Hi H,
Actually, I suggest you reform your appraisal of Bryant Wood's finds, as they not only largely disprove Kenyon's earlier artificial conclusions, but provide significant evidence to rule out the 1500 postulate that purportedly eliminates a Joshua conquest.
So you are using Wood, that's fine. We can discuss it on the Jericho / Ai thread as you suggest. Just trying to save you a lot of unnecessary typing.
I haven't seen you respond any further concerning the Habiru/Apiru, did I miss where you conceded that there is a strong possibility that the name *could* have included the Isrealites who were starting to invade canaan at roughly the same time?
You didnt miss anything Hydarnes, I haven't had time to reply yet. If I don't reply to a post Hydarnes it is just because I am extremely busy, but I will reply to everything you post.
The problem began with the discovery of the ‘ha-bi-ru’ in the letters of king IR-Heba of Jerusalem in the Amarna archives. But discoveries of the 30’s and 40's have made the equation invalid. With the discovery and publication of the clay tablets from the Hittite capital Hattusa the proof was produced, in the 1920’s, for Winckler's supposition that the Sumeriogram sa.gaz which, according to the lexicographical lists, has the reading habbatu (m) 'robbers' (and 'itinerant workers'), is to be read in the Akkadian (and Hittite) texts of the Hittite and Syro-Palestinian state offices usually, even if not exclusively, hab/piru (Wieppert, The Settlement of the Israelite Tribes in Palestine: A Critical Survey of Recent Scholarly Debate 1971, SCM Press, London, page 64)
The general characteristic of the 'Apiru turns out to be sociopolitical rather than ethnic or economic. They cannot be characterised as ethnically homogeneous in any one location, nor are they tied to any single economic activity throughout the Near East. In short, an ‘Apiru could have been a Hittite, Hurrian, Phoenician, or almost any other nationality of the ancient near east, they were not identified by their ethnicity. They were a social stratum, best defined as outsiders, people on the fringes of society, or people with no political affiliations.
The one trait that best comprehends all the 'apiru appears to be that of the outsider status they occupy in comparison with the regnant social and political order. The term "outlaw" conveniently catches the double nuance of the 'apiru as those who stand recognisably outside the prevailing order, both as "fugitives" or "refugees" who flee from the dominant order and as "robbers" or "rebels" who prey upon or threaten the dominant order.
But "outlaw," except as broadly redefined, tends to miss the many grades and variations of adaptation of which the 'apiru "outsiders" were capable vis-a-vis the dominant social order. While standing distinguishably apart from the existing order, they also relied upon it insofar as their livelihood was dependent upon the wider society, for which they often worked either as individual "contract labourers" or as hired groups of soldiers, agricultural labourers, or construction gangs. (Gottwald N K, 1979 The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250-1050 BCE , SCM Press, London, p. 402)
A major problem for equating the ‘Apiru with the Hebrews is that whereas the Hebrews were said to be an ethnic group situated solely within Egypt, the ‘Apiru are mentioned in texts from all over the ancient nears east in a time frame lasting from c.2000 -1200 BCE.
Initially, the apparent similarity between the terms had the ‘biblical archaeologists’ all excited and they were sure that the Amarna ‘Apiru were indeed the Hebrews, but the ‘Apiru are too frequently mentioned in different areas and times to support the equation. For example,
in Mesopotamia, they are in evidence through the periods of Ur III, 1 Babylon, and after;
in the Nuzi texts (fifteenth century) they play an especially prominent role.
documents from Mari (eighteenth century) and Alalakh (seventeenth and fifteenth centuries) attest their presence in Upper Mesopotamia throughout the patriarchal age.
In Anatolia, the Cappadocian texts (nineteenth century) knew them,
as did those of Boghazkoy (fourteenth century).
They are likewise mentioned in the Ras Shamra texts (fourteenth century).
Egyptian documents of the Empire period (fifteenth to twelfth century) refer to them, both as foes and rebels in Asia and as bondsmen in Egypt.
The Amarna letters (fourteenth century), where they appear in Palestine and adjoining areas as disturbers of the peace, are the best witness to them of all.
Obviously, a people found all over western Asia from the end of the third millennium to about the eleventh century cannot lightly be identified with the ancestors of Israel!
(Bright, J. 1972 A History of Israel , SCM Press, London, page 92)
Now according to the dates we have been getting on this thread, the Exodus happened in 1446, but at the same time, in the Alalakh texts from fifteenth-century northern Syria, settlements of 'Apiru are recorded in forty-three places, where they appear as state supported warriors. In a few instances the former occupations of ‘Apiru are listed. In Alalakh Tablet (AT) 180, some of the former occupations of the ‘Apiru are given, they included, ‘an armed thief, a priest, and even an hazannu official’ (Wiseman, D J. ‘The Alalakh Tablets’, British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, London 1953, p.12)
Now the etymology of the word since the original assertion was that the word Habiru=Hebrew. In 1939 it became clear beyond all doubt that the consonantal element of the word ha-bi-ru, which could not be clearly determined from the cuneiform script, had to be established as '-p-r, whereby at least all etymologies dependent on the root *HBR were excluded, and corresponding attempts with *'BR and the 'ibrim became dubious. The word ‘Apiru is not of Hebrew origin, and, of course, the Hebrew word for ‘Hebrew’ is ibrim. The origin of the word is not known for certain: ‘there is no certainty as to the language (NW Semitic, Hurrian, etc.) or the verbal root from which the sociopolitical technical term (‘Apiru) was originally drawn (Gottwald, page 401).
Another myth that needs to be exposed is this erroneous belief that the ‘Apiru invaded Canaan, it simply didn’t happen that way, there was no outside force that invaded Canaan mentioned in the Amarna Letters. The letters explicitly state that the warfare was purely internal, small Canaanite city states were fighting against other Canaanite city states and the ‘Apiru mentioned were hired soldiers, mercenaries, who were already living in Canaan.
