,

The Canaanites and Their Land A Rejoinder

Nadav Na'aman - Ramal Aviv

I. INTRODUCfiON

Ever since the late 1960s it seemed as if the long debate over the extent of the land of Canaan in extra-biblical and biblical sources had reached a point of scholarly consensus. This consensus may be illustrate! by the summary works of Aharoni (1967:61-70), de Vaux (1968; 1978:125-139), Weippert (1976-80) and Stolz (1988:539-545). It was suggested that Canaan in Late Bronze texts co­vered most or even the entire area of the Egyptian province in Asia and that the Promised Land in a group of biblical historiographical texts covered roughly the same area. It was thus concluded that Israelite authors when describing the history of the nation had adopted an old historical name and presented it -with or without significant changes - as the land that YHWH had promised to their ancestors (Maisler 1930:54-74; 1947a; Elliger 1936; Baldi 1950/51; Saeb0 1974; Kallai 1975; Na'aman 1986:39-73).

Scholars further observed that another, territorially more limited use of the name also appears in certain biblical texts. Canaan in these texts refers to the Phoenician coast whose inhabitants are the Canaanites. This sense would have reflected the usage current in the tirr..e of the authors who produced these texts (Maisler 1930:63-66; de Vaux 1968:30; Weippert 1976-80:354). De Vaux explained the shift from a broad to a more limited territorial extent thus: "The name may have become more limited in its geographical application when the Canaanite was restricted to the inhabitants of those parts of Canaan that had not been subjugated ... or when the part in which they lived was restricted to Phoe­nicia" (1968:30; 1978:131). At the same time, "Canaan" also became a synonym for "trader" because trade occupied a central role in the economy of the Phoeni­cian coast, the 'new Canaan' .

But scholarly consensus was disrupted with the appearance of N.P. Lem­elle's The Canaanites and Their Land (1991). Lemche suggests that the use of the name Canaan in second millennium BCE texts was imprecise and ambigu­ous and may have designated anything from a vast territory that includes south­eastern Anatolia to a small area in Lower Galilee. Nobody in Western Asia regarded himself as Canaanite or defined his land as Canaan. Canaanite was a name used by scribes to designate a person who did not belong to the local society or kingdom, while Canaan was considered to be a country different from one's own. But in biblical historiography Canaan sometimes refers to a geogra­phical extent coterminous with the Land of Israel, and Canaanites were the

398 N. Na ' aman [UF 26

inhabitants of that land. Thus, argues Lemche, there is no apparent connection between Canaan and Canaanites in second millennium documents and their cognates in the Bible. Biblical historiographers derived their ideas of Canaan and Canaanites from the reality of their own time. They applied the terms to the entire Land of Israel and described the Canaanites as the former inhabitants of the land whom their own ancestors had defeated, dispossessed and inherited.

It is the purpose of this article to re-examine in detail the references to Canaan and the Canaanites in second millennium BCE sources. Following this, the extent of the biblical Promised Land and its relation to the Canaan of the Late Bronze documents will be examined. I will try to show that in many instances Lemche's analysis is inadequate or even entirely mistaken and that his conclusions are not justified by the textual evidence.

II. THE SECOND MILLENNIUM BCE DOCUMENTS

1. The Mari Letters The earliest published reference to the Canaanites is in a letter from Mari

dated to about the middle of the 18th century BCE. It was sent by Mutu-bisir to Shamshi-Addu I on the occasion of the dispatch of troops from Mari to help Ishgi-Addu of Qatna suppress a rebellion that had erupted on his southern border (Dossin 1973; Durand 1987:219-220; Charpin 1992:3). Mutu-bisir was camped in Dubba, a town whose exact location is unktlown, "over against Riigi~um" . After a broken passage the letter continues with the words "It is in Riigi~um that the brigands (~abbiitum) and the Canaanites (Kina~num) are situated. We and they are watching one another." (rev. lines 9 ' -11').

The location of Riihi~um is the key to understanding the territorial situation. Rainey (1979; 1982:343-344) and Durand (1987:219-220) have independently identified Rilgi~um of the Mari letters with Riigi~u of the Amarna letters (see Moran 19.92:391 s.v. Rugizzi). Riigi~um/Riigi~u was located on the northeastern border of the Late Bronze Egyptian province in Asia. In the Old Babylonian period it was a town near the southern border of Qatna where brigands who fled southward found refuge. There are numerous examples in the Amarna letters for the stay of groups of c Apiru bands in Canaanite cities unter the protection of local rulers (note in particular EA 185-186). Mutu-bisir made the obvious distinction between Canaanites (Kina~num), the local inhabitants of the territory south of Qatna, and the outlaw refugees (~abbiitum) who fled there from the kingdom of Qatna.

According to Charpin (1992:4 notes 20-21), there are more unpublished references to the Canaanites and to Riigi~um in the Mari letters, all apparently referring to the same historical episode and to the same territory on the southern border of Qatna. It is thus evident that in mid-18th century BCE people called "Canaanites" lived south of the kingdom of Qatna, i.e., in the same area where they are located in the Late Bronze Age (Na'aman 1982:147-149).

1994] The Canaanites and Their Land - A Rejoinder 399

2. The Texts from Alalakh According to the inscription of Idrimi, king of Alalakh, he left the city of

Emar, crossed the desert and arrived at the city of Ammiya which is located "in the land of Canaan". There he met other refugees from his former kingdom, became their leader and formed a band of cApiru. Ammiya is mentioned in the Amarna letters and is located not far from the northwestern border of the Late Bronze Egyptian province in Asia. Thus, whereas Riigi~um is located near the northeastern border of the future Egyptian province and outlaw refugees of northern origin (i.e., from Qatna) found shelter there in the mid-18th century BCE. Ammiya is located near its northwestern border and outlaw refugees of northern origin (i.e., from Jjalab, Alalakh, Nii and Amae) found shelter there in the 15th century BCE. The fact that the author of this profoundly literary inscription chose to emphasize that Ammiya was located "in the land of Ca­naan" may well indicate that he regarded the town as the northernmost Canaa­nite centre along the coast.

Four other documents from Alalakh mention Canaan, all referring to indivi­duals from that land. One tablet (AT 154) is still unpublished. Tablet AT 181 is a list of cApiru (Wiseman 1954:11; Greenberg 1955:21) in which the origin of some is mentioned. All the specified places are towns, while the only "land" (miitu) that is mentioned is Canaan. This indicates that Canaan was a well­defined territorial-political entity which could serve to register the origin of a person. Tablet AT 188 (Dietrich-Loretz 1970:101) has a list of muJkenu, with the origin of three of them defined by land (miitu): Alashia, Nugasse and Ca­naan. Again, it is evident that Canaan was a well-defined territory, like Alashia (Cyprus) and Nugasse. Finally, tablet AT 48 is a contract in which a hunter is called a "Canaanite" .

