Queries & Comments

014

Offended by BAR’s New Idol Set

To the Editor:

Cancel my subscription.

When BAR starts selling idols, the next step will probably be selling instructions on proper worship of such idols.

Where Did the Fleeing Israelites Get Ships?

To the Editor:

I read with great interest your article on Professor Goedicke’s Exodus theory (“The Exodus and the Crossing of the Red Sea, According to Hans Goedicke,” BAR 07:05) and although I can’t agree with all of Professor Goedicke’s interpretations, I do find his theory more believable than that of Professor Krahmalkov.

The circumstantial assumptions for Krahmalkov’s own theory fall under their own weight. For instance, according to Mr. Krahmalkov, the Israelites journeyed to Qoseir—a 107 mile trek through the desert—and there, he blandly states, they departed by ship. What ships? If the Israelites were numbered in the hundreds of thousands, or even tens of thousands, how many ships would be needed to transport such a mass of people? Even if there were enough ships, which seems very unlikely, did they simply commandeer them or did they have previous arrangements made with the dock authorities to transport an entire nation quickly please and do you give discounts? If it was done ferry-style (i.e., each ship coming back for more loads), has anyone figured out the time element involved, since the enemy was in hot pursuit?

Moreover, the Egyptian army, when they arrived, apparently boarded still more ships in pursuit of the Israelites. I might also add that nowhere whatsoever in the Biblical account do I read the faintest suggestion of ships, as does Professor Krahmalkov.

As for BAR, you have an intellectually stimulating and refreshing periodical, and I admire your forum format which presents and airs several sides of a debate to the interested reader.

Goedicke’s Exodus Theories Anticipated by BAR Reader and Others

To the Editor:

In an article published in April 1975 in the Temple Israel Light (a publication of Temple Israel, Great Neck, New York), I anticipated a great deal of Professor Goedicke’s theories as reported in the September/October 1981 BAR (“The Exodus and the Crossing of the Red Sea, According to Hans Goedicke,” BAR 07:05).

In my article I attributed the drowning of the Egyptians to “a tsunami or seismic sea wave, often called a tidal wave … resulting from the volcanic eruption and collapse of the late Bronze Age island of Thera (Santorini).” I also located the Red Sea crossing at the southern part of “Lake Menzaleh whose marshy southern portion was referred to in Biblical times as the Sea of Reeds.” As I pointed out, “The lake itself is actually a bay, open to the sea in some places and in others separated only by a low, broken shelf of land.”

I also suggested, as does Goedicke, that “The Israelites probably encamped on a rise of ground south of the marshy area. … The Israelites, observing in comparative safety from this rise of ground watched the waters rush by them. … When the waters receded, the Egyptians were gone.”

My article concluded “There can be no doubt however that the events described in Exodus did occur. The correlations are too great to think otherwise.”

As BAR’s report stated, the Thera eruption is generally considered by archaeologists to have occurred in the 15th century B.C. and the Exodus is generally considered to have occurred in the third quarter of the 13th century B.C. The 13th century date is based mainly on the lack of evidence of Israelite settlement in Palestine before 1200 B.C. or a 015few years earlier. But this is really no obstacle to the theory as presented by myself and later by Dr. Goedicke. As I stated in my article, the “Exodus could have secured in several waves and the events described could conceivably have occurred over a period of years.” The Hebrews were part of a labor force working not too far from the Egypt-Sinai border. Groups of Hebrews were always running away. Some succeeded; some did not. One such group made a rendezvous with the Thera tsunami. It would be some time before the Hebrews could amass sufficient armed numbers (of runaways plus those nomad tribes who might never have left Palestine) before daring to challenge the established might of the Canaanites. Both dates are correct, therefore; that is, early 15th century B.C. for the escape coinciding with the Thera eruption, and late 12th century or early 11th century B.C. for the beginnings of settlement.

Incidentally, Professor Krahmalkov attacks Goedicke’s theory because, says Krahmalkov, Goedicke does not consider the eyewitness account in Exodus 15. I do not believe Exodus 15 conflicts with Goedicke’s theory. Indeed, Exodus 15 supports it. It describes a wave like a tsunami: “At the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up, the flood stood straight like a wall.” (Exodus 15:8) The New York Times of October 22, 1883, used almost identical language to describe a tsunami which occurred in Java, Netherlands Indies: “[A witness] suddenly descried far out to seaward a piled-up wall of water ‘standing up like a high column’ and coming in upon the shore with inconceivable swiftness.”

