The problem here is languages. If we stick to the story line of Abram as he comes out of Ur of the anachronistic Chaldeans he is with the Isin-Larsa- old Babylonian period. The language is Akkadian and as he moves into Haran it will have Amorite dialect with Hurrian influences. Then as he moves into the Levant of the period there would be significant Eblaite influences with Damas speaking a N. Semetic language. Thus in terms of writing the language will be based on Akkadian which is also the writing language of the later Amarna period. The alternative language is protosinaitic which appears in the 18th century BCE. Israel Finkelstein thinks the language developed in Egyptian Gaza, I think it was a shop keepers language from the Nile. It was not a well developed writing language during the period. So the flux of settlement during the period appears to be directed by expansion of Sumer II and Babylon via its Amorite proxies in the middle and upper Euphrates. This is the period preceded by destruction layers at Jericho and Ai, and there after the arrival of Amorite and West Semetic speaking settlers in the NE Nile delta. So the pointers in terms of written language are towards Akkadian and this is how the Abramic traditions would be carried. And there is evidence from the later period this is the case. There is the fragmented Hammurabi-like law code at Hazor and there are correspondences between Jerusalem and Egypt during the Amarna period. “A cuneiform economic text, with 4 personal names and a list of animals, unearthed at the site and dated 17-16 century BCE indicates Tel Rumeida/Hebron was composed of a multicultural pastoral society of Hurrians and Amorites, run by an independent administrative system with its palace scribes perhaps under kingly rule.” Whereas the Bible claims that there were Hittites living in the region, during the period in question it’s dubious that such a Hittite named people existed in the region. However the ancestral group from Kura-Araxes was known to have reached Galilee and they might have brought wine making to the region. We can see from the cuneiform a plausible source for the Abrahamic story that is rooted in the reemergence of Sumer after the Gutians under Ur III as Ur reaches out to extend its trading hegemony it establishes a large trading colony at Harran. It should be noted that the tutelary god of both cities is Suen/Nanna (moon and wisdom god). As a trading city there would have been Amorite and Hurrian traders coming in and out of the city. Further up the Euphrates, Sumer was pushing to establish trading outposts in among the Hattie and later we see the Amorite push into the Nile. Between Harran and the Nile is Damas, the S. Levant, and Gaza. The story of Abram falls into to this line of story telling, the nomads of eastern origin would have participating in trade and efforts to colonize the land for the eastern trading concerns along the Euphrates. The most likely god of these traders was the eastern-like god ‘El the most high. As new trading post are established they would demonstrate their connection to the east by having some element of eastern culture in the name or as a tutelary god of the settlement. But we get to the question is Abram and his family buried at Hebron. The site indicates a relative succession of people from the e-Neolithic onwards. We don’t know when this legendary figure lived or if any accurate records were carried and in which language. It’s clear there are anachronisms in the text, since the Chaldeans did not expand into the Sealand region until the late Bronze Age collapse, and camels don’t appear in the region until 900-933 BCE. I don’t get a sense that the Israelites have any strong connection with Akkadian language, we have nothing in the way of textual evidence that links Israelites as either readers or writers of Akkadian. And without some inscription evidence in the caves I ponder how the burial of a prince in Hebron later becomes connected to Samaria and Judea during the 9th century when Phonecian literacy appears in the S. Levant.
The Cave of Twins
The problem here is languages. If we stick to the story line of Abram as he comes out of Ur of the anachronistic Chaldeans he is with the Isin-Larsa- old Babylonian period. The language is Akkadian and as he moves into Haran it will have Amorite dialect with Hurrian influences. Then as he moves into the Levant of the period there would be significant Eblaite influences with Damas speaking a N. Semetic language.
Thus in terms of writing the language will be based on Akkadian which is also the writing language of the later Amarna period. The alternative language is protosinaitic which appears in the 18th century BCE. Israel Finkelstein thinks the language developed in Egyptian Gaza, I think it was a shop keepers language from the Nile. It was not a well developed writing language during the period.
So the flux of settlement during the period appears to be directed by expansion of Sumer II and Babylon via its Amorite proxies in the middle and upper Euphrates. This is the period preceded by destruction layers at Jericho and Ai, and there after the arrival of Amorite and West Semetic speaking settlers in the NE Nile delta. So the pointers in terms of written language are towards Akkadian and this is how the Abramic traditions would be carried. And there is evidence from the later period this is the case. There is the fragmented Hammurabi-like law code at Hazor and there are correspondences between Jerusalem and Egypt during the Amarna period.
“A cuneiform economic text, with 4 personal names and a list of animals, unearthed at the site and dated 17-16 century BCE indicates Tel Rumeida/Hebron was composed of a multicultural pastoral society of Hurrians and Amorites, run by an independent administrative system with its palace scribes perhaps under kingly rule.”
Whereas the Bible claims that there were Hittites living in the region, during the period in question it’s dubious that such a Hittite named people existed in the region. However the ancestral group from Kura-Araxes was known to have reached Galilee and they might have brought wine making to the region.
We can see from the cuneiform a plausible source for the Abrahamic story that is rooted in the reemergence of Sumer after the Gutians under Ur III as Ur reaches out to extend its trading hegemony it establishes a large trading colony at Harran. It should be noted that the tutelary god of both cities is Suen/Nanna (moon and wisdom god). As a trading city there would have been Amorite and Hurrian traders coming in and out of the city. Further up the Euphrates, Sumer was pushing to establish trading outposts in among the Hattie and later we see the Amorite push into the Nile. Between Harran and the Nile is Damas, the S. Levant, and Gaza.
The story of Abram falls into to this line of story telling, the nomads of eastern origin would have participating in trade and efforts to colonize the land for the eastern trading concerns along the Euphrates. The most likely god of these traders was the eastern-like god ‘El the most high. As new trading post are established they would demonstrate their connection to the east by having some element of eastern culture in the name or as a tutelary god of the settlement.
But we get to the question is Abram and his family buried at Hebron. The site indicates a relative succession of people from the e-Neolithic onwards. We don’t know when this legendary figure lived or if any accurate records were carried and in which language. It’s clear there are anachronisms in the text, since the Chaldeans did not expand into the Sealand region until the late Bronze Age collapse, and camels don’t appear in the region until 900-933 BCE.
I don’t get a sense that the Israelites have any strong connection with Akkadian language, we have nothing in the way of textual evidence that links Israelites as either readers or writers of Akkadian. And without some inscription evidence in the caves I ponder how the burial of a prince in Hebron later becomes connected to Samaria and Judea during the 9th century when Phonecian literacy appears in the S. Levant.