Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

Pardon my ingenuousness, but I can't fathom whether Bryan is arguing from a
purely literary position in this post or a "historical" one based only on
the internal evidence of the biblical accounts.

>if indeed the Egyptians influenced the burial customs of the "first"
>family, the influence would have to go back to Abraham.  

How knowledge regarding Abraham or any of the patriarchs could have reached
later times could at best have been through oral transmission, at worst
through cultural creativity. Written records were normally maintained in the
courts of substantial powers, not in the hands of "wandering Arameans". The
earliest possible times for such written records is to the period when the
united kingdom existed. However, the archaeological evidence shows that
Jerusalem was only a village in the ninth/eighth century, leaving little
hope for a court there of the stature to be able to support a scribal
tradition that maintained, beside the economic necessities of that court,
its cultural history. The first datable exemplars of the genre of historical
chronicles -- to my knowledge -- are those of the Babylonian kings, which
are from the 6th century BCE.

>Israel and Joseph
>were quite dedicated to honoring Abraham's precedent of being buried in
>Canaan, and Israel specifically wanted to be buried with his family in the
>cave Abraham bought from the Hittites.

How the Hittites got entangled in Jewish cultural history is quite a
mystery. They never had holdings in Palestine but might have had nominal
tutelage -- be it unlikely -- of the entire zone through their annexation of
the kingdom of Yamkhad in northern Syria (one wonders if Yamkhad's influence
ever got south of Hama). Whatever the case, the Hittites lost their control
of Yamkhad to the Mitanni, so it is unimaginable that Abraham could have
bought a cave from any Hittites.

>it seems enbalming might have been
>a handy technology for Israel and Joseph rather than a cultic practice. 
>enbalming enabled Joseph to make the long journey back to Makpelah with his
>father's remains and it allowed Joseph's remains to be preserved until
>future generations could bring his remains back as well.  we might
>interpret the mourning periods in Egypt itself as a testament to the good
>name that Israel had in Egypt rather than a dedication of Egyptian cultic
>practices.

It is probably wisest not to make any speculative hypotheses regarding
Egyptian connections based on the biblical literature for there is just no
way of knowing the historical context in which most of it was written or
rewritten. The archaeologists I know tend to find such attempts not very
fruitful.

>anyhow, i'm not an Egyptologist.  is there enough info. about the burial
>customs of Abraham to say that they are particulary Egyptian?  
>
>Shalom,
>Bryan
>
>
>----------
>> From: Peter_Kirk AT sil.org
>> To: 596547 AT ican.net; b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
>> Subject: Re[2]: burial (was Life after Death)
>> Date: Thursday, December 31, 1998 12:00 PM
>> 
>> Perhaps Joseph's concern for his bones can be linked to his becoming 
>> son-in-law of the priest of the most ancient cultic centre of Egypt, 
>> On or Heliopolis (Gen 41:50).

Isn't it interesting how history repeats itself regarding On? After all that
becomes the site for the renegade Zadokite temple set up by Onias IV.

>> Maybe he forgot not only his trouble and 
>> his father's household (verse 51), but his father's language (see my 
>> previous posting) and his father's burial practices. He did not forget 
>> his homeland, but his way of expressing this (50:25) after more than 
>> 90 years in Egypt may have been rather Egyptian. Even Jacob's death 
>> and burial, after 17 years in Egypt (47:28) followed many Egyptian 
>> customs (49:29-50:14).
>> 
>> Peter Kirk



Ian



Ian Hutchesson
mc2499 AT mclink.it