The Java tsunami, judged much smaller than that of Thera, resulted from the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano on August 26, 1883. In the open ocean, wave heights of a tsunami are small, two or three feet at the most. However, wave height increases greatly as the water piles up on a shallow shoreline. In V-shaped bays the effect is greatly enhanced and water heights have been known to rise to 90 feet or more. The Aleutian earthquake of April 1, 1946, produced waves up to 55 feet high, 2,000 miles away in the distant Hawaiian Islands.

The initial wave on a distant shore begins with a recession which appears as an unusually low tide developing in a matter of minutes and exposing the sea floor to limits far beyond those of normal tides. An extensive tidal shallow such as the Sea of Reeds would have its bottom exposed over a large area by such a phenomenon. The “tidal wave” may appear within a few minutes or it may come as much as half an hour later.

As reported in Exodus 14:21, “ … the Lord drove back the sea with a strong east wind all that night and turned the sea into dry ground.” The first recession of the waters had occurred! At this point in time, “the Egyptians came in pursuit after them into the sea, all of Pharaoh’s horses, chariots and horsemen. At the morning watch the Lord looked down from a pillar of fire and cloud, and threw the Egyptian army into panic. He locked the wheels of their chariots so that their wheels moved with great difficulty. “ The Egyptian chariots had become mired in the temporarily exposed bed of the marsh, in what their drivers had mistaken to be “dry ground.” It was at this point that the seismic wave piled its waters upon the shore and upon the hapless Egyptians, “… and the deeps covered them … the water piled up, the flood stood straight like a wall.”

These passages graphically describe the effects of a tsunami. Professor Krahmalkov’s claim that Exodus contains no descriptive elements to substantiate the tsunami theory are somewhat surprising.

BAR’s article did not explain how a tsunami is created. Your readers may be interested: After the magma chamber of the volcano is emptied by the pouring out of vast quantities of material, a cavity of huge dimensions is formed. As its sides collapse, the sea rushes into the hollow. The water, suddenly striking the super-heated cavity, violently recoils. The sudden movement of such huge quantities of water, creates sea waves of prodigious energy.

Exodus 7 also supports the theory, contrary to Professor Krahmalkov. On present day Thera, the volcanic cliffs of that island show broad bands of color, i.e., red, black and white. Furthermore, deep cores from the Mediterranean Sea indicate a windblown pumice pattern from Thera which points directly toward the Egyptian Delta and the Sea of Reeds. Vulcanologists vary in their estimates on how long before the final cataclysm the Thera volcano began its preliminary “puffings.” Nevertheless, the fall of red pumice on the waters of the Delta is reflected in Exodus 7:20—”and all the water in the Nile was turned into blood … ” The effect of a rain of black volcanic ash from the Krakatoa volcano in 1883 was described by the New York Times article as a “darkness which could be felt … men fell fainting in the streets.” Exodus 9 and 10 relate that at God’s instruction, Moses held out his arm toward the sky “that there may be darkness upon the land of Egypt” and that he take “soot from the kiln 016and throw it toward the sky … that it shall become a fine dust all over Egypt.”

A further correlation is found in Exodus 13, “The Lord went before them in a pillar of cloud by day … and in a pillar of fire by night.” In 1883, the dust above Krakatoa rose over 50 miles into the atmosphere and at night was reported to be “laced with volcanic lightning”; surely, it reflected the fires below. A dust column of this height over Thera would have been visible over two-thirds of its height from the Sea of Reeds 700 miles to the southeast.

To the Editor:

Dr. Goedicke’s theory is really not new.

In 1969, James W. Mavor, Jr., of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute very clearly, and in some detail, described an expedition undertaken by the Woods Hole Institute to uncover the “Lost Continent of Atlantis.” The details of this expedition are contained in Mavor’s book, Voyage to Atlantis (G. P. Putnam’s Sons: N.Y., 1969, pp. 137, 186 and Appendix B). This expedition centered on an underwater study of the island of Thera. At the heart of the expedition was a study of the eruption of a volcano on Thera and its effects not only on the island itself, but also, the “ripple” effects completely across the Mediterranean Sea on the shore of Egypt.

In this discussion Mavor posits the idea that the “closing of the waters upon the Egyptians was caused by the shock-waves of the waters caused by the volcanic eruption on Thera.”

