Page Content (OCR)
75 Canaan—another detail conforming to the data from Shul- gi’s time. The invasion route this time was, however, different: shortcutting the distance from Mesopotamia by a risky pas- sage through a stretch of desert, the invaders avoided the densely populated Mediterranean coastland by marching on the eastern side of the Jordan River. The Bible lists the places where those battles took place and who the Enlilite forces battled there; the information indicates that an attempt was made to settle accounts with old adversaries—descendants of the intermarrying Igigi, even of the Usurper Zu—who evidently supported the uprisings against the Enlilites. But sight was not lost of the prime target: the spaceport. The in- vading forces followed what has been known since biblical times as the Way of the King, running north-south on the eastern side of the Jordan. But when they turned westward toward the gateway to the Sinai Peninsula, they met a block- ing force: Abraham and his cavalrymen (Fig. 32). Referring to the Peninsula’s gateway city Dur-Mah-Ilani (‘The gods’ great fortified place’)—the Bible called it Kadesh-Barnea—the Khedorla’omer Texts clearly stated that the way was blocked there: The son of the priest, whom the gods in their true counsel had anointed, the despoiling had prevented. “The son of the priest,” anointed by the gods, I suggest, was Abram the son of the priest Terah. A Date Formula tablet belonging to Amar-Sin, inscribed on both sides (Fig. 33), boasts of destroying NE IB.RU.UM— “The Shepherding place of Jbru’um.” In fact, at the gateway to the spaceport there was no battle; the mere presence of Abram’s cavalry striking force persuaded the invaders to turn away—to richer and more lucrative targets. But if the reference is indeed to Abram, by name, it offers once more an extraordinary extra-biblical corroboration of the Patri- archal record, no matter who claimed victory. Prevented from entering the Sinai Peninsula, the Army of Countdown to Doomsday