In fact, the ultra conservative Christian scholar John Bimson wrote in 1978 that
‘Study of the Amarna correspondence itself shows that the role of the Apiru in the Amarna period does not resemble the activities of the invading Hebrews during the Conquest as presented in the biblical traditions’ (Redating the Exodus and Conquest, JSOT, Sheffield University Press, page 243).
Canaan during the Amarna period can be summed up as being a collection of city-states ruled by local vassals of Egypt. These local princes ruled cities that were under Egyptian administration but at times they were stilled referred to as ‘kings’. Some of these local ‘kings’ were trying to break free from Egyptian control and at the same time trying to increase the size of their own territories by seizing land from their neighbours. To help achieve these aims, they hired troops and mercenaries, in the Amarna letters (EA) the mercenaries are identified as ‘Apiru or SA.GAZ.’
Your servant was/is in the land of A [bi (]. Its horses and its chariots [they have given ] to the SA.GAZ; they have not g[iven them] to the king, my lord. When Biridashwa saw this deed, he stirred up the city of Yanuamma against me and closed the gate behind me. Then he took chariots from Ashtarte and gave them to the SA.GAZ; he did not give them to the king, my lord. And Arzawiya went to Qadesh and took the army of Aziru. He seized Shaddu and gave it to the SA.GAZ; he did not give it to the king, my lord. See! Itatkama has caused the loss of the land of Qadesh, and behold, Arzawiya with Biridashwa have caused the loss of Abi. (EA 197)
You can see here that it is the local Canaanite princes who are fighting each other, and the victor actually gave the city of Shaddu to the ‘Apiru, this is contrary to the Joshua narratives where the Israelites conquer the entire land by themselves.
In the Alalakh census lists of armed SA.GAZ/'apiru there is more precise information. AT 180 refers to two charioteers among 29 men, AT 182 mentions 7 charioteers among 29 men, and AT 183 and AT 226 speak of 80 charioteers among 1,436 men. Thus, while the great majority of armed 'apiru at Alalakh were infantry, a significant minority were charioteers. Given the general social disdain in which 'Apiru appear to have been held, and the fact that they are listed separately from the upper classes, it is doubtful that these Alalakh 'apiru charioteers were members of the military elite. It is probably more accurate to think of them as former feudal aristocrats, maryannu, who, as fugitives from other city-states, brought their skills in chariotry to Alalakh and were hired to drive chariots owned by local aristocrats. The 'Apiru captives from Canaan who are mentioned in Egypt, however, are never associated with chariots; when they are described as warriors, they, are infantrymen and clearly distinguished from the maryannu chariot-warriors (Wiseman, p.12).
Given the alleged atrocious and vicious way in which the Israelite God was supposed to have treated the Egyptians, EA 286 gives us some confusing information, the letter to an Egyptian commissioner enquires:
‘"Why do you favour the 'Apiru but hate the governors [i.e., local dynasts]?" (Gottwald, p.403). It is difficult to imagine any Egyptian having sympathy for a group whose God just ripped the heart out of his country!
In EA 288, ER-Heba of Jerusalem declares, ’see! Zimridathe town(smen) of Lachish have smitten him, servants who have become 'apiru.. It is beyond me as to how one can become a Hebrew, since Hebrew is an ethnic group surely you have to be born a Hebrew.
What is even more fascinating is that one can become an ‘Apiru for a period of time and them revert back to ones former social status. King Idrimi of Alalakh is forced by a revolt on the part of the inhabitants of his father's royal city of Aleppo to leave the city along with his brothers and lead a wandering life among the bedouin and in the cities of Emar and Ammiya. In Ammiya ‘in the land of Canaan’ he gathers about him people from his home states (Aleppo, Mugis, 'Ama'u), and with them he prepares his return to power.
Before the description of the mobilisation of his expeditionary force he summarises, in his autobiography, the preceding period of flight as follows:
’a-na li-bi erin.mes ltjsa.gaz a-na Mu.y.KAM.MES as-ba-ku 'amongst the 'apiru-people. I remained for seven years', i.e. 'for seven years I was an ‘Apiru' (Weippert, p.67).
Probably the strongest reason for rejecting the ‘Apiru/Hebrew equation can be found in EA 148, where the king of Hazor is said to be giving support to the ‘Apiru,
‘The king of Hasura has abandoned his house and has aligned himself with the `Apiru’.
This contradicts the Book of Judges where Hazor is a source of opposition to the Israelites. One example from Judges 4:2-3
‘So the LORD sold them into the hands of Jabin, a king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor The commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth Haggoyim. Because he had nine hundred iron chariots and had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years, they cried to the LORD for help.’
The ‘Apiru were not an ethnic group, they consisted of many different nationalities. Obviously, we all know that the Israelites were a people, a nation, an ethnic group that emphasised their distinction from all other groups, therefore we have a distinction between the ‘Apiru and the Hebrews. In Canaan the ‘Apiru were for hire as mercenaries by the local princes, this contradicts the biblical version of the conquest of Canaan.
If you want to suggest that the ‘apiru contained an element know as ‘Hebrews’, then I suggest that you first establish that there was such a thing as a 'Hebrew', you need to show that it is plausible.
I am not sure of the context of Frank Cross’s statement. I would imagine that he is saying that the ‘apiru contained a Hebrew element. But it is difficult to understand what Frank is on about from looking at one sentence.
The Habiru/'apiru/Hebrew lnguistic connection is broken.
Brian.
. I'm actually interested in this subject and could not find the name of the expert in the previous posts. For my own edification could you do me the favor and name the expert and the work you are refering to?
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