Volunteer’s Reaction to Demonstrations at the City of David

To the Editor:

I’ve never before written a letter to an editor or to a magazine for that matter but—now I must.

I just returned from the last two weeks of the dig at the City of David in Jerusalem and simply had to write a letter of admiration as to the way Dr. Shiloh and his professional staff handled the situation of the Neturei Karta [a group of ultra-orthodox, anti-Zionist Jews who do not recognize the State of Israel]. Dr. Shiloh and his staff kept themselves and all volunteers calm even to the point that most of us didn’t bother to put our work down long enough to pick up our cameras to take “shots” of the demonstrators. We were sometimes amused and annoyed, but it was always “business as usual” with no one losing his/her sense of humor.

I have been cursed, spat upon, “pebbled,” had lamentations said over me, been called a grave robber, and had people move away from me in the elevator at the hotel after returning from the dig each day, but—next year in the City of David! Next year in Jerusalem!

P. S. It’s thanks to you and your magazine that I found out about the dig. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Right on!—Ed.

Professional Photographer Lauds Quality of BAR’s Printing

To the Editor:

To see my pictures printed in such a professional fashion is a real pleasure.

Rafi Magnes is one of several professional photographers who regularly take pictures for BAR.—Ed.

BAR’s Discount Books

To the Editor:

Let me thank you for offering your readers the opportunity to order books on Biblical archaeology at a discount. May I also recommend that BAR explore the possibility of offering a discount, when it is published in 1982, of The Pseudepigrapha edited by Dr. James H. Charlesworth, Department of Religion, Duke University.

We certainly will. Dr. Charlesworth was a member of the faculty at one of BAR’s Vacation/Seminars last summer and is at work on a manuscript for BAR.—Ed.

018

The Achilles Heel in Jerusalem’s Water System

To the Editor:

After several re-readings of Yigal Shiloh’s “Jerusalem’s Water Supply During Siege—The Rediscovery of Warren’s Shaft,” BAR 07:04, I still cannot see how the construction of his tunnel could have given Hezekiah any defensive advantage against the siege of Sennacherib. Even if he also enclosed the Pool of Siloam within the city walls, how could any “wartime problem” be thus “solved” when to this day tourists, intimidated by Warren’s vertical shaft, can easily penetrate inside the City of David from the Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam thorough Hezekiah’s Tunnel? To the contrary, evidence that the Siloam Pool was fortified and that the Gihon Spring was not would seem to make this tunnel a counterproductive “defense project” at best.

While diverting the Siloam Channel could “block up … streams” from the enemy (2 Chronicles 32:4), the specific reference to this project comes much later in the same chapter (32:30) and need not imply a defensive purpose for it. Isaiah clarifies (8:5–8) that this presumptuous provision for a more convenient water supply angered the Lord and was more a cause for the siege than an ordained preparation for it. Maybe we who heedlessly proliferate our own technology should not miss the point.

Yigal Shiloh replies:

Tim Hensgen has asked a number of questions we archaeologists ask ourselves. Unfortunately, there are no absolute or definite answers. It is always good to ask these questions because it gives us the opportunity to clarify anew a number of points.

During the Iron Age, Israelite cities were always built on the principle that water sources that flowed throughout the year lay beyond the city limits. The water supply was therefore either incorporated within the defensive system, or was hidden from foreign enemies, who, arriving from distant lands, were unfamiliar with the lay of the land. These propositions are generally accepted basic principles.

The water sources at Gibeon, Megiddo, and Yibleam are all examples of a “hidden” water source, where access was through an underground tunnel entered from inside the city. Such a system provided the city residents with free and comfortable access to the spring during time of war as well as peace.

Water sources were naturally taken into consideration by city architects in planning both the defensive systems of the city as well as the layout of the city plan. The elements of the various water systems in Jerusalem were influenced by the uses of each water system, each being designed to fulfill a different need.

2 Chronicles 32:2–4, 30, which describes the hiding of the entry of the Gihon spring outside the city wall gives us the first detail of the renewal of Jerusalem’s water system in King Hezekiah’s time. At that time, the water of the Gihon Spring flowed through Hezekiah’s Tunnel in a southwesterly direction to the Siloam Pool, which was located in an area that had been recently incorporated within the defended part of the city. This water system, combining the spring, the tunnel, and the pool, insured the correctly controlled use of all the available water, both by the residents of the City of David and by residents of the newly developed western quarter of the city in the area of modern Mt. Zion.