We may conclude that Canaan was regarded in Alalakh as a foreign land whose name sufficed to define the origin of individuals either in a contract or in lists of names.

3. The Amarna International Letters In the discussion of the Amarna letters I will first analyse those sent by

rulers of great powers and afterwards those exchanged between the Pharaoh and his vassals. (a) Letter EA 8 was written by Burnaburiash, king of Babylonia, to Akhenaten. Burnaburiash relates that his merchants "were detained in Canaan for business matters". He complains that later they were robbed and killed "in Hinnatiina of the land of Canaan" by the rulers of Acco and Shamhiina. He th;n continues (Moran 1992:16 lines 25-29):

Canaan is your country, and [its] kings [are your servants). In your country I have been despoi led. Bring (them] to account and make compensation for the money that they took away. Put to death the men who put my servants to death, and so avenge their blood. And if you do not put these men to death, they are going to kill again, be it a caravan of mine or your own messenger, and so messengers between us will thereby be cut off.

The words of the text are clear: What looks like a local event endangers in reality the relations of the two great powers. The Pharaoh is the lord of the land

400 N. Na'aman [UF 26

of Canaan and is responsible for everything that happens within its confines. It is from this principle that his responsibility for punishing the evildoers and the compensation of the despoiled merchants are derived (compare Klengel 1980). Thus, "Canaan" is used to refer to a particular territory under the dominion of the Egyptian Pharaoh (contra Lemche 1991:33, 39). 1

(b) Letter EA 9 was sent by Burnaburiash to Tutankhamon. The relevant passa­ge runs as follows (Moran 1992:18, lines 19-29):

In the time of Kurigalzu, my ancestor, all the Canaanites wrote here to him, saying, "C(om]e to the border of the country so we can revolt and be allied [wi]th you. " My ancestor sent them this (reply), saying, "Forget about being allied with me. If you become enemies of the king of Egypt, and are allied with anyone else, will I not then come and plunder you? How can there be an alliance with me?".

The Babylonian king, in an effort to break the growing ties between Assyria and Egypt, mentions a past event in which one of his ancestors, Kurigalzu, honoured his alliance w ith Egypt and not only refused to join an anti-Egyptian rebellion but threatened to fight the rebellious Canaanite kings. Now he is urging the Pharaoh to operate in the same spirit in dealing with his own enemy, the king of Assyria. Burnaburiash claims that "all the Canaanites" wrote to his ancestor; in saying this he is asserting that all the kings of Canaan, the vassals of Pharaoh in the province under his rule, sought his ancestor's aid. The histori­cal background of the episode and the identity of those who actually wrote to Kurigalzu are irrelevant to my discussion. (c) Tablet EA 30 originally served as a kind of "passport" apparently handed by Tushratta of Mitanni to one of his messengers. I will cite it in full (Moran 1992:100):

To the kings of Canaan, servants of my brother: Thus the king. I herewith send Akiya, my messenger, to speed posthaste to the king of Egypt, my brother. No one is to ho ld him. Provide him with safe entry into Egypt and hand (him) over to the fortress commander of Egypt. Let him go on immediately, and as far as his pre<sents> are concerned, he is to owe nothing.

The add.ressees are the "kings of Canaan", a collective reference to all the vassals of Pharaoh in Canaan. No Canaanite king through whose territory the messenger passes should detain him or exact any payment from him. On his way to Egypt, the messenger is to have a free passage through the land of Canaan.

We may conclude that the kings of the "great powers" identified Canaan with the area under Pharaoh's rule and regarded it as the territory for whose

1 Lemche restric ts the extent of Canaan mentioned in letter EA 8 to the area where the episode took place. Hence his conclusion (p. 33) that "the deplorable events which this letter describes happened in Canaan, which in this case embraced Galilee." The following examples are sufficient to disprove his interpretation. Gen 23:2 "And Sarah died at Kiriath-arba (that is Hebron) in the land of Canaan." Gen 33:18 "And Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan ... ". Gen 35:6 "And Jacob came to Luz (that is Bethel), whic h is in the land of Canaan ... ". Canaan is neither the area around Hebron nor the areas around Shechem or Bethel. It was a vast territory whose extent cannot be established by the names of individual towns included therein.

1994) The Canaanites and Their Land - A Rejoinder 401

affairs he was responsible. Canaanites is a name for the inhabitants of this area, the subjects of the king of Egypt.

4. The Amarna Letters from Byblos Canaan is mentioned four times in the letters of Rib-Addi of Byblos:

(a) EA 109:44-49: "Previously, on seeing a man from Egypt, the kings of Canaan fled bef[ore him, bu]t now the sons of Abdi-Ashirta make men from Egypt prowl about [like do ]gs" .

Rib-Addi refers in this passage to the capture of Ullasa (lines 14-15), an Egyptian garrison ci ty where Egyptian officials had formerly been stationed and now, following its conquest, were forced to leave (see EA 104:27-30; 105:84-85). The "kings of Canaan" is a collective name for the vassals of the Pharaoh in Canaan. (b) EA 110:48-49: "No ship of the [ar]my [is] to lea[ve] Can[aan]". The army (miSi) arrived at the Phoenician coast in order to capture Abdi-Ashirta (EA 101; see Lambdin 1953) and stayed there for some time. Its presence was a guarantee of safety, and Rib-Addi opposes the idea of sending it back to Egypt. "Canaan" in this context may be interpreted either as a name for the Phoenician coast or as a general name for the Egyptian province in Asia. (c) EA 131:59-61: "[If] he does not send [archers], they will take it (i.e., Byb­los) and [all the (other) cities], and the lands of Canaan will not belong to the king. [May the king ask] Yanl]amu about th[ ese] ma<tt>ers". (d) EA 137:75-77: "If the king neglects the city (i.e., Byblos), of all the cities of Canaan not one will be his. May the king not neglect this matter".

The two letters display a characteristic that is typical of many other Amama letters : in an effort to gain the attention of the Pharaoh, the vassals would describe local affairs as ominous for the entire Egyptian province in Asia. The Pharaoh is urged to concern himself directly with what looks like a local event because it harbours a threat to his control in the land (like a brick whose remo­val may cause the whole building to collapse). In these two letters, the fall of Byblos is portrayed as the first step leading to the capture of all the cities under Pharaoh's rule (= "all the cities of Canaan") and the loss of all the Egyptian territories (= "the lands of Canaan"). I would take issue with Lemche's sugge­stion (1991:38) that on many occasions Rib-Addi uses general warnings but "is sometimes more specif ic when he mentions the cities of Canaan or the countries of Canaan". The opposite is true: "the lands of Canaan" and "the cities of Canaan" are all-inclusive designations and are no more than literary variants of the common expression "all the lands of the king" . The "kings of Canaan" in EA 109:46 is also a general designation and does not refer solely to rulers in the area of Byblos (contra Lemche 1991:38).

