JEWISH FISHING[997]
CHAPTER XXXVIII
ROD NOT EMPLOYED IN SPITE OF CLOSE INTERCOURSE WITH EGYPT—
REASONS SUGGESTED FOR ABSENCE
The absence of any mention of Angling in Israel, and in Assyria causes wonder and surprise, especially when we remember that the relations of both nations in trade and intercourse with Egypt, where Rod fishing did obtain, appear when at peace constant and close.[998]
In the Assyrian chapter the vexed question of the earliest date assignable for the invasion or cultural permeation of Egypt by Sumerian or Semitic influences has been considered, and the conflicting views stated.
A fair consensus of agreement holds that the Hyksos sprang from Semitic stock; but the dates suggested for their conquest of Egypt vary from 2540 down to 1845 b.c.[999]
However this may be, the definite association with Egypt of that branch of the Semitic tribes destined in Jacob’s lifetime (Gen. xlvii. 27) to be known as Israelites,[1000] begins with the advent of Abram into that country.
King, Rogers, and Jastrow in their later works have seemingly adopted the date arrived at by Kugler from stellar researches for the first Babylonian Dynasty. If Abram were, as is now thought, the contemporary of Hammurabi, his flitting must have occurred between 2120 and 2080 b.c., but since Egyptian chronology beyond the fifteenth century is fluid, and no early positive synchronisms with Babylon survive, we cannot definitely designate any particular king in Egypt as the contemporary of either Hammurabi or Abram.
The Bible is our main authority for the continuance of the association. The stories of Jacob, of Joseph (in whose title Abrek[1001] some detect a Babylonian influence and a connection with that of Abara-rakku, the designation of one of the five great officers of state), and of Moses, are but episodes of an intercourse which, if we begin with Abram and end with Onias, lasted (with intervals of war and invasion) for some 2000 years.