No doubt the spring, which lay outside the city wall, provided the sensitive link, or “Achilles heel” in this system. At this point, I must refer the reader to studies of ancient water systems in Israel which will soon be published in both Hebrew and English.

Regarding the second part of Mr. Hensgen’s letter, I can only say that archaeologists try to paint a realistic picture of the various elements of a material culture as they are discovered in the field. In the course of his research, the archaeologist utilizes all available information, from archaeological sources and from Biblical and historical sources. Thus I do not quarrel with Mr. Hensgen’s reading of this Biblical passage or its intention, especially as it concerns the relationship of man to God.

“ … Until Shiloh Come”

To the Editor:

The story about archaeologist Yigal Shiloh’s major discovery in Jerusalem was most interesting. I look forward to finding out what’s behind the postern doors.

Shiloh’s work calls to mind the passage from Genesis 49: “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah … until Shiloh come.”

The protests and demonstrations at Dr. Shiloh’s dig lead us to wonder, with some trepidation, who will get the sceptre.

020

Scholar Satirizes Ebla Research

The following letter, by a prominent Assyriologist, will unfortunately be above the heads of most of our non-professional readers. We print it, nevertheless, because we feel an obligation to give a hearing to all sides of the controversial matters discussed in our pages. R. David Freedman is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Davis.—Ed.

To the Editor:

Now that there has been another flurry of writing about Ebla, I think that someone should congratulate you on your coverage. You have fearlessly published emotion-laden argument, some speculative pieces, some solid material, and the only satire on Ebla that I am aware of. The satire is Mitchell Dahood’s “Are the Ebla Tablets Relevant to Biblical Research?” BAR 06:05. Unfortunately, most of the humor is technical, and most of your readers probably did not catch it. I thought I would rectify that situation and take the various items in the order that they appear in the article.

1. Regarding Sumerian SAL translated by Eblaite i~-ma-tu, if the reading i~-ma-tu (rather than ni-ma-tu or yà-ma-tu) is correct, and we do have a word that would be hmt in Hebrew, then the Akkadian emeµtu (= Hebrew haµmôt), “mother-in-law,” is the proper choice. For Dahood to have invented a Hebrew word hÉmt and then to have related it to Egyptian and Ugaritic is rich, but to have used his new word in Proverbs 6:34 so as to switch from the sermon to the husband against adultery in the preceding eleven verses and suddenly teach woman to be cautious of her husband’s jealousy is even richer. The context makes it obvious that the verse is a warning to the philandering husband that when his paramour’s husband finds out, the husband will punish the lover ruthlessly despite the latter’s effort to buy him off.

Actually, squeezing this made-up word into Psalm 76:11 is even funnier because the preceding ten verses speak of the Lord’s fearsomeness—“thou are awe-inspiring, and who can stand before You” (verse 8)—and here Dahood wants to change the focus from the Lord to women. The Psalmist is thus supposed to have predicted the Women’s Movement by saying, according to Dahood:

“Indeed women, men will praise you

The offspring of women will surround you.”

despite the fact that only one of the words in verse 11 will bear the meaning assigned to it by Dahood.

2. Then we come to the equivalence of Sumerian ezen and Eblaite i-sì-ba-tu. This Eblaite word is taken to be related to Hebrew sûabbaµt, even though Dahood is probably correct in supposing the Eblaite word to be izibatu and to be related to Hebrew zebah and Ugaritic dbh. To get from Eblaite izibatu to any Hebrew word, however, we would need to omit the final -u as a case ending¹ and the -t as a feminine ending.² We could explain the initial i- as a prosthetic aleph.³ But let us try to get from izibatu to sûabbaµt, and 022what is the result? Eblaite ziba = Hebrew sûabbaµt, as unlikely a pair as can be thought of, except to a humorist.

3. Later Dahood tells us that Eblaite ’à-wa is the equivalent of the Hebrew hawwaµh, “Eve,” and that Eblaite wa-na is the equivalent of Hebrew yoµnaµh, “Jonah,” and that Eblaite ti-ba = Hebrew teµbaµh, “ark”. Every freshman student of Semitic languages knows that what appears in Hebrew -aµh appears in all other Semitic dialects as -at(u)⁴. That way not only the specialists would have been able to laugh at these impossible etymologies. (By the way, Dahood overlooked this bit of “confirmation”: the syllable transliterated as ’à can also be transliterated é-.⁵ To do so we would make the Eblaite name into é-wa, which is much closer to Eve.)