5. Four Other Amarna Letters (a) EA 367:8: Ijanni, the Egyptian envoy who was sent to Akshapa and Amur­ru, holds the title "overseer of the king's stables in Canaan". Service in the prestigious chariot troops was a stage in the career of many Egyptian officials,

402 N. Na'aman (UF 26

but we are unable to identify ljanni with any known official of the Amarna period (Redford 1990:13). (b) EA 162:39-41: "So perform your service for the king, your lord, and you will live. You yourself know that the king does not want (to go) against all of Canaan when he rages".

The background of this passage: Akhenaten has made extensive preparations for a campaign to Asia (Na'aman 1990). Aziru is warned to remain a loyal servant, or otherwise he is due for capital punishment when the Pharaoh em­barks enraged on his campaign against "all of Canaan". The identification of Canaan with the Egyptian province in Asia is self-evident.

The relations of Amurru and Canaan should be examined in brief. All scholars agree that Amurru was initially a small rural s tate, governed by the Egyptians and hence situated within the boundaries of Canaan. During the fi rst half of the 14th century BCE it consolidated into a well-defined geo-political unit, and in the Amarna period its rulers (Abdi-Ashirta and Aziru) conquered vast areas, partly located north of Canaan. The result was that they dominated both Canaanite and non-Canaanite areas. Current ambiguity concerning the place of Amurru in the boundary systems of the 14th-13th centuries BCE is the direct result of Amurru's expansion and the inclusion of variegated territories within its borders.

Letter EA 162 was written under the impression that Aziru was still an Egyptian vassal. We may conclude that at that stage the Pharaoh regarded Aziru's kingdom as part of "all of Canaan" . 2

(c) EA 148:43-47: "May the king be concerned about these treacherous fellows. He has taken over the land of the king for the ' Apiru. May the king ask his commissioner, who is familiar with Canaan" .

The passage is another example of a local ruler (Abdi-Milku of Tyre) who warns the Pharaoh that the outcome of local affairs near his kingdom endangers the Egyptian hold on the land. The "treacherous fellows" are the kings of Sidon and Razor. The commissioner "who is familiar with Canaan" is probably Yan­gamu (see above, EA 131:59-61). The designations "the land of the king" (lines 39, 45) and "Canaan" (line 47) are clearly interchangeable, both referring to the Asiatic areas under Egyptian rule (contra Lemche 1991:37, 39, 53). 3

2 Lemche (1991 :35) correctly notes that "the Egyptian administration must have included Amurru among the Canaanite kingdoms". But he misunderstands the s ignificance of Aziru 's territorial expansion for the ambiguity concerning the place of Amurru in the border delineation. He erroneous ly concludes that "Canaan comprised a territory of greater extent than the one a llotted to Canaan in the letters from the Babylonian king." The Canaan referred to in letter EA 162 is identical to the Canaan referred to in letter EA 8. T hey both refer to the Asiatic province under Egyptian rule. 3 Lemche unwarrantedly restricts the extent of Canaan mentioned in letter EA 148 to the area where the episode took place. Hence his conclusion (p. 37) that "Canaan was considered by the Tyrian king to embrace the territory of Galilee as well as the adjacent territories to the north ... ". For criticism, see note 1 above.

1994] The Canaanites and Their Land- A Rejoinder 403

Up to this point, all the Amarna references to Canaan - including inter­national and vassal letters- suggest a cl ear and coherent political and territori­al definition. However, a second Jetter of Abi-Milku of Tyre seemingly con­tradicts this definition. It was this Jetter that served as a key reference for Lemche's re-evaluation of Canaan in the Late Bronze documents. Let us closely examine the text of this Jetter. {d) EA 151:49-51 opens with a citation from the royal Jetter: "The king, my lord, wrote to me, 'Write to me what you have heard from Canaan'. " Abi-Milku then describes what has happened in eastern Cilicia (Danuna), along the nort­hern coast of Syria (Ugarit), in central Syria (Qadesh, Amurru and Damascus), and on the Phoenician coast (Sidon).

Did Canaan really encompass southern Anatolia and Syria? If there were no other letters that mentioned Canaan, we might legitimately draw such a con­clusion. But with all the other references to Canaan in mind, a different inter­pretation suggests itself . Abi-Milku interpreted the words of the royal Jetter as a general request for information. He did not restrict his news to Canaan and added some bits of information about Danuna and Ugarit. Yet, most of the news that he sent referred to the Egyptian Asiatic province(= Canaan) and in particu­lar to the dangers that threatened its safety at that time (lines 58-63).

In conclusion I would like to emphasize that the congruency of Canaan and the "land of the king", i.e., the Egyptian province in Asia, finds clear expression both in letters of foreign powers and in letters sent/received by local Canaanite rulers.

6. The Texts from Ugarit Canaan is mentioned in two Ugaritic texts, one written in alphabetic and

one in cuneiform signs . (a) KTU 4.96: A list of traders assigned to three royal estates. The first estate was administered by Bn-Tbsn and had seven traders assigned to it - four Ugaritians and three foreigners : an Ashdodite, an Egyptian and a Canaanite (Rainey 1963; Astour 1970:125; 1975:293-294). It is evident that Canaan was a well-defined foreign territory, like Egypt and Ashdod, and that Ugarit was located outside its borders. {b) RS 20.182 (Ugaritica V 111-113, 389 no. 36): A copy? of a Jetter of the king of Ugarit to a Pharaoh (apparently Ramesses II) concerning the 3500 silver shekels paid by the "sons of the land of Ugarit" to the "foreman (aklu) of the sons of the land of Canaan". The latter must have been a corporate organization in Ugarit headed by a foreman and indirectly protected by the Pharaoh (Astour 1975:294). The juxtaposition of the two groups - the sons of the lands of Ugarit and Canaan - unequivocally indicates that Ugarit was located outside of the boundarie of Canaan.

It is evident that Canaan was regarded at Ugarit as a foreign land whose name was enough to define the origin of individuals and groups of people. The conclusions reached from analysis of the Alalakh and Ugaritic tablets are the same, both confirming the conclusions drawn from the Amarna tablets regarding

404 N. Na 'aman (UF 26

the extent of Canaan in the Late Bronze Age.

7. Tablets from Assur and !fattusha The "travel to Canaan" of an Assyrian official carrying clothes is mentioned

once in a Middle Assyrian letter of the time of Shalmaneser I (1263-1234 BCE) (Weidner 1959/69:38). Whether Canaan itself or Egypt was the merchandise's final destination is unknown.

