Jericho, Here Come the Amorites

ARAM Society for Syro-Mesopotamian Studies:

Thirty First International Conference

The Amorites

The Oriental Institute
The University of Oxford
11-12 July 2011

Program

TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2011
(Venue: The Oriental Institute, Pusey Lane)

14:50-15:40 Prof. Lorenzo Nigro (University of Roma):
“The Amorites, Jericho and the Intermediate Bronze Age.”

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Remember:

The Biblical Amorites seem to have originally occupied the region stretching from the heights west of the Dead Sea (Gen. 14:7) to Hebron (13:8; Deut. 3:8; 4:46-48), embracing "all Gilead and all Bashan" (Deut. 3:10), with the Jordan valley on the east of the river (4:49), the land of the "two kings of the Amorites," Sihon and Og (Deut. 31:4; Josh. 2:10; 9:10). Both Sihon and Og were independent kings. These Amorites seem to have been linked to the Jerusalem region, and the Jebusites may have been a subgroup of them. The southern slopes of the mountains of Judea are called the "mount of the Amorites" (Deut. 1:7, 19, 20).

Five kings of the Amorites were first defeated with great slaughter by Joshua (10:10). They were said to have been utterly destroyed at the waters of Merom by Joshua (Josh. 11:8). It is mentioned that in the days of Samuel, there was peace between them and the Israelites (1 Sam. 7:14). The Gibeonites were said to be their descendants, being an offshoot of the Amorites that made a covenant with the Hebrews; when Saul would break that vow and kill some of the Gibeonites, God sent a famine to Israel.

and there's this:

Masters of Witchcraft

—In Rabbinical and Apocryphal Literature:

In Tosef., Shab. (vii. [viii.] 23), and generally in post-Biblical literature, the Canaanites are usually spoken of as the Amorites (compare Assumptio Mosis, xi. 16; B. M. 25b); and they were characterized by R. Jose, the chronicler, as the most intractable of all nations. To the apocryphal writers of the first and second pre-Christian century they are the main representatives of heathen superstition, loathed as idolaters, in whose ordinances Israelites may not walk (Lev. xviii. 3). A special section of the Talmud (Tosef., Shab. vi.-vii. [vii.-viii.]; Bab. Shab. 67a et seq.) is devoted to the various superstitions called "The Ways of the Amorites." According to the Book of Jubilees (xxix. [9] 11), "the former terrible giants, the Rephaim, gave way to the Amorites, an evil and sinful people whose wickedness surpasses that of any other, and whose life will be cut short on earth." In the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (lx.) they are symbolized by "black water" on account of "their black art, their witchcraft and impure mysteries, by which they contaminated Israel in the time of the Judges." This refers to the strange story of Kenaz, preserved in the "Chronicle of Jerahmeel" (Cohn in "Jew. Quart. Rev." 1898, pp. 294 et seq., and translation of Gaster, p. 166), which relates how the tribes of Israel learned all their wickedness from the Amorites, the masters of witchcraft, whose books they kept hidden under Mount Abarim, and whose wonder-working idols—seven holy nymphs—they had concealed beneath Mount Shechem. Each of these idols was adorned with precious stones, which shone at night like the light of day, and by their power sight was restored to the blind. Kenaz, the son of Caleb and father of Othniel, when hearing of this, forthwith destroyed the idolatrous Israelites by fire, but tried in vain to destroy either the magic-books or thestones. So he buried the books, but in the morning found them transformed into twelve precious stones, with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel engraved thereon, and later they were used in Solomon's Temple. Then, with the help of the angel Gabriel, he smote the Amorites with blindness and destroyed them with his sword.

These legends may be regarded as reflecting the prevalent belief of the Jewish people in Amorite witchcraft. But the ancient midrashic and apocryphal narratives of battles fought by the sons of Jacob with the Amorites seem likewise to rest upon the actual warfare which took place between the Jews and the surrounding nations during the second Temple. According to the Book of Jubilees, § xxxiv.; Testament of Patriarch Judah, 3-7; Midrash Wayis'u, in Jellinek, "B. H." iii. 1-5; "Chron. of Jerahmeel," ed. Gaster, §§ xxxvi., xxxvii., and Sefer ha-Yashar, xxxvii.-xl., the sons of Jacob fought with the sons of Esau, while the Amorites sided with the latter and were defeated. The battlefield described in the various sources being almost identical with the battle-place of the Maccabean heroes, it is much more likely that the story originated in the time of John Hyrcanus, when war was successfully waged against the Idumeans and other nations, than that it arose in the time of King Herod, as Gaster thinks ("Chronicle of Jerahmeel," preface and lxxxii.; compare Book of Jubilees and Edom). K.

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