4. There is also a funny bit with the place name i-na-hÉu^ki, which Dahood translates as though it were two Hebrew words—i, “island,” and na-hÉu, “repose.”The initial i- is the same preformative that appears in i-si~-ba-tu, but Dahood takes humorist’s license with it to make it a separate word. (Unless we are to understand that i-si~-ba-tu, like i-na-hu, means “Island of Repose.”) If Dahood had kept his languages straight, however, some of the humor of his article would have been lost.

5. We also have this wonderful, funny business that makes the place name Ni-du-ur^ki into i~-tu-ur (Assyriologists would write -tú-), and relates it to Jetur (Hebrew y^etûr). A great wit can turn any Eblaite word into any Hebrew word at will.

6. Dahood has some golden humor when he says that Eblaite Gú-pa-zu^ki is supposed to mean “the Voice is pure gold.” For no other reason than humor Dahood suggests that gú is the deified voice. Of course, Dahood has shown us in his Psalms that almost any noun or adjective can become a divine appellative or epithet. But how does Dahood know that Gú-pa-zu^ki is a city with a Semitic name at all? Note how the humor comes from an unexpected choice.

7. Then he suggests that the personal name Sa-ab-za-ir-ma-lik be understood as though it were Hebrew zaµhaµb-zaµhiïr-Malik, “Shining gold is Malik.” Isn’t it hilarious how Eblaite, a third millennium language looks exactly like Masoretic Hebew? (If we want to find facetious ways of understanding the name, I would suggest Sabsa-ir-Malik. Sabsa is taken as related to Aramaic sh-b-sh, and ir is, of course, “city.” Thus we would get for the whole name: “The city of Malik is destroyed.” And we would know that the name was given by a father after a great victory over one of the Cities of the Plain that figure so prominently in articles about the Ebla tablets.)

8. Then we get an Eblaite background for the gnostic hymn at the beginning of John’s Gospel because the place name é-da-bar^ki is translated as Hebrew, “House of the Word.” (The signs could just as easily have been read é-da-masû^ki, “Thomas’s Temple,” or é-da-masû-ki, “Damascus.”) What we probably really have, though, is é-da-bar^ki, “The Temple of Deber,” the plague god.

9. What comes next is that é-ba-ri-um^ki can be interpreted as “Temple of the Creator.” Now, we Assyriologists would be much happier with “House of the Diviner,” but then we are not trying to make a comedy routine out of the Ebla material. Similarly, our inclination is that ba-ra-gú (or qu_x)⁶ should mean “Lightning” as a personal name (Compare Hebrew Barak); but Dahood’s joke is that the name is to be interpreted as “The Voice has created.”

10. The Bible does not tell us the name of the city Cain built for his son Enoch (Genesis 4:17), but based on the Ebla tablets Dahood knows the name of this unnamed city! A city é-nu-ka-at^ki appears in the Ebla tablets, and Dahood rereads its name as ’á-nu-ka-at^ki. Obviously, this is Hebrew Hanukkaµh, and this suggests that the unnamed city was named 023Hanukkaµh. And somehow in Dahood’s comic imagination “this term is still preserved in the Greek of John 10:22 as the feast of ta egkaina and in English as the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, the festival of dedication during which Jews to this day annually rededicate themselves to the Temple.” Our unknown city is implied to be the source of the name of a feast mentioned in the Gospel of John. Now, this feast is the Jewish festival known in Hebrew as Hanukkaµh (hence English Hanukkah), and it celebrates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Hasmoneans after its defilement by the Syrians and their sympathizers. The feast’s name Hanukkaµh has nothing to do with the name of an unnamed city.

11. Remember the joke with the prosthetic alephs that we pointed out in point 5? Dahood uses that one to make i-ni-pu^ki into i-, “the island of” plus yà-pu^ki, Jaffa. And Dahood makes up another island, this time Pelesium, Biblical Sîn and Eblaite i-Si-nu^ki.

12. No sooner do we stop laughing at that bit than é-ga-ru-nu^ki, “the threshing-floor temple,” becomes ’à-ga-ru-nu^ki, naturally Biblical Ekron. Well, my friends, not only can good understandable names be misread, but we are even given evidence of the misreading of signs. È-za-an^ki gets turned into é-za-an^ki so that we can get Bet-Shan. (Now, if we were to use Dahood’s methodology and the reading first assigned to the syllables, we come up with “The flock went out.” This is not an exercise for the sheepish.)