Canaan is mentioned in five tablets from Ijattusha: two of them are letters exchanged between rulers, one fragmented tablet is a letter of a vassal to the Hittite king and two are evocations (del Monte and Tischler 1978:208). (a) An evocation contains an incantation to the "cedar Gods" in which many foreign countries are enumerated (Goetze 1969:352). There is no clear systema­tization in the text, although the fi rst four countries may have been regarded by the scribe as the most important (Klengel 1969:84). The scribe evidently listed as many foreign countries as he was able to remember and did not discriminate between large and small kingdoms. Thus, Nugasse is mentioned together with small states that were included within its borders (Ugulzit, Zunzurgi), and Canaan is named along with small Canaanite states (Sidon, Tyre and possibly Amurru, if the text was composed before its expansion). (b) In letter KBo XXVIII 1 sent by Ramesses II to Ijattushili III (Edel 1960) there is a plan for a meeting between the two kings. Ramesses suggested that he would go to the land of Canaan to meet "his brother" and bring him to Egypt. 4

(c) Edel (1953a:32 line 12; 33 line 9; 50) suggests that Canaan was mentioned once in another letter (of which there are two copies: KUB III 37 + KBo I 17; KUB III 57) sent by Ramesses II to Ijattushili III. He restores the text thus : "I wrote to Atag[ maya1

) , the governor [in the city] of Ramesses-mai-Amun, the city which is within the lan[d of Canaan] .. . ". His restoration is plausible, but unfortunately, the text of both copies of the letter is broken, and there is no verification for it. On the basis of this reconstruction, Heick (1960:6-8; 1971:248-252) assumes that "Canaan" was the name of an Egyptian sub-provin­ce. His assumption is accepted by some scholars (e.g., Aharoni 1967:146-153; de Vaux 1968:27-28; Zobel 1984:231; Stolz 1988: 541). However, there is no evidence that the name "Canaan" in Late Bronze texts ever referred to a sub­district within the Egyptian province in Asia (Na'aman 1975:7, 171). Canaan was a name for the territory in its entirety, and all that the Jetter says (provided that Edel's restoration is valid) is that Gaza ("the city of Ramesses-mai-Amun") is located within Canaan. (d) Canaan is mentioned in another letter sent by Ramesses to Ijattushili (KBo I 15 + 19). According to Edel's analysis (1950: 206), the relevant passage (lines 29-36) describes an Egyptian campaign conducted after the battle of Qadesh but

4 For the a rrival of Hittite and Egyptian messengers to Megiddo (Makkitta) on their way from Egypt to the Hittite te rritory, see Singer 1988b.

1994) The Canaani tes and Their Land - t\ Rejoinder 405

s ti ll during the reign of Muwatalli of Ijatti. The Pharaoh arrived "at the land of Canaan" (line 29), proceeding northward to Kinza (Qadesh) and Ijarita. That the Egyptian troops must have crossed Canaan, i.e., the Egyptian province in Asia, on their way to Qadesh is self-evident.

We may conclude that in his correspondence with the Hittites (KBo XXVIII 1; KBo I 15 + 19) and with his vassals in Canaan (EA 162) the Pharaoh uses the name Canaan in the same political-territorial sense as did the rulers of the other great powers (Babylonia and Mitanni), namely as a designation for the Asiatic areas under his rule.

8. The Egyptian Texts Canaan is mentioned in 16 Egyptian texts dated from the XVIIIth Dynasty

onward (Gorg 1982; A.J:! ituv 1984:83-84). (a) The oldest texts are the inscriptions of Amenophis II (1427-1401 BCE) (Edel 1953b:123-124, 132, 167-170; Wilson 1969:246b). The Canaanites are listed among prisoners captured in the course of the Egyptian campaign to Asia. The list includes 550 - Mariannu; 240 - their wives; 640 - Canaanites; 232 -rulers' sons; 323- rulers' daughters; 270 - concubines of the rulers of all the foreign countries. The Canaanites are obviously individuals who are not in­cluded in the other groups. Since the list enumerates only those belonging to high classes, these "Canaanites" must have been rich citizens or craftsmen of various Canaanite cities. (b) Canaan appears in three topographical lists together with rpw!J. (= Raphiah) and sr!J.n (= Sharuhen) (Edel 1980:67-68). Scholars have suggested identifying the Canaan of these lists with the city of Gaza (Edel 1980:76, with earlier literature). However, the order of listing in the lists is so vague that any con­struction remains uncertain. (c) In the time of the XIXth and XXth Dynasties the city of Gaza is sometimes referred to as "the Canaan" (p3-kn .. n) (Gardiner 1920:100, 104; Uehlinger 1988:7-8, with earlier literature). Gaza was the most important Egyptian centre in Canaan and was therefore called "the Canaan". But Canaan encompassed a territory much larger than southern Palestine. {d) The route from Sile to Gaza was called in Papyrus Anastasi I 27,1 "the [foreign countries] of the end of the land of Canaan" (Wilson 1969: 478b). S ince Gaza was regarded in the sources of the XIXth Dynasty as the southern coastal city of Canaan, the destination of the main road leading to it from Egypt is properly called "the end of the land of Canaan" (see Na'aman 1986:239-244). (e) Canaan is further mentioned in the famous "Israel stela" of Merneptah (for recent studies and literature, see Fecht 1983; Yurco 1986; Singer 1988a). The relevant passage is part of a ten- ' line' unit introduced and enclosed by the name and titles of the Pharaoh. The central section of this passage specifies the achievements of the Pharaoh in Asia. It opens with the sentence "Canaan has been plundered into every sort of woe" and concludes with the words "Ijurru has become a widow because of Egypt". It is evident that Canaan, like Ijurru, is a name for the Egyptian territory in Asia (for If3rw!Ijurru, see Gardiner

406 N. Na 'aman [UF 26

1947:180-184; Heick 1971:269-270; Vcrnus 1978). Lcmche (1991:48) questions the validity of this conclusion on two grounds:

(i) because the sentence "ljurru has become a widow for Egypt" is "a kind of summary of the whole passage quoted"; (ii) on account of the limited geographi­cal horizon of Merneptah's campaign. However, the sentence about Hurru can hardly be regarded as a summary of a passage in which Lybia and ~ljatti are mentioned. Moreover, Lemche 's second claim reflects a misunderstanding of the genre of royal inscriptions, where the description of specific achievements is accompanied by general statements which claim much more than what was really achieved. It would be a serious mistake to make an inference regarding the extent of Canaan from the list of conquered towns. The author of the text deliberately creates the impression that the names of the captured towns are details within the overall successful campaign. ljurru and Canaan were included in the passage in order to convey the message that during his Asiatic campaign Merneptah subjugated their territory up to its farthest limits. (f) The names Canaan and ljurru are again brought together in two references which mention "Canaanite slaves from Ij:urru" (Papyrus Anastasi IliA 5-6; IV 16,4) . We may conclude that in Egypt, as in other Western Asiatic kingdoms, the inhabitants of the Egyptian Asiatic province were sometimes designated by reference to their land of origin, namely Canaan.

