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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: Yigal.Levin AT biu.ac.il, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Portrait of Joseph in Chapter 40 of Genesis
  • Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 16:43:17 -0400 (EDT)


Prof. Yigal Levin:

You wrote: “And, I wonder, what any of it has to do with Hebrew.”

If the pharaoh who commissioned that magnificent portrait of what looks
like a Hebrew Patriarch was the Pharaoh of chapter 41 of Genesis, and if the
exact time period is Year 13 (for reasons noted below), then we would for the
first time be able to understand the perfectly good Hebrew word which is the
third from the last word at Genesis 40: 16. A willingness to consider the
ordinary meaning of that Hebrew word may further allow us to figure out, for
the first time, why Joseph interpreted the Baker’s dream as entailing that
the Baker would be duly impaled 3 days hence. Can we consider the ordinary
meaning of that Biblical Hebrew word on the b-hebrew list?

The word XRY at Genesis 40: 16 has been translated in every imaginable way:
“white”, “cake”, “wicker”, “bread”, “white bread”, etc. But the
Hebrew word for “white stuff” is XWR, with a vav/W, whereas the word at
Genesis
40: 16 is XRY, with no vav/W. If XRY were a Hebrew common word for “white
bread”, why does it only appear once in the entire Bible, at Genesis 40: 16?
And though those traditional translations of XRY might, out of context, be
linguistically defensible, they don’t seem to make good sense in context,
for a Baker dreaming of three “white bread” baskets is as innocent as can be
imagined.

The normal meaning of the Hebrew word XRY is the meaning that those three
Hebrew letters have at Genesis 14: 6. If we are willing to consider at
Genesis 40: 16 the normal meaning of the Hebrew letters XRY [which, to the
best
of my knowledge, no university scholar has ever done], then instead of the
Baker’s dream being innocuous, it looks treasonous. As such, that would then
explain why, having heard about that dream, Joseph accurately predicts that
the Baker will be duly impaled 3 days hence.

Why would the chief Baker, one of Pharaoh’s top officials, be impaled by
Pharaoh? It’s hard to imagine any offense by a Baker that would be bad
enough
to warrant such a dramatic penalty, except treason. Let’s examine that
both Biblically, and then historically.

Biblically, we should ask if the XRY are viewed negatively in the
Patriarchal narratives. Although the Hebrew word XTY is not the same as the
Hebrew
word XRY, scholar Edmund Lipinski views the word XTY as being a foreign
proper name that in the Bible effectively implies a meaning of XRY. On the
theory that the XTY and the XRY are the same people, consider now Rebekah’s
harsh
sentiments as to the XTY [and hence as to the XRY] at Genesis 27: 46: “
Rebekah said to Isaac, ‘I loathe my life because of the XRY women. If Jacob
marries a local XRY woman like these [the XRY wives of Jacob’s older twin
brother Esau], what good will life be to me?’”

Now switch to an historical analysis. The Pharaoh who, in my view,
commissioned that magnificent portrait of Joseph in chapter 40 of Genesis
gets
reamed out but good by the leading XRY figure of the day, in a quite
derogatory
fashion:

“One must not change another’s words. Whatever be the things that I [the
XRY king] say, my brother [Pharaoh] should do, and whatever the things be
that my brother says, I will do. One shall not cause distress to the other
in
anything whatsoever. …Now may my brother give me the statues of solid
chased gold; may my brother give me promptly much gold that has not been
worked. Your father himself granted me statues of gold. Why is it for you a
source of distress…? …Would [my brother] cause me distress? …[M]ay my
brother
not cause me distress. …I hereby declare: ‘My brother has indeed not let
my messengers go, and he indeed detains them a long time. I certainly
denounce this, my brother, I indeed denounce it.’ …My brother is not to
complain.” Amarna Letter EA 29

Yet though this Pharaoh who commissioned the magnificent portrait of Joseph
in chapter 40 of Genesis was treated with disrespect by the XRY king,
nevertheless some of pharaoh’s nobles, like the Baker, muttered loudly that
Pharaoh had done the wrong thing in cutting off all relations with Naharim.
[The
Amarna Letters use the same nomenclature for eastern Syria as does Genesis
24: 10: “Naharim”.] Pharaoh’s father’s best ally had been Naharim, and
with the Hittites just now threatening to overrun Syria [and possibly Lebanon
and Canaan as well, who knows?], several nobles like the Baker thought that
Pharaoh should follow his father’s pro-XRY policy, despite the personal
insults hurled at Pharaoh by the XRY king in Amarna Letters EA 27-29.

Please note that historically, the o-n-l-y time when a dream of three XRY
baskets would seem treasonous in Egypt was in Year 13, shortly after
Pharaoh had cut off all relations with Naharim in Year 12, 7th month, and
before
the issue became moot with the destruction of the XRY state of Naharim by the
Hittites. [Without going into details as to ages, on one level Joseph is
portrayed as being age 13 years when he interprets the Baker’s deadly dream.
That level of meaning may be expressly intended to let us know that chapter
40 of Genesis is playing out against the historical backdrop of Year 13.
Year 13 was the one year in which feelings were running high in Egypt both
pro and con regarding the XRY, with Pharaoh’s controversial decision to break
with the XRY state of Naharim in mid-Year 12 being a controversial decision
that, it was thought by many, might adversely affect Egypt’s sphere of
influence in western Asia.]

If we give XRY the same translation at Genesis 40: 16 as those same three
Hebrew letters are understood as meaning at Genesis 14: 6, we may then have
solved the age-old mystery of how Joseph managed to interpret the Baker’s
dream as meaning that in three days he would be impaled, and what the Baker’s
terrible crime was. A Baker dreaming of three “bread” baskets would be
entirely innocent. But a Baker dreaming of three XRY baskets in the context
of
Year 13 could easily be a dead giveaway of some terrible treason that the
Baker was planning against Pharaoh. [By the way, there appear to be numerous
references to XRY baskets in the Amarna Letters.]

In the historical context of Year 13, an image of three XRY baskets on top
of the Baker’s head in the Baker’s dream was plenty enough for Jacob to
adjudge correctly that the Baker was engaging in high treason against Pharaoh
and Egypt by selling out to the XRY. That in turn was what led this
historical pharaoh to commission that magnificent portrait of the historical
early
Hebrew who is portrayed as being Joseph in chapter 40 of Genesis.

The Hebrew word XRY is the key to unraveling this entire mystery.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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