Talk:Kenites

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Under exegesis...are we to imply then that eve and satan had sexual relations?

Haha, yes, that sounds like Pastor Arnold Murray's White Christian Identity movement talking. He has this theory that the 12 Tribes comprise modern Europeans, and the Jewish people are really these "Kenites", descendents of Cain, himself a product of Eve and Satan ("serpent seed"). The idea is that Adam (whom Murray interprets as "ruddy" or "red cheeked", as in a White man with a pinkish hue) is the progenitor of Jesus, who was a White European type, and not a Jew. The early Hebrews were White, not Jewish, is what you get out of Murray's biblical exegesis. He's a scholar, he knows these things, he tells his congregation. If you ever get the opportunity to see older televised sermons by Murray Sr., he will actually spit when he says the word "Kenite". I hope someone is monitoring this article, because risks becoming a foundation of White Identity if not supervised.giggle — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gregory.george.lewis (talk • contribs) 18:33, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Derivation of name

Does anyone have an actual verifiable third-party reference that sheds any light on the etymology of the word "Kenite"? There are three competing etymologies in the article right now: Kenan, Cain, and Kainim. I might also mention that the Wikipedia article on Cain derives "Cain" from the Hebrew from "spear", while the Bible derives it from "gotten" (Gen. 4:1), but I don't know any Hebrew, ancient or modern, so I have no idea what the deal is with that.

Also, I'm not happy with the word choice "fringe doctrine" for serpent seed, but "heresy" seems much too strong (even if it's technically true?), and I can't think of anything in the middle at the moment. --Quuxplusone (talk) 02:36, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

There is no genealogical link in the Bible, the main source of information on the Kenites, that shed light on the Kenite's origin. Information from various scholars are described in their writing as guesses. Consider "Cain" to mean "something produced". Shemaah (talk) 19:13, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

The trouble is not so far finding `verifiable third-party references' (I just added yet another), as finding unambiguous ones... There is also the small problem that linguists often consider the proposed etymologies in the Bible as folk etymologies, while from a more `biblicistic' point of view the bible explanations may be considered as having to be correct, to the extent that the bible text itself is held to be uncorrupted. JoergenB (talk) 00:17, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

A recent book YHWH: Origin of a desert God (2020) by Robert Miller II may shed some light on this. Miller believes the Kenites were a quasi ethnic group who were and were not Midianites and Edomites and that they were known for metallurgy and music. He replies to Kalimi's claim and argues that Kalimi ignores the etymology of the word Kenite which Miller believes means smith like many other scholars. Tzofia1996 (talk) 17:39, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Opening sentence makes no sense

"the Kenites were a nomadic clan sent under Jethro to priest Midian." This sentence appears to have been mangled or to have lost some words, but I can't even begin to imagine what it means. Can somebody fix? --Jfruh (talk) 16:09, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

It now makes sense although its really tacky to stick the second sentence where it is. Feel free to edit :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.135.7.56 (talk) 16:48, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Who is so dumb to say that during the antiquity people of the levant where eating tomatoes! I has been brang even later after the discover of america!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.175.178.188 (talk) 03:37, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Rendering transcriptions from older scolarly traditions.

I have some trouble with how to handle the ways Hebrew and Aramaic was handled in [1]. There Sayce consistently uses a k with a dot under it to represent the emphatic explosive written in Hebrew by means of Qoph, and also for what I suppose he considered as the same sound in Aramaic. I know from other older scolarly texts that other emphatic consonants often also are marked in the same manner. I have no idea of how to write these "dotted consonants" in the WP; and I also do not know whether I should. On the one hand, we should try to render statements from our sources as correctly as possible; on the other hand, the reader may be confused by various principles of transcription being used side by side in the same article.

In this case, I replaced the "dotted k" with the letter q, since I could write it:-), and since qoph seems to be rendered thus in other parts of the article. However, this means that I write that Sayce wrote "qayin" and "qéní", when he actually wrote [dotted k]ayin and [dotted k]éní, respectively.

Are there some guidelines or recommendations about this within e. g. the WikiProject Judaism? JoergenB (talk) 00:43, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

"Mythology" section

The "Mythology" section only contains the ideas of one single German orientalist. (IMHO) It should either contain some actual (pre-1930s) mythology, or else be relabeled to make it clear that this is only the interpretation of Walter Beltz, not an actual mythology found or discovered. Ikmxx (talk) 20:03, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Kenite vs Midian

How does a Kenite become a Midian priest? Is Reuel and Jethro the same person? 2601:782:580:4110:586F:F65:8172:8318 (talk) 18:02, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Looking at the biblical scholars, they mostly favor the view that Kenites where a sub-group of the Midianites, so if that view is correct, there's no problem with him being a Midianite priest. However reading the Bible-text as a history book, the Kenites don't really seem to care at all when Midianites get killed, so I'm leaning toward the interpretation that he was a priest who happened to live in Midian. Someone who understands the language can probably understand it better. I only know English.

