I have two comments to add to Van Eck's response to Roger Hutchinson's latest excursion into Never-Never Land before I wrap up my reply to his attempts to whitewash the legacy of persecution and intolerance that Christianity has left in its wake. First, I have information to add to Van Eck's comments about when the Edomite kings in Genesis 36 reigned. For Hutchinson's far-fetched solution to be credible, he would have to establish that all of the kings listed in Genesis 36 had reigned in Edom before the Israelites went into Egypt at the time claimed in Genesis 46, because the text in dispute clearly says, "These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the Israelites" (Gen. 36:31). Since Hutchinson's position is that the kings who reigned over the Israelites in this text was a reference to the pharaohs who reigned during the Israelite bondage in Egypt, Hutchinson would have to show that all eight of the Edomite kings in this list had reigned before Jacob took his family into Egypt, for if it can be shown that any of these Edomite kings reigned after the Israelites went into Egypt, then Hutchinson's claim that the kings who reigned over Israel in Genesis 36 were the Egyptian pharaohs simply will not work as a satisfactory explanation of this apparent anachronism.
Van Eck has already cited what Smith's Bible Dictionary said about Bela, the first Edomite king in the list, so if Bela was a contemporary of Moses, as SBD claimed, it couldn't be true that all eight of these kings had reigned in Edom before Egyptian pharaohs reigned over the Israelites. In fact, since Moses was born 350 years into the sojourn in Egypt, if Bela was a contemporary of Moses, it wouldn't have been possible for any of these eight kings to have reigned in Edom before the pharaohs had reigned over the Israelites. If, then, I can find biblical evidence that an Edomite king much farther down the list had reigned even later than the time of Moses, this would just about complete the demolition of Hutchinson's strained interpretation of Genesis 36:31. Such evidence can be found in the case of Hadar (listed as Hadad in the parallel text in 1 Chronicles 1:50), who was referred to in verse 39 as the successor of Baal-hanan and the last of these Edomite kings. In its discussion of the history of Edom, Eerdmans Bible Dictionary said this about Hadar (Hadad) and the list of Edomite kings in Genesis 36:
Though Gen. 36:31 claims that these rulers reigned before King Saul, Hadar (or Hadad), mentioned in v. 39, was actually a contemporary of the Israelite monarch. Most likely their role was that of tribal chieftain (1987, p. 305)
Notice that this source obviously understood the reference to the kings who reigned over the Israelites in Genesis 36:31 to mean the kings who had reigned after Israel had established a national identity and its own monarchy, which began with king Saul. That, of course, doesn't prove that the Genesis writer was definitely referring to kings who had reigned over Israel as a nation, but it certainly discredits Hutchinson's claim that Van Eck's understanding of the expression is just the interpretation of someone who "has an agenda to pursue" and therefore wants "to slant his investigation to achieve the conclusion he seeks." Coming from Hutchinson, who has proven himself to be constantly in the pursuit of an agenda on behalf of biblical inerrancy, this accusation is almost too ludicrous to deserve serious comment, because if anyone slants his investigation to "achieve the conclusion he seeks," that person is Roger Hutchinson. How else could he have reached some of the ridiculous conclusions we have seen him try to defend in this publication? At any rate, unless Hutchinson wants to accuse the editors of a conservative reference work like Eerdmans Bible Dictionary of having an agenda to pursue that leads them to slant their investigation to achieve the conclusions they seek, he will have to admit that Van Eck's understanding of Genesis 36:31 is not just the interpretation of someone who is stretching credulity in order to find flaws in the Bible but is an interpretation shared by scholarly sources.
The quotation from Eerdmans also said that the Hadar (Hadad) in the list of Edomite kings was actually a contemporary of Saul (the first Israelite king). Biblical support for this view can be found in the story of an Edomite ruler named Hadad, who was described as "an adversary" of Solomon in 1 Kings 11:14. Hadad was said to be "of the king's seed in Edom," and he allegedly survived David's massacre of all Edomite males by fleeing to Egypt with "certain Edomites of his father's servants" (v:17). Later, when Hadad heard that David and his general Joab (who had led the massacre) were dead, Hadad returned to Edom to become Solomon's "adversary" (vs:21-22). Eerdmans Bible Dictionary identified this Edomite king as Hadad III (p. 305), so if a third Hadad "of the king's seed in Edom" reigned in the time of Solomon, the chronology of his reign would be consistent with the reign of the first Hadad in the time of Saul. Certainly, the chronology would be inconsistent with the reign of Hadad the first at a time before the Israelites went into Egypt. To say the least, what the Bible says about Hadad is hardly supportive of Hutchinson's far-fetched interpretation of Genesis 36:31.