9. Canaan in Second Millennium Documents The analysis of all the references to Canaan in the second millennium BCE

sources makes it clear that the name is used consistently by scribes of different Western Asiatic kingdoms. Canaan 's extent in the north and south according to all Late Bronze Age sources is congruent 'Vith the borders of the Egyptian province in Asia. Not a single text uses the name Canaan to describe either areas located outside of it or only part of its territory. Scribes in Alalakh and Ugarit referred to Canaan as a land located outside their kingdoms; and the kings o( Babylonia, Mitanni and Egypt identified it with the territory under Egyptian rule. The rulers of Byblos and Tyre considered Canaan to be "the land of the king ", as did all the neighbouring and remote kingdoms.

Lcmche (1991:50) has concluded that there is a "correspondence between the imprecise and ambiguous Egyptian use of the geographical name Canaan and the likewise imprecise understanding of Canaan displayed by the inhabitants of Western Asia themselves". He suggests (p. 52) that "to the scribe of ancient Western Asia 'Canaanite' always designated a person who did not belong to the scribe 's own society or state, while Canaan was considered to be a country different from his own". When discussing the local Amarna letters he concludes (p. 39) that "evidently the inhabitants of the supposed Canaanite territory in Western Asia had no clear idea of the actual s ize of this Canaan, nor did they know exactly where Canaan was s ituated". And again on p. 152: "The Canaa­nites of the ancient Near East did not know that they were themselves Canaa­nites".

1994) The Canaanites and Their Land A Rejoinder 407

How does Lcmchc reach conclus ions which arc diametrically opposite to the plain and straightforward sense of all the sources? A partial answer may lie in the way that he treats Jetter EA 151. For him this letter is the point of departure and the anchor point for judging all other documents . It leads him to the errone­ous idea that Canaan was an enormous territory and hence to the conclusion that Canaan was an imprecise geographical name. In every historical discussion the scholar must distinguish between pivotal and secondary sources. Lcmche selects the most ambiguous and least significant document as the key text for his discussion. As a result he is Jed to dismiss the plain meaning of texts in favour of the conclusions he draws from this letter (pp. 30-31, 39, 51-52).

A second fundamental mistake is that Lcmche interprets the sense of Ca­naan differently for each text under discussion. It goes without saying that in defining a term, scholars look for the minimal semantic range that will provide a definition broad enough to cover all textual variants. Lemelle's procedure is the opposite, and it results in the utmost fragmentation of meaning. lie therefore fails to arrive at a coherent interpretation for the name in the texts under discus-

sion. Finally, Lcmche fails to discuss some valuable references to Canaan (AT

188; EA 30; KBo XXVIII 1) and overlooks some key scholarly investigations (e.g., as a result of ignoring Rainey's and Durand's identification of Riigi~um w ith Late Bronze Ruhisu he is unable to interpret properly the important refe­rence to the Canaan it~~ in the letter from Mari). The failure to take adequate account of the contributions of other scholars is not restricted to this part of the book, and I will return to it in the next part of the article.

The relatively small number of local texts mentioning Canaan is no indica­tion of the popularity of the name among its inhabitants . It must be remembered that each vassal would try to present his case in the best light and to depict his enemies as adversaries of the Pharaoh. T hus, local events plays a major role in the correspondence whereas problems of the Egyptian province as a whole are never discussed between the Pharaoh and his vassals. It is for this reason that the majority of references to Canaan appear in the texts of neighbouring coun­tries : these treat the Egyptian province as a whole in contrast to the local

character of the Amarna letters . T he antiquity of the land of Canaan remains unknown. The Mari tablets

make it clear that Canaan was already a well-known entity in the mid-18th century BCE. T his fits the hypothes is that the overall area represented by t~e Asiatic toponyms of the Execration Texts from Saqqara (c. 1800 BCE) ts approximately the same as Canaan of the Late Bronze Age (Maisler 1947b:67-68; Na'aman 1982:146-149). The name Canaan for the area which is roughly identical to the extent of the Egyptian Asiatic province in the Late Bronze Age may date to the emergence of the Middle Bronze urban culture in the 19th century BCE. Whether it is even older has not yet been established.

Lcmche suggests that Canaan was "a geographical entity of some sort" whose northern and eastern borders were never defined in any precise way. "Canaan was never uni ted under the rule of one king - except when it was

408 N. Na'aman [UF 26

governed by the king of Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, etc." (p. 154). He attributes the alleged lack of borders to this political situation.

The fact that the early history of the name Canaan is unknown leaves us in the dark concerning the emergence of the name and its original extent. In any case, there are a number of ancient Near Eastern examples of territorial-political names for certain regions and their inhabitants which were never united under one king. Three Syro-Palestinian examples will suffice to demonstrate the point: (a) Philis tia was from the very beginning divided among four/five kingdoms and was never united under one king. Yet, it was called "Philistia" and its inhabi­tants "Philistines" in the Bible and in Assyrian and Babylonian texts. (b) The area of northern and central Syria, divided among a number of Neo­Hittite kingdoms, was called Ijatti in the Assyrian texts of the 11th-9th centuries BCE. Its inhabitants are called "Hittites" in the Assyrian texts and in the Bible (Josh 1:4; Judg 1:26; 1 Kgs 10:29; 11:1; 2 Kgs 7:6). (c) "Sidonians" designates in biblical historiography and in Homer (Muhly 1970:27 and n. 50) the inhabitants of the Phoenician coast, an area which was never united under one king. It may also have been a local name as may be inferred from Hiram 's title "king of the Sidonians" on the Limassol bowl (KAI 31).

It goes without saying that there are historical explanations for each of these names. In any event, these examples should warn us against positing general rules about the assignment of names in the ancient Near East (as Lemche does 1991:152-154).

It seems clear that the land of Canaan in the Late Bronze Age was a territo­rial-political entity. The political connotation is emphasized in international correspondence where "Canaan" refers to the Egyptian province in Asia and also in the letters of Byblos and Tyre where it refers to "the land of the king". Also it seems to m e that the local inhabitants of Canaan must have used the name in self des~nation, along with the more common name of the kingdom whose citizens they were. Nowhere is this stated directly, but it may be inferred from the fact that they are called "Canaanites" in regular documents written in neigh­bouring kingdoms (Ugarit, Alalakh, Egypt). The fact that foreign scribes used the name to denote the origin of these people suggests that the source for the name assignment must have been the individuals who were so designated. Thus, contrary to Lemche's conclusion that nobody ever used the name Canaan as self definition, it seems to me that people from Canaan would indeed sometimes have defined themselves as Canaanites.