(IMHO) the clearest I can make out looking at different references: his actual name seems to be Hobab bar-Reuel the Keni, but Moses calls him Reuel out of respect because he's his father-in-law. Jethro seems to be a title. Of course I don't have a good enough idea of Israelite / Kenite / Midianite culture to actually be sure what I'm saying is correct here. Ikmxx (talk) 03:16, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

I have been reading YHWH: Origin of a desert God by Robert Miller II. He suggests Kenite means smith and the Midianites were both smiths and shepherd, so one could be both a Kenite and Midianite at the same time. Tzofia1996 (talk) 20:23, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

(In my opinion) that type of idea is big part of what makes the weird German ideas about the Middle East nonsensical to read. The idea that each nation had specific job occupations. We know from modern excavations that the real-life Midianites had many different professions and job occupations. If I wanted to agree with you, yes there's thousands of academic sources from the 1700s, 1800s, and 1900s, all of them quoting each other as their basis that can be cited, all simplistic because they're based on a few snippers of bible verses, usually taken of of context, because that's the only source western Europe had after the Medieval age. But I want to know about the real world-people who actually lived and died.

And now we know that one of the main things the Midianites produced was pottery, lots and lots of pottery. But that's not part of their theory. Ikmxx (talk) 01:16, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Their theory does indeed include the pottery. Jacob E Dunn recently wrote an article that speaks about both their metallurgy and pottery making. ‘A LAND WHOSE STONES ARE IRON AND FROM WHOSE HILLS YOU MAY MINE COPPER’: METALLURGY, POTTERY, AND THE MIDIANITE-QENITE HYPOTHESIS. Robert Millers book "YHWH:Origin of a desert God" talks about them being smiths and shepherds and details about the discovery of a copper snake and metallurgical remains, and metal items still in their molds! Excavators have found the remains from metallurgical activities at Timna and Faynan and also remains of the pottery which you would know if you actually read any of the things I listed. Modern scholars also believe this theory, not just German scholars in the past. Robert Millers book was published in 2021 just two years ago! Tzofia1996 (talk) 22:15, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes 100%. That confirms my point above. The Midianites had a wide variety of occupations. Being a smith and shepherd did not make someone become a Midianite. If a Midianite became a potter, they did not stop being a Midianite. The nationality was not determined by occupation. Ikmxx (talk) 17:30, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

No one made the claim that the Midianites were only smiths. In Robert Millers view, the Midianite Kenites were primarily smiths but also were shepherds and made pottery. He says "Midianite Kenites" because Kenites were not actually an ethnic group in his view, but a term for smiths made up of mainly Midianites and Edomites. Tzofia1996 (talk) 13:18, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Except there's no evidence that they were smiths, in fact B. D. Stade took credit for inventing the idea that they were smiths. Ikmxx (talk) 00:38, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

The main identity of the Kenites is one of nomadic livestock herders. Their identity as metallurgists, however, is a position of considerable assumption, as laid out fairly clearly in this paper. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:13, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Have already sent evidence that they were smiths. No point in continuing conversation. No wonder scholars don't take Wikipedia seriously. Tzofia1996 (talk) 19:43, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Sent it where? I see a few sparse mentions in this thread, but no direct quotations or links to the sources in question. Other editors need you to pinpoint the information to verify it. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:57, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/dunn_jacob_e_201505_ma.pdf Quite a recent essay about it from scholar Edward Dunn. It is not just ideas of "German Orientalists" as is being claimed in this article. Also this article from Israel Knohl about it https://www.thetorah.com/article/yhwh-the-original-arabic-meaning-of-the-name Tzofia1996 (talk) 20:08, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

But did they actually speak Arabic? The language of Midian (if that's what they spoke) is believed to be closer to (pre-exile) Hebrew, and there's folklore that it influenced some of the southern Arabian accents. The Kenites could have also spoken Egyptian (the most powerful culture at the time. Very easy to talk to Moses) or Canaanite, or Edomite (Between Canaanite and Hebrew) before they assimilated into speaking Hebrew. Ikmxx (talk) 06:36, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Kenites and smiths topic

I’ve noticed someone has added a small section with no sources called “misconceptions” stating that the Kenites were not smiths. There are many scholars sources that support the assumption that the word Kenite means smith. I will list a few:

• Jacob Dunn: A land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you can mine copper, metallurgy, pottery and the Midianite Kenite hypothesis. 