That brings me to my second comment about Hutchinson's explanation of this anachronism. The interpretation of a text should always be based on what the text says and not on what the reader would like for it to say. If I learned anything in teaching college literature for 30 years and in completing the courses necessary to train for that profession, I certainly learned that much. When students are tested on this level, they are expected to justify their interpretations of literary passages by the language of the text, and this is where Hutchinson's interpretation of Genesis 36:31 fails miserably. There is nothing in the text that even remotely suggests the meaning that Hutchinson is claiming. To the contrary, the language indicates that the writer was referring to kings who had reigned over an established Israelite nation. The word reigned was used twice in this verse, first in reference to kings who had reigned in the land of Edom and then to kings who had reigned over the Israelites. If the first usage of the word signified kings who had reigned as the heads of an established nation inhabited by an ethnic group known as Edomites, then what reason is there to suppose that the second usage of the word in the same sentence had a different meaning and referred not to kings who had ruled over the Israelites as a nation but to kings who had reigned in a foreign country that had held the Israelites in bondage? There is no sound literary reason to justify this meaning. I have done a computer check of how the expression "reigned over Israel" was used in the Old Testament, and I found that it was consistently used in reference to kings like Saul, David, and Solomon, who reigned over the unified kingdom of Israel, and Nadab, Ahab, Ahaziah, Jehu, and others who had reigned over the northern kingdom after the division. Furthermore, I found that "reigned over Judah" was consistently used in reference to the Judean kings who had reigned in Jerusalem after the unified kingdom had split into the northern and southern divisions. Not one time did I find this expression used in reference to foreign kings who reigned over the Israelites while they were in captivity. These passages are too numerous even to list, but if Hutchinson would bother to check this even in a concordance, I think he will find that my information is correct.
One would think that Hutchinson would have had enough intellectual pride to do a simple check like this before he wrote his article, but, of course, he has shown in his various attempts to resolve biblical discrepancies that he belongs to the any-interpretation-will-do school of apologetics. In other words, his primary goal is always to defend the inerrancy of the Bible, and so the sensibility of the interpretations that he assigns to disputed texts is always secondary to that. If an interpretation removes a discrepancy, that is all he cares. The plausibility of the interpretation doesn't matter. This time, however, he has hoisted himself with his own petard by presenting an interpretation of Genesis 36:31 that is both absurd and inconsistent with other biblical passages.
Trying to salvage the past: If Hutchinson would ever learn to research a subject before he speaks out on it, maybe he wouldn't feel the constant need to save face. In his November/ December 1999 article (pp. 6-7), he tried to salvage something from a botched attempt he made four years ago to remove a chronological discrepancy in the Exodus-6 genealogy by arguing that the writer had skipped some generations between Levi and Aaron and Moses. In his desperation to salvage something from this failure, Hutchinson said that "few people would conclude that a 430 year span could be bridged by four generations" (Nov/Dec 1999, p. 7). He's right, and this is exactly why rational readers have to conclude that there is a chronological error in this genealogy, but before I address that point, let's notice the subtle way that Hutchinson is begging a question that he is obligated to prove. What he is actually saying is that 430 years could not have been bridged by just four generations, and so "(i)t is obvious that the genealogy in Exodus does not name every direct descendent from Levi to Moses" (p. 7). In other words, Hutchinson is saying that generations had to have been skipped in this genealogy; otherwise, it would conflict with Exodus 12:40, which says that the Israelites sojourned in Egypt for 430 years. Hutchinson excludes even the possibility that an error could have been made in one of the two inconsistent passages, so he postulates a skipped-generation theory to account for the discrepancy. In so doing, he attempts to prove inerrancy by just assuming inerrancy, but this is a flagrant begging of the question that he needs to prove. Did the genealogy skip generations? Hutchinson must prove that it did, not just assume that it did.
Hutchinson has never given any evidence to support his claim except to argue that the Hebrew words ben (son) and yalad (bear) meant only that Kohath and Amram (the "grandfather" and "father" of Moses and Aaron) were only descendants of Levi and that Jochebed, who "bore" (yalad) Aaron and Moses, was only their ancestor and not their actual "mother." Now Hutchinson has revived this issue by arguing that "referral to the Hebrew lexicons is sufficient to establish that the words have the meaning [he] ascribed to them and are used in that manner" (Nov/Dec 1999, p. 7).
I'm going to let someone who knows much more about Hebrew than I do reply to this quibble. Long-time subscribers to The Skeptical Review may remember articles by Yoel Wasserman that involved issues related to the meanings of Hebrew words. Mr. Wasserman grew up in Israel and taught Hebrew there before he came to the United States. When this very issue was being debated on an internet site, I asked Wasserman to comment on the inerrantist claim that Exodus 6:20 didn't mean that Jochebed was the actual mother of Aaron and Moses. The following is excerpted from the reply that he sent.
