[Avodah] The Avos in History

[Micha Berger]

So, I get in my mailbox a link to
http://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=21&Issue=2&ArticleID=3
or http://bit.ly/9iWDc7
(Their hook being between Father's Day and the avos.)

So I see the title "The Patriarchal Age: Myth or History?", and brace
myself for the worst. Instead, I find this:
    What objective evidence, independent of the Bible, do we have to
    support the Middle Bronze Age as the Patriarchal Age?

    As it turns out, quite a bit.

    The Price of Slaves

    One important item involves the price of slaves in silver
    shekels. From ancient Near Eastern sources we know the price of
    slaves in some detail for a period lasting about 2,000 years, from
    2400 B.C. to 400 B.C. Under the Akkad Empire (2371-2191 B.C.), a
    decent slave fetched 10-15 silver shekels, though the price dropped
    slightly to 10 shekels during the Third Dynasty of Ur (2113-2006
    B.C.). In the second millennium B.C., during the early Babylonian
    period, the price of slaves rose to about 20 shekels, as we know from
    the Laws of Hammurabi and documents from Mari and elsewhere from the
    19th and 18th centuries B.C. By the 14th and 13th centuries B.C.,
    at Nuzi and Ugarit, the price crept up to 30 shekels and sometimes
    more. Another five hundred years later, Assyrian slave markets
    demanded 50 to 60 shekels for slaves; and under the Persian Empire
    (fifth and fourth centuries B.C.), soaring inflation pushed prices
    up to 90 and 120 shekels.
...

He then compares this to Yoseif's price (Ber 37:28), 20 sheqel; Shemos
21:32, where the repayment for an eved by a shor shenagach is 30 sheqel,
and Melachim II 15:20, where the price is 50 sheqel.

Another snippet:
    Treaties and Covenants

    Another kind of evidence comes from our knowledge of treaties and
    covenants from as early as the third millennium B.C. The subject
    is a complex one, but suffice it to say that we can now construct a
    typology of treaties that allows us to date them by their essential
    form and structure, which vary from time to time and from place
    to place.

Then he shows that Bereishis reflects current knowledge of then-current
geo-political conditions, the rise of Egypt, naming conventions, and
social life (compared to the Nuzi tablets). And last, the author shows
that our knowledge of history that far back wasn't even unique for
the Middle East.

This level of detail is the exact opposite of the assumptions used by
"Higher" Criticism in dating the alleged texts that were supposedly
folded into the Torah.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "The most prevalent illness of our generation is
micha at aishdas.org        excessive anxiety....  Emunah decreases anxiety:
http://www.aishdas.org   'The Almighty is my source of salvation;  I will
Fax: (270) 514-1507      trust and not be afraid.'" (Isa 12) -Shalhevesya