• YHWH: Origin of a desert God Robert Miller II, Marlene Mondriaan

• Rise of Yahwism the role of marginalised groups, Marlene Mondriaan Tzofia1996 (talk) 20:37, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Hello! Yep, there are many many sources that say that. However the idea that the Kenites were metal workers was proposed by specific people at specific dates, who wanted and accepted credit for creating the idea that the Kenites were metal workers.

The Kenites lived in the 1500s - 700s BCE, the earliest reference to metal-working being their (very one-dimensional) core identity is in the mid-1800s.

The idea that they were descendants of Cain was created by German orientalist Wilhelm Gesenius who added the similar-sounding words to his (Un-Jew-ized) lexicon of ancient Hebrew, yes the lexicon that other Germans used to make far-reaching logic jumps.

The follow-up idea was that since Cain's descendant Tubal-Cain was a metal worker, therefore all of Cain's descendants are metal workers, therefore all Kenites are all metal workers.

They pressed the idea to the point where the only identity of the Kenites is nomadic metal workers descended from Cain. A one-minded focus on a constructed mythology of Cain, leaving no mention that the only surviving source of info describes the Kenites as a real tribe of people who where farmers, merchants, scribes, city-dwellers, with multiple small towns in the countryside.

The "scholars" based their theories on a few small verses of the Bible, and then ignore the rest. It's a theory that requires the Hebrew Bible as a source, but then disagrees with the Bible. So if the Bible's history section is historical, the theory is wrong, but if the Bible's history section isn't historical, the theory is also wrong.

The stuff out of Germany in the 1800s is straight-up weird, and it's laced with the anti-Jewish rhetoric that lead to the atrocities in WWII. I'm not going to torture my brain by researching it anymore, I don't think it's healthy to read. My take-away is that it leaked info the Free Mason mythology, see the Hiram Abiff article (without the Cain-stuff mentioned) and look at http://www.themasonictrowel.com/Articles/degrees/degree_3rd_files/the_story_of_hiram_abiff.htm with the part of the story with Cain and Tubal-Cain appearing in the fire. It also leaked into the KKK stuff after the American Civil War, here's a safe-ish link https://www.armyofprophets.com/post/9-racial-divide-is-a-sponsor-of-the-attack-on-original-sin-part-1-6942941 , some of the other links when I googled for this theory probably put me on a watchlist. Basically they claim that the Jews are actually Kenites, so actually descendants of Cain, and therefore not human beings. (An idea that could result in some very bad things, if there's people out there who actually believe it.)

The real answer is that the historical Kenites were not smiths. I'm sure there were a few (out of thousands) who were smiths, but it would be like claiming the everyone in a nation, i.e. all Mexicans, all Americans, or all Canadians are smiths. Even if the etymology was correct (and it probably isn't) it would be like claiming all people named Smith are smiths. Or all people named Black are Black. Or all people named Kaiser are German Kaisers. Of course, the country that the German Orientalists lived in made a very simular logic jump a few decades later when they decided that "All Jews are ____", so maybe the all-or-nothing thinking was more common at the time.

(Sidenote, the idea that the Israelites took YHWH from the Kenites from the Midianites, based only on a couple Bible verses of Moses talking to Jethro, doesn't live up to archeology. The Midianites were polytheistic. Meanwhile, the Edomites were worshiping YHWH as Qos before the time of Moses. I guess the Bible scholars picked the wrong Bible passage. They should have made their theory about the chapters and chapters of the sons of Isaac, Jacob (Israel) and Esau (Edom) being brothers.)

I'm not sure if I actually answered your question or not, but I've typed too much, so I should probably stop typing now Ikmxx (talk) 06:50, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Modern scholars are also saying this, not just past ones. The Midianite Kenite hypothesis has nothing to do with a completely separate antisemitic conspiracy theory about Jews being "Kenites" and not human. Most scholars in the last decade support the idea that Yahwism originated in Midian (John Day, YHWH and the gods and goddesses of Canaan). Modern Jewish scholars such as Israel Knohl and Nissim Amzallag also support the Midianite Kenite hypothesis. Israel Knohl's recent article YHWH: The Original Arabic meaning of the name strongly supports the Midianite Kenite hypothesis. Tzofia1996 (talk) 13:11, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

On the contrary, I can't read German to be 100% sure, but it looks like Friedrich Wilhelm Ghillany was writing about anti-semitic conspiracy theories in the 1840s, twenty years before he proposed the Midianite Kenite hypothesis. Ikmxx (talk) 06:58, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