Christian lexicons as well as Hebrew dictionaries do not list the actual verb form used, but usually list only the root. Any of these following conjugations appearing in the text would be listed under the root but not as the actual word used in the text: yoledet, laledet, teled, vateled, meyaledet, nolad, noladeti, yulad, hivaled....
Lexicons do not list the verb form used. They list the root, and they do not list variations according to structure like a Hebrew dictionary would. Instead, a Christian lexicon will simply list how the root is used in whatever translation it is using.
In other words, Wasserman was pointing out that lexicons will list all forms of a Hebrew word under the root, and so just looking at the root word is not an effective way to determine what derivations of the root may have meant in the contexts in which they were used.
Genesis 46:18 is often used as a proof text by those who try to make yalad in Exodus 6:20 mean only that Jochebed was an ancestor of Moses and Aaron. This Genesis text listed both the sons and grandsons of Zilpah (one of Jacob's concubines) and then said, "These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to Leah his daughter, and these she bore (yalad) to Jacob." Inerrantists argue from this that since yalad was so used here, it was also used in that way in the Exodus-6 genealogy of Aaron and Moses. I asked Wasserman to comment specifically on this claim, and here is what he said. The explanation of how yalad was used in Hebrew is long but necessary to expose the error in Hutchinson's claim.
Well, the word yalad isn't used [in Genesis 46:18]. The word used is vateled "and she gave birth." Yalad is just what appears in a dictionary. It is the root. It does not mean "to bear," since "to bear a child" is an English idiom. It means "to give birth."
Now, there is an extended meaning as well, and this is why this verb is being used here in Genesis 46:18. The word toledot ("generation list") is also derived from the root yalad, but it literally means "births" or "birthings." For example, when you say toledot avraham (the generations of Abraham), you are actually saying "the birthings" of Abraham which (insert wife) birthed for him, and you can list the developing branches of the family and list these as "birthings of avraham," and you can use the appropriate verb structure of the yalad root.
By the way, toledah (singular) doesn't mean "generation" as in a single generation of people, (this word is dor) but rather it denotes a branching of offspring. Here is the Hebrew dictionary meaning: toldedot-- (1) the branching of the offspring of a man and his descendents, (2) a chapter of developments, (3) [modern] a history.
As I said, this word comes directly from the yalad (birth/child) root (yud replaced with vav): t-W-L-D-t.
So when listing a branching of the offspring of a man, you can say vateled (insert wife) to/for him, but you cannot use this otherwise. You cannot say vateled sarah et yosef (and Sarah gave birth to Josef) even though Joseph is a descendant of Sarah. The only way you could do it is if you list the generations of Abraham's children starting from Sarah's direct descendents and which include Joseph as her great-grandchild, and you could say that these are the children that Sarah birthed. Only then you could use the yalad verb, since it is an extended list of birthings which includes Sarah's actual physical births, and the extended births leading to Joseph.
This is what you have in Genesis 46:18, a listing of toledot yaakov (the generations of Jacob) which Zilpah birthed for him. In 46:16 appears a list of Zilpah's son Gad and his children and it is followed in verse 17 by a list of Zilpah's son Asher and his children. This is a list of Zilpah's children and grandchildren. Then verse 18 reads like this: eleh bnei zilpah asher natan lavan lele'ah bito (these [are] [the] sons [of] zilpah which gave lavan to leah his daughter) vateled et eleh leyaakov shesh-esereh nefesh (and she gave birth these to jacob sixteen souls)
So you can use the yalad verb (conjugated: vateled) in this sense, but in Exodus 6:20, you do not have a similar situation. You do not have a listing of toledot Amram (the generations of Amram), which Yokheved birthed for him. The text simply says that she gave birth to Aaron and Moses: vayiqaH amram et yokheved dodato lo leishah (and took Amram Yokheved his aunt to himself to wife) vateled lo et aharon ve'et mosheh (and she gave birth to him Aaron and Moses).
This is it. Yokheved gave birth to these. There is no one listed before. It is not an extended list of birthings, a toledot Amram (birthings of Amram) which Yokheved birthed for him. It is saying that Moses and Aaron are the children (yeladim) of Amram and Yokheved.
This should be the final nail in the coffin of Hutchinson's four-year-long effort to prove that Jochebed was not the actual mother of Moses and Aaron, but why do I suspect that it won't be.
There are a few points in Hutchinson's article that I will have
to reply to in the next issue.
