Gilead (Bible)

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Gilead was, according to the Book of Numbers, the son of Machir, and hence the grandson of Manasseh^[1], and may have been the founder of the Israelite tribal group of Gilead, which is mentioned in Biblical passages which textual scholars attribute to early sources; however, the Gilead group is given equal status to a tribal group named Machir, in the early biblical passages, as a separate group rather than as a group contained by the Machir group, which seemingly is inconsistent.

Textual scholars regard the genealogy in the Book of Numbers, which identifies Gilead as Machir's son, as originating in the priestly source, a document written centuries after the early JE source, in which the Gilead and Machir tribal groups are mentioned, and possibly having been written to rival the JE source^[2]^[3]. Biblical scholars view the biblical genealogies as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the group to others in the Israelite confederation^[4]; the identification of Gilead as an aspect of Manasseh was the traditional explanation of why the tribal groups of Machir and Gilead are mentioned along with northern tribes in the ancient Song of Deborah, while Manasseh is absent from it^[5].

The text of the Book of Numbers appears to portray Gilead as the father of Asriel, but the Book of Chronicles states that Manasseh was the father of Asriel^[6]; it is possible for there to have been two different Asriels, though Manasseh is only indicated as having had one son - Machir - in the genealogy of the Book of Numbers.