Lemche's most recent article on the Canaanites (1993) is entirely dependent on the conclusions of his 1991 book, but one of its passages makes a novel suggestion and requires a short note. On p. 88 he suggests that "the Canaanites were the representatives of the government of the city-states of Syria and Palestine already in the Late Bronze Age, who were considered to be foreign intruders by the members of the local societies, all of which were family-organi­zed ... ". As far as I am aware, there is no text which supports the assumption that "Canaanites" was a social term in second millennium BCE documents . Nor

r 1994) The Canaan ites and Their Land - A Rejoinder 409

is there any evidence that the Canaanites were regarded as "foreign intruders " by anybody. Note in particular the references to "Canaanite slaves from Ijurru" (Papyrus Anastasi IliA 5-6; IV 16,4) which contradicts the suggestion that the Canaanites were "the representatives of the government of the city-states". Note also the Alalakh texts where a hunter, a muskenu and an 'Apiru are registered as Canaanites. Just as the inhabitants of all other countries in the ancient Near East were referred to by the name of their respective countries, so also "Canaa­nites " was a name for the local inhabitants of Canaan with no distinction of social background.

III. THE MAXIMAL BORDERS OF CANAAN IN THE OLD TEST A­MENT

The aim of this part of the article is quite limited: to examine the northern and eastern borders of Canaan as they are delineated in various biblical texts and to analyse Lemche's work in this light. The sources for the discussion are Num 13:21; 34:2-12a; Josh 13:2-6; Eze 47:13-21; 48:1. The texts are quoted from RSV with some minor changes indicated by an asterisk*.

(a) This will be your northern boundary: from the Great Sea you shall mark out your line to Mount Hor; from Mount Hor you shall mark it out to Lebo-hamath*, and the end of the boundary shall be at Zedad; then the boundary shall extend to Ziphron, and its end shall be at Hazar-enan; this shall be your northern boundary . You shall mark out your eastern boundary from Hazar-enan to Shepham; and the boundary shall go down from Shepham to Riblah on the east side of Ain; and the boundary shall go down, and reach to the shoulder of the sea of Chinnereth on the east; and the boundary shall go down to the Jordan, and its end shall be at the Salt Sea (Num 34:7-12a). (b) So they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, near Lebo­Hamath* (Num 13:21). (c) This shall be the boundary of the land: On the north side, from the Great Sea by way of Hethlon to Lebo-hamath*, and on to Zedad, Berothah, Sibraim (which lies on the border between Damascus and of Hamath), as far as Hazer hatticon, which is on the border of Hauran. So the boundary shall run from the sea to Hazar-enon, which is on the northern border of Damascus with the border of Hamath to the north. This shall be the north side. On the east side, the boundary shall ru n from Hazar-enon between Hauran and Damascus; along the Jordan between Gilead and the land of Israel; to the eastern sea as far as Tamar. Th is shall be the east side (Eze 47:15-18). (d) These are the names of the tribes: Beginning at the northern border, from the sea by way of Hethlon to Lebo-hamath*, as far as Hazar-enon (which is on the northern border of Damas­cus over against Hamath), ... (Eze 48:1). (e) This is the land that yet remains: .. . all the land of the Canaanites <from>* Mearah which belongs to the Sidonians, to Aphek, to the boundary of the Amorites, and the land of the Gebalites, and all Lebanon, toward the sunrising, from Baal-gad below Mount Hermon to Lebo-hamath*, all the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon to Misrephoth-maim, even all the Sidonians (Josh I 3:2a, 4-6a).

The fundamental study of the boundaries of Canaan in these texts was written by Elliger (1936). His analysis of the toponyms and his discussion of the history of these borders in older and later periods has been followed by the majority of scholars (e.g., Maisler 1947; Simons 1959:98-103; Aharoni 1967:65-68, 215-217; de Vaux 1968:29-30; Saeb0 1974:22-32; Kallai 1975; Zimmerli

410 N. Na 'aman [UF 26

1983:528-532, 537; Na'aman 1986:39-60; for the history of research, see North 1970/71).

The key identifications along the northern border are: (a) Hethlon = J:Ieitela, northeast of Tripolis, about four km. south of Nahr el-Kebir; (b) "the land of the Gebalites" is included in "the land that yet remains", hence the border of Canaan is located north of it (Na'aman 1986:53-54); (c) Lebo-hamath = Lb,i of the Egyptian sources = Lab>u of the Assyrian texts = Libo/Lybo of the Roman period = modern Lebwe (Elliger 1936:40-45; Maisler 1947; recently Weippert 1992:59, n. 100); (d) Sibraim and Hazar-enon are both located on the border between the provinces of Damascus and Hamath; (e) Zedad = the village Sadad east of the Anti-Lebanon (Ell iger 1936:38-40). The five biblical texts cited above supply a unified and coherent border line. We may safely conclude that the northern boundary of Canaan as delineated by these sources passed along the line of Nahr el-Kebir - north of Mount Lebanon - modern Lebwe and the old border between Damascus and Hamah - north of the Anti-Lebanon -modern Sadad.

The eastern boundary of Canaan ran along the border between Hauran and Damascus, in a line that is impossible to delineate. It reached the eastern side ("shoulder") of the sea of Chinnereth, possibly running along the Yarmuk River. From there the border ran southward along the Jordan River "between Gilead and the land of Israel". As has been noted by all scholars, Transjordan is ex­cluded from the limits of Canaan.

With these data in mind, let us examine Lcmche's discussion of Canaan's northern border. T o introduce the discussion he cites the text of Num 34:2-12, but does not discuss any of the toponyms enumerated along the borders . Instead he states that there are two solutions for the problem of Canaan's northern border - a 'maximal ' and a ' minimal'- and he opts for the latter (pp. 79-81). This kind of ' scientific' approach, by which one selects as a matter of conve­nience and with no discussion the solution that fits one's own theory, is unac­ceptable.' Moreover, Lemche selects an old solution (Van Kasteren 1895; 1912; Noth 1935:235-248; 1953:75-77; 1966:215-216; North 1970/71) which was dismissed by scholars long ago (note in particular: Saeb0 1974: 24-26; Kallai 1986:230-231) and does not deal with any of the problems entailed by the ' minimal' solution. s He further entirely ignores the description of "the land that yet remains " (Josh 13:2-6). It is commonly accepted by scholars that the "remaining land" describes the gap between the land of Canaan and the borders of the twelve tribes (Aharoni 1967:215-217; Na'aman 1986:39-73, with earlier literature on p. 40 n. 2) and that the land of Canaan is larger than the twelve

5 Strangely enough, Lemche does not even mentio n Noth 's detailed discussion of the problem (1 935:235-248) nor North's equally detailed analysis (1970171). It seems that his only source for the ' minimal' solution was Noth 's commentary on Numbers 34 (1966:215-216) . Other fundamental works (e.g., the works of Ell iger, Saeb!il, Zimmerli, Kallai) are also missing from his discussion.

