Israelite Clans Named Outside The Bible by slaveofone
I know there are many who would be immediately bored by the following quotes, but read through them attentively and you will be rewarded by what comes after.
The descendants of Joseph by their families: Manasseh and Ephraim. The Manassehites: from Machir, the family of the Machirites (now Machir became the father of Gilead); from Gilead, the family of the Gileadites. These were the Gileadites: from Iezer, the family of the Iezerites; from Helek, the family of the Helekites; from Asriel, the family of the Asrielites; from Shechem, the family of the Shechemites; from Shemida, the family of the Shemidaites; from Hepher, the family of the Hepherites. Now Zelophehad son of Hepher had no sons, but only daughters; and the names of the daughters of Zelophehad were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. These were the families of Manasseh; those numbered of them were 52,700.
Numbers 26:28-34, NET
The tribe of Manasseh, Joseph’s firstborn son, was also allotted land. The descendants of Makir, Manasseh’s firstborn and the father of Gilead, received land, for they were warriors. They were assigned Gilead and Bashan. The rest of Manasseh’s descendants were also assigned land by their clans, including the descendants of Abiezer, Helek, Asriel, Shechem, Hepher, and Shemida. These are the male descendants of Manasseh son of Joseph by their clans.
Joshua 17:1-2, NET
These two snippets of biblical texts list the major clan divisions within one of the half-tribes of Joseph: Manasseh. What is particularly fascinating is that many of these clan names have been verified by archaeological evidence outside the bible. In the early 20th Century, numerous inscribed potsherds were excavated from the site of the ancient city of Samaria. They date between about 785 and 745 BC.2 These ostraca
as they’re called were temporary administrative records of the exchange of goods, though for exactly what purpose is not entirely known.3 These ancient records sometimes indicate the region (clan) from which an item came. Below, I list the names of the clans from the biblical texts with the ostraca numbers on which those names appear.
- Helek = ostraca 22-27
- Shemida = ostraca 3, 29, 31-40, 63 (maybe also 49, 57, and 62)
- Abiezer = ostraca 13, 28
- Shechem = ostracon 44 (maybe also 43)
- Hoglah = ostraca 45-47
- Noah = ostracon 50
Here we have names from all the sons of Manasseh that the biblical texts say were assigned land except one (Asriel): Abiezer, Helek, Shechem, Hepher (Hoglah and Noah), and Shemida. What makes this so pivotal is that it shows that even if the form of the biblical texts as we have them today in our bibles originated between 500 and 150 BC, when it comes to things in the biblical texts like Numbers’ or Joshua’s clan lists, even though they may be 300, 400, or 500 or more years removed from the time described, they are probably not imaginative re-creations of a non-existant past, but very likely do represent real memories and records of existing peoples, places, and events passed down through time.
As an example, the daughters of Zelophehad receive mention in Numbers because they receive land in absence of a male chieftain and it serves as an example for Israelites about what to do in certain inheritance circumstances (read the story in Numbers 27). And 50-75 years before the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel, certain regions of the land are still going by the names of those very matriarchs instead of a male name (as one would expect) in official records of the kingdom. There probably are elements of imaginative fiction built into the story of Zelophehad’s daughters, but the story must have arisen around real incidents and identities that, at least in this case, are revealed in the archaeological record.
ETANA has made PDFs of Volume One and Volume Two of the official archaeological publication on the Samaria excavation available for free download. Or visit this Harvard University Library web site where more can be found, such as Israelite Ostraca From Samaria by G.A. Reisner. Any document on the site can be emailed to you as a PDF file. Just following the instructions under print.
1Samaria Ostracon 17a, taken from Harvard Excavations at Samaria, Volume 2 plate 55 – photo is in public domain
2ANET, Pritchard, p. 321
3See The Samaria Ostraca by Scott Noegel for a recent discussion of the three major theories.