Tanach Thoughts

 I was perusing my files earlier in search of interesting Purim info, and came across an interesting tidbit I had long but forgotten. Yehuda Levi Nachum z"l was a famous collector of Yemenite manuscripts. Not long ago, his collection was donated to the National Library of Israel. Some time last year, I think, while collecting sources for a different project (can't remember what it was), I skimmed some of his published compilations of manuscripts. In the volume מיצירות ספרותיות מתימן (Of Yemenite Literary Works), p. 192, he published a genealogy of a man named Yeshuah ben Aharon (ישועה בן אהרן), which included tracing the man to Yaakov Avinu through Yehudah. What was shocking, however, was that the lineage was not the standard Davidic genealogy (i.e., Yaakov > Yehudah > Peretz > Ram > Aminadav > Nachshon > Salmah/Salmon > Boaz > Oved > Yishai > David >>> [further descendants]), as we find it in Tanachic sources and most later Yehudaic-tri...

According to Shmuel 1:10:21 , Shaul's family was part of a clan called Matri (Matrites). Curiously, in aggadic descriptions of Shaul's full genealogy all the way to Binyamin, Matar or Matri or Matari or something similar is nowhere to be found (see here ). Little is otherwise known about this clan. Ze'ev Erlich thought  that the Matrites lived in what is now known as Khirbet Rimnah, as nearby there's a later site called Khirbet al-Matari - evidently preserving the name of the Matrites. Both sites are located in the vicinity of the Gibdeonite cities, and since it's known that Shaul's family came from that region, this suggestion is quite plausible. The name of the forefather of the family, Matar or Matari or Matri, shares the root of MTR (מט"ר), 'rain' (often referring to abundant rain). However, a few days ago I came across another possibility: This article by Norbert Nebes (p. 19, line 3) mentions that in Ethio-Sabaean, a 1st millennium BCE Semiti...

A strange idea just came to mind: In the past, some scholars have proposed identifying the minor judge Avdon ben Hillel ( Shoftim 12:13-15 ) with the minor judge Bedan ( Shmuel 1:12:11 ), because of the similarity of the name Bedan (בדן) with the end of Avdon's name (בדון), and the fact that Shmuel nonchalantly mentions Bedan though we the modern-day readers, have no earthly idea who he is. It's a fascinating proposal. I found myself thinking about this on Shabbat and today, and suddenly realized that Pir'aton, the hometown of Avdon, is in Menashe (having previously thought for some reason that it was in Ephraim). This is significant because Divrei Hayamim 1:7:17 mentions a descendant of Machir, son of Menashe, named Bedan! I have yet to check whether the chronology works out, but the possibility of another reference to Avdon/Bedan in Tanach is tantalizing. I'm probably not the first to wonder about this connection, though. But it's late and I'm typing from my ...

 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...

 For about 2.5 months now I've been working nearly non-stop on what is probably one of my most ambitious and crazy ideas ever: creating a family tree for all of the people of Israel mentioned in the Tanach, from the twelve sons of Yaakov all the way down to the last generation of people of the 2nd Temple era mentioned in Ezra, Nechemiah and Chronicles. I would say that about 98% of the names mentioned in the Tanach are now in the tree document I've made. The next phase is working out all of the kinks of calculating who lived when, because the Tanach isn't always 100% clear on that (although, as a friend of mine put it: was it written in a chaotic, confusing manner, or do you simply not understand how the order works?) Right now I'm focusing on the 2nd Temple era. It seems that all agree that Yeshua/Yehoshua the Kohen Hagadol was indeed the direct grandson of the former Kohen Hagadol S'raya, son of S'raya's son Yotzadak/Yehotzadak. However, there are disagree...