13. The Eblaite personal name la-dì-a-at is said to mean, “Belonging to knowledge,” whatever that means. (Can’t you just imagine the kid’s mother calling him to dinner, “Belonging-to-Knowledge! Come home for dinner!” This example once again shows Dahood’s comical choices of wrong meanings. This name ought not to be separated from the place name cited two paragraphs later by Dahood, Ladia. What we have with this personal name is “Ladian.”

14. Then out of the sky comes the information that the name Ta-mi-mu is shortened from Tamimu-ilu, “Perfect is Il (god).” This baseless assumption is then coupled with what we “know” about la-dì-a-at to help us understand Job 36:4 and 37:16. Talk about the blind leading the blind!

15. Dahood wants to derive A-du-ul-li-im from a root hdl that means “to fatten.” Now, in standard Akkadian the root hËdl that means “to fatten” has the hË– written: hËuddulu. Therefore, the first letter is not h (a weak consonant), but hË (a strong consonant). How did Dahood get the hË out? What would the name actually mean with all kidding aside? One suspects from the a- and the -u- that we have a verb meaning “I will _______ Lim.” But Dahood is happy to translate “Fattened by grain,” which is a good name for a cow or a prophetic name for a new-born infant.

16. Another divine epithet (!) is discovered in Job 22:12 based on the Sumerian epithet for Dagan be-mul-mul, “Master of the Stars.” One wonders why it took Dahood so long to discover this epithet for Dagan, which has been available for over 100 years. In fact, since the epithet is not unique to Ebla, one wonders what this part of the article has to do with Ebla at all. The answer is that the irrelevance makes for humor. But does Job 22:12 mean what Dahood says? No.

17. Dahood also is enough of a humorist to suggest that the city name sûi-a-la^ki was the name of a place that was so thoroughly destroyed that it lent its name to the Hebrew abode of the dead. The model for this joke is Gehinnom, and that is a hell of a model. Dahood tells us that “A similar kind of tradition may be reflected in the Ebla toponym za-ra-mi-isû^ki, ‘Downpours of Fire,’ a name recalling the destruction of Sodom and Gemorrah.” Now, it must be that instead of taking za-ra-mi-isû all as one word (like Carchemish), Dahood has taken it as zaram, “flow down” + isû, “fire.” The funny part is that we expect the word for “fire” to be isûatu, not isû.⁷

18. The fabrics that Dahood consigns to “the dead of Abaddan” were consigned by the author of the tablet to “the men of Abadanu.” The Akkadian word mutu, “man,” which appears in Hebrew as mittim (Cf. Deuteronomy 2:34) and in Ugaritic (mt; plural mtm), is not related to the word for corpses or the deceased. Except in Dahood’s comic imagination.

19. Have you heard this one: a diety named ^dsûu-ha “can be identified with Hebrew sûuhah, ‘pit,’” and is thus a netherworld goddess. But Hebrew sûu~haµh would appear in Eblaite as sûuhatu, for the reasons we gave in point 3 above. What is more, Dahood even tells us that we should read the name as Canaanite rather than as Sumerian. Is there such a goddess in Canaanite, or is there such a deity in Sumerian texts from the Mesopotamian plains? A humorist need not tell you. But since we have set our goal as the elucidation of Dahood’s humor, it is fitting for us to point out that Dahood’s interpretation is, as they say, the pits. The divinity Sðu-ha (read: sûhuku) means “fisherman” and it is unnecessary—except for a comedian—to fish around for a Canaanite deity.

20. Now, Dahood points out the existence of a city dal-la-sú-gur^ki, which is supposed to mean, “The Gate Never Closed.” He compares Isaiah 60:11, and he closes with a wish that the minds of archaeologists, philologists, and Biblical scholars also be open. My colleagues, the philologists, need to keep an open mind to the humor of Dahood’s suggestions if they do not want to be left with the unpleasant alternative that Dahood made many sophomoric mistakes in his article, especially since Dahood quotes Biggs’ cautious remarks at the beginning of his article.

Offended by BAR’s New Idol Set

To the Editor:

Cancel my subscription.

When BAR starts selling idols, the next step will probably be selling instructions on proper worship of such idols.