'German orientalist' framing

This 'German orientalist' framing of the critical scholarship is highly unusual. We do not normally emphasis the ethnicity of bodies of scholarly work in this manner. Every theory, of any kind, about anything, is ultimately initiated by a scholar of some sort of nationality, but we don't go categorizing theories by ethnicity. And here it is demonstrably misleading, since we also have the Dutch scholar Cornelis Tiele, British scholar Archibald Sayce and Canadian scholar George Aaron Barton, among others, in the mix. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:39, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

I totally agree. His argument that only German orientalists proposed the Kenite hypothesis is totally incorrect. As I argued the other day, modern Jewish scholars also support this theory. https://www.thetorah.com/article/yhwh-the-original-arabic-meaning-of-the-name. Most scholars in the past century also support the Midianite Kenite hypothesis. ( John Day, YHWH and the gods and goddesses of Canaan). The "misconceptions" section also does not make sense with the rest of the article. Tzofia1996 (talk) 16:10, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

If the consensus here is to not mention that those ideas are from a small number of people from a very specific school of (anti-Jewish) scholarship, then I can stop labeling it. If you guys want to claim that pseudoscience from 1800s is mainstream biblical scholarship, honestly I don't agree with biblical scholars' conclusions a lot of the time anyway, so go ahead and ruin their reputation, I don't care. Just keep it out of the factual part of the article. Ikmxx (talk) 17:18, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

The Midianite Kenite hypothesis is part of modern mainstream biblical scholarship. It is one of two leading hypothesis. It is not pseudoscience as you claim. Here is a quote from scholar John Day from his book YHWH and the gods and goddesses of Canaan: "Most scholars who have written on the subject during recent decades support the idea that Yahweh had his origins outside the land of Israel to the south in the area of Midian" Here is another article from scholar Jacob Dunn, supporting the Midianite Kenite hypothesis which also talks about the discovery of Midianite pottery and a metallurgical workshop within a Midianite tent shrine. https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/dunn_jacob_e_201505_ma.pdf These are real archaeological discoveries, in no way pseudoscience. Tzofia1996 (talk) 19:31, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Mainstream + biblical scholarship seems like a bit of an oxymoron and makes me chuckle, but on a note of clarification, both Barton and Sayce were active well into the 1900s. It is a matter of scholarly consensus that Yahweh was a deity first worshipped outside of Israel in the vicinity, or at least direction, of Edom. What is not known is how that cultic tradition migrated to Canaan to be adopted by the Israelites. The Kenite hypothesis is merely one theory that grasps at answers to such questions. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:00, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Though I'll certainly grant that the 'Cain' stuff is full-on 1800s batshit crazy talk. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:12, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

I haven't seen any modern scholars support what is in the "mythology" section about Cain killing a god child either. That doesn't seem to be a part of the modern theory. I don't know who added that. Tzofia1996 (talk) 22:05, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Looking through the edit history, it looks to me like it was added on 23 August 2016 by‎ Doug Weller, I haven't looked through the entire history though, so it could be that he actually just re-added it from earlier. Ikmxx (talk) 22:49, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Update, Doug Weller is super-reliable, so the "mythology" section is legitimately what Walter Beltz believed about the Kenites. Whether or not Walter Beltz's ideas actually belong here, I don't know. Ikmxx (talk) 23:12, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@Tzofia1996@Ikmxx@Iskandar323 Beltz did say that. I see it was removed from Cain and Abel by a sockmaster after I edited this page as "seems unnotable". That's not a good reason, but looking more deeply I think it is probably WP:UNDUE, see [2]. I should have checked that. Maybe his comments should be removed at Zipporah at the inn. Sorry about that. Doug Weller talk 07:45, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

On the other hand, David Leeming recommends him.[3] and his book seems to be mentioned quite a bit.[4]. You all make the decision, I am trimming my watchlist a lot to work on things I really enjoy in the time I have left, but I wanted to respond here. Ikmxx, thanks for the compliment! Doug Weller talk 07:51, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

I would note that we also don't seem to have page numbers for either the Harris or Beltz (1980s-dated) refs linking it to the Kenites, which makes me highly inclined to just nix this. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:12, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

He discusses the Kennites but I can't see a snippet with a link to them and the idea that Abel was God's child. Doug Weller talk 11:03, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

The whole middle paragraph is frankly off-topic anyway. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:16, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Agree, but although I called the idea itself 1800s-era-nonsense earlier, I still wonder if the paragraph should live-on somewhere else? (Since it seams to be part of the history of history) Maybe there should be an article for Walter Beltz? Looks like he wrote other books in German (7 available on Amazon) but I really can't research him at all in English. Ikmxx (talk) 23:07, 30 March 2023 (UTC)