Could the international war of Genesis 14 have taken place at any time in the ancient history of Southwestern Asia?
In a recent article, Paul Davidson writes: “However a century of archaeological research failed to produce any evidence for these four kings and their campaign in Palestine. There was simply no time in the second millennium BCE when an international alliance led by Elam could have been a historical reality. In fact, every aspect of this story creates problems when viewed through the lens of historicity.” See https://isthatinthebible.wordpress.com/2024/09/21/melchizedek-how-a-literary-phantom-became-an-eternal-priest-and-savior-of-israel/
This statement surprised me. When I looked at the bibliography I could find no mention of an Assyriological scholar or any publication on the early second millennium BC, a time when many of us believe that the Bible itself would place the life and times of Abram and Sarai. I was reminded of Professor Wilfred Lambert’s SOTS (British Society for Old Testament Study) lecture in 1993, to my knowledge the last Assyriologist (and arguably the leading Assyriologist in the world from the final years of the twentieth century until his death in 2011) to address the geopolitical context of the battle of Genesis 14. Although never published (despite being publicly encouraged to publish at the time by Prof. John Emerton, Regius Professor of Hebrew in Cambridge and then editor of the prestigious journal, Vetus Testamentum), the notes on this lecture are preserved in Dr. Lambert’s papers as Folios 29142-29194 (I thank Andrew George for kindly sharing these with me, May 16, 2023). Dr. Lambert saw the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000-1550 BC) as the one time in ancient history, and not later, when events such as those described in Genesis 14 could have taken place.
In fact, the geopolitical reality of the Middle Bronze Age included periods when armies could and did move across the Fertile Crescent relatively unhindered. During the 18th century the Mari letters reveal that Elamite troops moved far north (e.g., Shubat-Enlil) and west from their homeland. See Wolfgang Heimpel, Letters to the King of Mari (Eisenbrauns, 2003), index and summary on pp. 578-79. This is by no means a period when multiple armies could not have joined Elamite forces (under Kedarlaomer, a distinctive name composed of Elamite elements) and who are attested as tranversing the Tigris and Euphrates and reaching far west toward Canaan.
Further, a name such as Tidal has the corresponding phonemes preserved in Old Assyrian as tdḫl, Tudḫaliyas. It was a later name of Hittite kings and it already appeared in the Middle Bronze Age period at Kanesh/Kültepe, the Old Assyrian trading colony in Anatolia (kt 89/k 369: 3, 5, 20, 22; 713: 9, 16, 20, 25, 29; etc.; thanks to Dr. Robert Marineau, private communication, Sept. 11 and 13, 2023). The Goyim or “nations” could reflect the multiple state entities that seem to have existed in ancient Turkey at that time.
As for the other coalition kings, Amraphel is a name recognized as composed of some elements connected with the famous 18th century BC Old Babylonian king Hammurapi, and other elements (e.g., ʾel) found in many contemporary Amorite names. Shinar is a term for Babylon that only appears in the second millennium BC before 1200 BC; not later (Šanḫar at Amarna letter EA 29.34, 39; cf. A. R. Millard, “Back to the Iron Bed: Og’s or Proscrustes?” in Congress Volume Paris 1992 [Vetus Testamentum Supplement 61; Leiden: Brill, 1995], pp. 197-200; Ran Zadok, “The Origin of the Name Shinar, ZA 74 [1984] 240-44).
Arioch is a name composed of the Hurrian element, ari, common in second millennium BC Hurrian names and texts from ancient Turkey and N. Syria, and known to begin many personal names. See Thomas Richter, Bibliographisches Glossar des Hurritischen (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2012), p. 45. Ellasar may likely be preserved in multiple places throughout Turkey with the name Alişar.
Davidson presents no evidence for his claim nor does he address the specific realities of the Middle Bronze Age, especially as described in the Mari correspondence. Although not proving the historicity of Genesis 14, the cuneiform evidence provided by the Assyriologists certainly provides a social-historical context for the battle of this text.
