Ze’ev Erlich, Ebla—the study hall of Shem and Eber;
Midrash becoming reality
From these midrashim an interesting picture emerges: ten generations before Abraham, immediately after the Flood, Shem, the son of Noah, founded a “study hall.” The first head of the academy in this study hall was Shem son of Noah, and the second head of the academy was his great-grandson, Eber son of Shelah. Among their students in the study hall, though in different “classes,” we find Isaac son of Abraham, his wife Rebecca asking a question, and their son Jacob.
Let us add that from the midrashic sources (though not according to all versions) it emerges that Isaac studied with “Shem and Eber,” and that in Rebecca’s time as well “Shem and Eber” still played a role in the study hall, whereas their son Jacob studied only with “Eber.” Checking the length of the lives of Shem and Eber and matching them to Isaac’s age after the binding (according to the Sages), Isaac’s age when Rebecca was pregnant, and Jacob’s age when he left Beersheba, shows that when Isaac and Rebecca studied there, Shem and Eber were both alive, whereas when Jacob left Beersheba, Shem had already died, while Eber was still alive.
Now, the way of midrash, and the way of our Sages, is to add to the plain meaning of Scripture in order to add an ideological and value-oriented dimension, and more besides. The Sages have the right—and in our opinion even the duty—to add more and more to the written text, in the spirit of “to magnify the Torah and make it glorious.” But is it possible to see at least some of the midrashim also with a straightforward eye, in ordinary observation, on the level of plain meaning and not only on the level of exposition?
Is it possible to identify in the field, in a physical archaeological finding from the period, what the Sages describe in the “midrash”? Could we “visit” the study hall in which Isaac and Jacob studied, where Rebecca’s question was both asked and answered, and where Shem son of Noah and Eber son of Shelah taught and served as heads of the academy??
Findings from Ebla
The main road leading from Beersheba, via Mount Moriah to Haran, descends at some point to the Jordan Valley, climbs the mountain ridge to the east (Gilead, the Golan, eastern Mount Hermon region), and continues northward to the Euphrates. A little north and east of the “knee of the Euphrates” lies Haran. Along the way travelers pass important cities such as Damascus, Hamath, Aleppo (“Aram-Zobah”), and others. Jacob, and before him his father Isaac, apparently traveled this route. Midway between Hamath (modern Hama) and Aleppo, about 70 km southeast of Aleppo, rises a large tell, about 350 dunams in size, and at its center an even more elevated mound—its upper city. The tell is called Tell Mardikh, and today it is identified with the site of the city of Ebla. We know this city from many testimonies as an important royal city throughout the third millennium and until close to the middle of the second millennium BCE.
Excavations conducted there since the mid-1970s have yielded, in addition to many important material finds, also an archive containing more than 20,000 clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform script and in the Sumerian language, and also in another language unique to the site. The tablets include administrative and economic documents, legal, historical, and literary texts.
Among the wealth of findings emerging from the archive tablets discovered at Ebla, let us note the personal names:
Ab-ra-um (= Abram/Abraham), Is-ra-il(-um) (= Israel), A-sa-u (= Esau), Ish-ma-il(-um) (= Ishmael), Sha-u-l(-um), Da-u-d(-um), Mi-kha-il. It is possible that names ending with “-yah/-yahu” also appear in the archive, such as: Mi-kha-yah, Av-du-yah (= Obadiah), Pa-tar-yah (patar = guard = Shemaryah), Shu-ma-yahu (= Shemi-yahu), and more.
Names of geographical sites known from the Bible also appear in the inscriptions: Canaan, Haran, Byblos, Hazor, Megiddo, Jaffa (which may have been pronounced “Megida” and “Yafa”), Ashdod, Gaza, Salem (and perhaps also Jerusalem—that is, “Salem” separately and “Jerusalem” separately…), Lachish, and more. And perhaps even the names of four, and maybe five, of the cities of the plain: Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, and even Bela (or Beresha king of Bela), appearing in the same order as in the Hebrew Bible…
Another interesting find is two tablets containing a geographical list and a bird list (these two lists later entered the “great encyclopedia” of the East, which every cultured person knew of). In the researchers’ opinion, since this find parallels discoveries at various distant sites, this is evidence of a method of study, education for learning, and the training of scribes and sages throughout the East, in which Ebla took an important part:
“The lexicons, like other texts of a didactic or literary character, were written by expert scribes as part of the curricula in the schools that trained young men from wealthy families to become scribes, a profession that was the key to important public positions” (Kutscher 1979).
In the geographical list a city called “Karkara” is mentioned, corresponding to Karkor in the story of Gideon (Judges 8:10), and perhaps to “and destroy all the sons of Seth” in Balaam’s blessing (Numbers 24:17). Another city is “Peleg.” Does this city join the cities named after Abraham’s ancestors, such as Surutz’ = Serug, Nahiri = Nahor, Terukhi = Terah? (See our analysis on the portion of Chayei Sarah.) In the bird list there are doves, ravens, eagles, hawks, sparrows—all birds—but also the bat, which is a mammal and not a bird. In the list of unclean birds in Leviticus 11:13–19 as well, the bat is mentioned specifically among the birds (see our analysis on the portion of Shemini 5766 / 2006).
Ebla and the Hebrew Bible
True, it is hard to claim an absolute parallel between the finds and the Bible, and because the place is in Syria, in addition to religious sensitivities there are also political, diplomatic, and other sensitivities involved, which affect the precise publication and interpretation of the findings. But it is hard to dispute the great proximity between the location of the site, the period in which it existed, the fascinating finds, and their closeness (with all the reservations) to what emerges from the Hebrew Bible.
Let us try to draw some kind of parallel between the finds of Ebla and what is known from the Bible, mainly in the patriarchal stories, including what emerges from the midrash.
True, the city existed in the third millennium BCE and was destroyed around 2280 BCE, hundreds of years before the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. However, it began to recover very quickly (only about 30 years after the destruction), and although it did not return to its days of greatness as an empire, already about 100 years later there is evidence that it functioned as a central and important city on a main route between Egypt and Mesopotamia. In its glory days, various kings ruled there. Some are known to us by name, and the most important for our purposes is “Ib-ri-um” or “Ib-rum.” If the researchers are correct in dating the reign of this king to the years around 2370–2280 BCE, then these are the years of the life of Eber son of Shelah, great-grandson of Shem son of Noah… And perhaps years later, in the days of Isaac and Jacob, in the period when Ebla existed not as the capital of a mighty kingdom but merely as an important city, Eber himself was no longer king (and perhaps the name “Eber” here is a dynastic title like “Pharaoh” in Egypt, like “Jabin” in Hazor, and like “Abimelech” among the Philistines), since his city had been destroyed and his kingship annulled. But in the language of the Sages the emphasis was placed דווקא on the center of learning in Ebla, and on its educational system (above), and it was called in their language “the study hall of [Shem and] Eber” (just as in later periods the city/kingdom is called by the king’s name: “the land of the house of Omri” as a designation for the kingdom of Israel, “the king of the house of David” as a designation for Jerusalem, and so on, many years after the deaths of the people mentioned)?
Could it really be that Ebla is the “study hall of Shem and Eber,” without quotation marks?

For study and further expansion:
Berman, Haim and Michael Weitzman, Ebla, Jerusalem, 1982.
Bahat, Dan, “Excavations at Tell Mardikh,” Qadmoniot 13, 1971, pp. 29–32.
Kempinski, Aharon, “Tell Mardikh/Ebla,” Qadmoniot 48, 1979, pp. 98–112.
Kutscher, Raphael, “The Ebla Documents,” Qadmoniot 48, 1979, pp. 113–121.
Kutscher, Raphael, “Corrections and Additions to the Article ‘The Ebla Documents,’” Qadmoniot 51–52, 1980, p. 127.

1. General photographs – Qadmoniot 48, pp. 98–121.
2. Ebla tablets – Qadmoniot 48, pp. 103, 106, 116–117, 119–120.
3. Photos of poplar on Flickr.
4. Map

On the academy of Shem and Eber:
http://forum.otzar.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=7329

See Babylonian Talmud, tractate Megillah 17a, and the Maharsha there.

What did they teach in that study hall? The laws of Abaye and Rava? The Five Books of the Torah before it had even been given? Do we really need to delve into every bit of nonsense found in midrash?