1994) The Canaanites and Their Land - A Rejoinder 411

tribes system. The description of the "remaining land" stands in marked contrast to the 'minimal' solution according to which the two boundary systems are identical.

Lemche also ignores the description of Canaan's borders in Eze 47:13-18; 48:1. He does not try to explain how the border between Damascus and Hamath (47:16, 17; 48:1) and the border between Damascus and Hauran (47:18) fit the northern boundary of the twelve tribes. As for the location of the tribe of Dan on Canaan's northern border (Eze 48:1), it was observed long ago that the disposition of the tribes in Eze 48:1-8 is entirely different from that of the system of the twelve tribes (see the map in Zimmerli 1983:537; Kallai 1983:77). The tribes in Ezekiel 's vision are arranged in a schematic north-south row in the area west of the Jordan, and the tribe of Dan is the northernmost in this schema­tic tribal 'map'. Lemche's claim (1991:81) that "the Danite tribal territory hardly ever included the whole of southern Syria" is historically correct but is irrele­vant in reference to Eze 48:1.

I must admit that for many years I have not read such an ill-founded and misinformed geographical-historical discussion as Lemche's article on Canaan's borders in the Old Testament. When evaluating the conclusions of his book one should keep in mind the quality of the basis upon which they are founded.

IV. SECOND MILLENNIUM CANAAN AND THE BIBLICAL PRO­MISED LAND

Let us now compare the extent of Late Bronze Age Canaan and the borders of the biblical Promised Land.

The area of Nahr el-Kebir was the northern limit of the Egyptian province in Asia in the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty. ~umur (today Tell Kazel), located near the Mediterranean coast north of the river, was an Egyptian garrison city and the centre of Egyptian government of the nearby coastal area (Heick 1960:6; Klengel 1984; Gubel 1990). In Papyrus Anastasi I, the town is called "~umur of. Sessi (i.e., Ramesses II)" (Wilson 1969:477a). The name indicates that an Egyptian garrison was stationed there as late as the time of the XIXth Dynasty. The northern border of Byblos in the first millennium BCE was located south of Nahr el-Kebir, hence near the border of the Promised Land (Josh 13:5; see above) . The s imilarity of the limits of Late Bronze Age Canaan and the biblical Promised Land of Canaan on the Phoenician coast is self­evident.

The border of the Egyptian province in central Syria passed south of the kingdom of Qadesh. Qadesh on the Orontes (Tell Nebi Mind) supported Mitanni in its struggle w ith Egypt and headed the coalition that fought Thutmose III at Megiddo in 1457 BCE. When the armed struggle between Egypt and Mitanni came to an end and the two powers became allies, the frontier between their respective spheres of influence was fixed between the Tabshi region (the area around Qadesh) and the region of cAmqi (the Beqac). This border between the two great powers, Egypt and Mitanni, continues to exist in the early Amarna

4 12 N. Na'aman [UF 26

Age (Na'aman 1975: 14-18; contra Heick 1960:3-4; Klengel 1969:160). When Shuppiluliuma conducted his campaigns against Mitanni and _b~okc

its power, the latter's vassals asked the Egyptian ruler (Akhenaten) for m1htary support and in their letters represented themselves as Egyptian vassals (Nubassc - EA 51; Qatna - EA 52-55; Tunip - EA 59) (Na'aman 1975:16-17). Aitakama of Qadesh after attacking the Egyptian territories of c Amqi and Upi, , . . was afraid of an Egyptian counterattack and portrayed himself as a loyal Egypti-an vassal and as the victim of an attack (EA 189). All these kingdoms were conquered by Shuppiluliuma and became his vassals. That Qadesh (Kinza)_ was formerly a Mitannian vassal is evident from Shuppiluliuma's words to !jam, the Egyptian envoy:" ... but you suddenly did me evil. You [came?] and attacked the man of Kinza whom I had [taken away?] from the k ing of the Ijurri-land." (Giiterbock 1956:97 lines 1-4; see Giiterbock 1960:58). . .

The place of Qadesh within the Hittite empire did not change m the lime of the XIXth Dynasty. The campaigns of Seti I and Ramesses II in ce~tra~ S~ria ended with no significant results. On his way northward to Qadesh m h1s fifth year (1275 BCE), Ramesses and his army crossed the forest of Lb,i, on the watershed between the Litani and the Orontes Rivers (Rainey 1971:145-146, 149). Lb, i (biblical Lebo-h~math) was located in the time of the XIXth Dynasty on the border zone between the territories of Egypt and Ijatti .

The border between the kingdoms of Damascus and Hamath in the first millennium roughly followed the old second millennium boundary between Tabshi (Qadesh) and c Amqi (the Beqac). Subsequent to the Assyria~ conqu~st and annexation of the two kingdoms, the boundary between the Assyn an provm­ces in central Syria was marked along the same line. The provincial system of the Assyrians was later adopted by the Babylonian and Persian empires; hence the biblical delineations of Canaan reflect the reality of the 6th-5th century boundary system (for the territorial developments in this area, see Elliger 1936:45-59). We may conclude that the borders of the Promised Land in central Syria, whose anchor point is Lebo-hamath and which passed along the border between Damascus and Hamath (Eze 47:16, 17), roughly followed the northern limits of the Egyptian province in Asia in the Late Bronze Age.

The kingdom of Riibi~u marked the northeastern limits of the ~ate Br?nze Egyptian province. Its exact location remains unknown. The Egyptian temtory was bounded in the Damascus area by the desert fringes on the east and in­cluded all of Bashan. The toponyms along the border of the Promised Land in the Damascus and Bashan areas (Ziphron, Hazar-ena/on, Shepham, Riblah, Ain) are unidentified, but since the border passed "between Hauran and Damascus", the Bashan was included in that land. With all due caution we may conclude that there is a general correspondence between the extent of the Egyptian province in the area east of the Anti-Lebanon and the bibl ical Pr~mised_ Lan?.

Pihilu located south of the Yarmuk River, is the only TransJordaman City - , . that is mentioned in the Amarna letters. Transjordanian toponyms are rare m the

1994) The Canaani tes and Their Land - A Rejoinder 413

Egyptian topographical lists of the XVIIIth-XIXth Dynasties. 6 It is evident that Transjordan (except for the area around Pibilu) was a peripheral area of little importance for Egypt in the Late Bronze Age.

