etymology for his name, from " ẖuẖ(ẖ)a " , meaning ‘grandfather’, with an added Hebrew suffix of " (-a)m " . In the paper I suggest a biblically-rooted etymology, which connects him to various giants mentioned in other books of Tanach, and then propose some background for this otherwise obscure figure. I won't spoil much, but I'll definitely link it here once it goes online (should be in about half a year)! In other news, tomorrow I'll be delivering a lecture on my Levitical Cities paper. I'm super nervous about it. But, in other other news, a non-Tan...

Some time ago a friend requested my assistance in tracking down info regarding the idolatrous deity Ba'al Zevuv (Beelzebub). I believe he was interested in modern scholarship on the matter and in particular was hoping there'd be archeological data that would shed light on the mystery. So I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. Spoiler: I didn't find too much, but there are some interesting suggestions out there. Ba'al Zevuv appears in two verses in Melachim 2:1:2-3 : "Ahaziah fell through the lattice in his upper chamber at Samaria and was injured. So he sent messengers, whom he instructed: “Go inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover from this injury.” But an angel of G OD said to Elijah the Tishbite, “Go and confront the messengers of the king of Samaria and say to them, ‘Is there no God in Israel that you go to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron?" After which Eliyahu informs Achazyah ( ibid. 4 ): "Assuredly, thus said G OD...

Long time no see... Life has been incredibly busy and is still a bit busy, but at least I have time for making a post on occasion. Here's an interesting thought about the Girgeshites. The Girgeshites (הגרגשי) were one of the seven Canaanite nations. According to Yerushalmi Sheviit 6:1 : "For Rebbi Samuel bar Naḥman said, Joshua sent three orders to the Land of Israel before they entered the Land: Those who want to evacuate should evacuate, those who want to make peace should make peace, those who want to go to war should go to war. The Girgasites evacuated, believed in the Holy One, praised be He, and went to Africa." Famously, Procopius also brought a version of this tradition in his work The History of Wars, IV : " In that country there dwelt very populous tribes, the Gergesites and the Jebusites and some others with other names by which they are called in the history of the Hebrews.  Now when these nations saw that the invading general was an irresistible prodigy...

 As you can see, I'm making up for the last month or so of no posts. I heard today a class by Dr. Chagai Misgav, a religious doctor of archeology in the Hebrew University. One of the things he said was that a few years before the class was given (the class is from the year 5773, so we're talking about around 5768), an ostracon - i.e. a piece of ancient pottery with writing on it - was discovered in the Beit Ha'elah Valley. This discovery was considered very dramatic in the world of archeology. Why? Well, until that point, it had been widely accepted that the proto-Hebraic alphabet had evolved from the proto-Canaanite alphabet. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, let me explain: This is what the proto-Canaanite looks like: (image taken from here ) and this is what proto-Hebrew looks like: (image taken from here ) When comparing the various inscriptions and ostracons found, the archeological world managed to create the following theory of development: (image taken...