Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter_Kirk AT sil.org]

Dear Ian,

How, then, would you explain the accurate reflection of early 2nd 
millennium Egyptian customs in the text of Genesis? I know that you 
wrote:

"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."

But why do you say this? Is it perhaps because such hypotheses would 
support the position that you have rejected, that Genesis (or at least 
its source) is a genuine early 2nd millennium document?

As for preservation, I understand your difficulty. But how about this 
scenario: a text of (proto-)Genesis was preserved at the Egyptian 
court from Joseph's time, as the record of his family, and was found 
by Moses when he, as an Egyptian courtier, was showing interest in his 
own people (Exodus 2:11), and later taken by him into the desert, 
perhaps transcribed into Canaanite characters, and then preserved 
along with the Tabernacle and written records of the Law - where they 
could have remained for centuries, until the period of the monarchy.

By the way, why are people in villages unable to maintain written 
records?

All of this is of course very speculative, but it is one possible 
mechanism for the preservation of such a text. I know this mechanism 
doesn't tie up with my earlier suggestion that we have Joseph's actual 
Hebrew words recorded, but no-one seems to have picked up on the 
obvious objection that any untidy grammar he might have used would 
have been tidied up by later scribes.

Peter Kirk