The omission of Transjordan from the Promised Land boundary system is remarkable. Some scholars have explained it by the hypothesis that this system overlaps the Egyptian province in Asia and was taken over by the Israelites in very early times (Maisler 1947a:93-96; Aharoni 1967:67-70; de Vaux 1968:28-30; Weinfeld 1983:65-66). Lemche (1991:82-84) offers no explanation for the omission of Trans jordan from the boundaries of the Promised Land and instead appends the following remark (1991:82): "In the opinion of some Deuteronomi­stic writers, the land of Israel embraced some territory lying cast of the Jordan, while others considered Israel's land to be identified with the land of Canaan, that is, confined to the territory west of the Jordan". However, the concept that the Transjordanian areas remained outside the land of Canaan is non-Deuterono­mistic and rarely appears in Deuteronomistic texts (de Vaux 1968:28; Weinfeld 1983). The Jordan river as the eastern border of Canaan is an integral part of a complete boundary system; an explanation for the omission of Trans jordan must take into account the overall extent of the Promised Land.

V. THE TRANSFER OF THE NAMES CANAAN AND CANAANITES TO THE HISTORIOGRAPHICAL SPHERE

As has been established, Canaan is an old name for the territory which in the Late Bronze Age was identified with the area under Egyptian rule. This old name survived the crisis of the late second millennium BCE and reappeared in texts of the firs t millennium BCE. Mesopotamian royal inscriptions of the first millennium BCE frequently use archaic territorial-political (e.g., Sumer, A.kkad, Karduniash, Gutium, Magan, Melubba, Subartu, Ijanigalbat, Amurru) and tribal/people names (e.g., Sutu, Abl amu, Umman-manda) of the third and second millennia BCE to describe the reality of their own times. The survival of the names Can.aan and Canaanites and their use in biblical historiography to des­cribe the land and its former inhabitants reflects similar scribal practice. What is new is the extremely inaccurate and tendentious ways in which biblical authors used these names for their own historiographical and theological objecti­ves.

Not only the country's name, but some other isolated memories of Late

6 Redford (1982) suggests that toponyms nos. 90-101 in Thutmose III 's topographical list are arranged in north-to-south order along the "King's Highway" in Transjordan. In my opinion his reconstruction of the toponyms is quite uncertain (see Na'aman 1994:184, n. 7, with earlier literature). I also very much doubt the assumed location of the six Shasu­lands of the Egpytian topographical lists in southern Trans jordan (for the suggestion, see recently Knauf 1988:50-51, with earl ier literature; Redford 1992:272-273). The toponyms were already mentioned in the time of Amenophis Ill and should be sought in northern Sinai, the Negeb, and along Wadi Arabah.

414 N. Na'aman [UF 26

Bronze Canaan have survived in the Old Testament (Na 'aman 1992:179). These include: (a) The division of the land into many entities, each headed by a king. (b) The exceptional position of Razor among the Canaanite kingdoms (Josh 11:10). (c) The description of certain entities as composed of a major city and its villa­ges (Josh 15:45-47; 17:11, 16; Judg 1:27). (d) The coalition of kingdoms as a means of gaining strength. (c) The chariots (though described anachronistically as built of iron) as the main basis of Canaanite military power (Josh 11:4, 6, 9; 17:16; Judg 1:19; 4:3, 13).

The Song of Deborah (Judg 5) is regarded by many scholars as the oldest text contained in the Bible. Two distinctive features of Late Bronze Canaanite society, namely the division of the land into entities and the coalition of kings as a means of gaining power, are reflected in the song (Judg 5:19): "The kings came, they fought; then fought the kings of Canaan; at Taanach, by the waters of Megiddo, they got no spoils of silver". Rainey (1981:64*) has pointed out that v. 19b refers to the distribution of spoils and awards in the military camp ground after the battle. It was assumed that the forces under Sisera would enjoy a division of the spoils (Judg 5:30), but they suffered defeat and "got no spoils of silver". V. 19 reflects a genuine old memory of the actual situation in the land in the pre-monarchial period.

Judg 5:19 obviously contradicts Lemche's conclusions about the Canaanites in pre-monarchial time. He thus tries first ly (pp. 93-94) to show that the early date of the text is quite uncertain. And secondly, he proposes (p. 95) that "the mention of the kings of Canaan in Judg. 5.19 owes its existence to a redactional note in Judges 5 which was added to the text of the poem as part of its incorpo­ration into the greater Deuteronomistic narrative in the Book of Judges." Lem­che provides no textual analysis to support his assumption. So convinced is he of the correctness of his thesis about the Canaanites that he apparently expects any evidence which contradicts it to simply evaporate. It goes without saying that the assumption is arbitrary and that v. 19 is an integral part of the original Song of Deborah.

How can we account for the old memories of Canaan and the Canaanites in the Old Testament and, in particular, for the close similarity between the boun­daries of the Late Bronze Egyptian province in Asia and those of the biblical Promised Land? In a chapter that I contributed in March 1987 to a forthcoming publication (Na'aman forthcoming) I suggested the following:

It should be emphasized that Canaanite elements remained in the land during the monarchial period. These autochthonous elements retained many polit ical and cultural characteristics of the Late Bronze Age, even in the Iron Age. Even former boundaries and the political structure based on Canaanite foundations survived in several Iron Age kingdoms (i.e., the Phoenician and coastal Philistine kingdoms). It is apparently these Canaanites of the Iron Age whose mixed image is reflected in bibl ical tradition and who were able to transfer to Israelite scribes certain authentic Canaanite memories (i.e., the past primacy of !-Iazor and the borders of historical Canaan). It goes without saying that the history of Canaan and its civilization must

1994] The Canaanites and Their Land - II. Rejoinder 4 15

be studied from external sources and that the authenticity of biblical data should always be examined against this background (Na'aman 1992:179). The image of the Canaanites as it appears in the Old Testament and its heavy theological overlay are certainly the product of biblical auithors and are quite divorced from historical reality. But the idea that the Canaanites were the former inhabitants of Palestine is not a literary construction nor is the description of their land a late scribal invention. Their memory was rooted in the people's consciousness, and their image was invoked by Israelite scribes to convey a message according to their own historiographical objectives and didactic-theological aims.

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Place Names. In: Fisher, L.R. ed. Ras Shamra Parallels II (Analecta Orientalia 50). Rome:249-369.

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Klengel, H. 1980 MorcJ..und Bul3leis tung im spiitbronzezeitl ichen Syrien. In: Alster, B. ed. Death in Meso­potamia (Mesopotamia 8). Copenhagen:189-197.

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Sonderdruck aus

UGARIT- FORSCHUNGEN

Internationales Jahrbuch fur die

Altertumskunde Syrien-Palastinas

Herausgegeben von

Manfried Dietrich · Oswald Loretz

Band 26

1994

Verlag Butzon & Bercker Kevelaer

N eukirchener Verlag Neukirchen-Vluyn