Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

Hi, Peter. You wrote:

>How, then, would you explain the accurate reflection of early 2nd 
>millennium Egyptian customs in the text of Genesis?

I'm quite puzzled by this. Which Egyptian customs of the New Kingdom do you
have in mind?

Peter:
>I know that you wrote:
>
>"It is probably wisest not to make any speculative hypotheses 
>regarding Egyptian connections..."
>
>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?

I would be happy for evidence of Egyptian sourcing for the relevant Jewish
literature. There is so much Egyptian literature available, but which Hebrew
texts do you see that were influenced by 2nd millenium Egyptian lit?

>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, 

Do you have any example of 2nd millenium family records of any kind from any
society? I pointed out that there don't seem to be any chronicles before the
Babylonian Chronicles. It doesn't seem to have been a genre available until
a millenium later than the period you're interested in.

>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.

The type of society implied by most of the laws contained in the Pentateuch
is clearly agricultural, sedentary and town based. Look at the sabbath
commandment for example or the two agricultural festivals of the harvest and
the ingathering. This literature was obviously produced in the promised land
despite the guise of it having been given to Israel prior to their arrival.

Genesis supplies enough evidence that it was put together long after the
period it represents. The first creation account has a few images that are
strongly connected with the Babylonian creation account (Enuma Elish), when
the spirit of God hovered over the waters (tehom) -- just as the winged
Marduk did over the water chaos (tiamat) -- and the waters were separated
above and below -- just as Marduk separated tiamat --, suggesting at least
the Babylonian period. The table of nations in ch 10 shows a knowledge of
the Greek world and its inclusion of Cush suggests at least the period of
the Cushite Egyptian (25th) dynasty. Think of the logistics of a king of
Elam and a king of "Shinar" being involved in a war with Sodom and Gomorrah
in the Dead Sea area (Gen14:1ff). Abraham followed the captors of Lot as far
as Dan (14:14), though Israel was centuries from being conquered and
apportioned. Ur is defined as "of the Chaldeans", but this people didn't
appear until the time of Nebuchadnezzar. What were Philistines doing in
Gerar in Abraham's time? They didn't arrive until Ramses III's time, but
then the Hebrews don't seem to know anything about the forceful arrival of
the Philistines -- suggesting that they, the Hebrews, were late-comers.

All this is to say that a comparison of internal information with
archaeologically derived information positively suggests that the
Pentateuchal tradition has no relation to the times they purport to represent.

This is without going into post-Wellhausian analyses of the construction of
those works based on the various sources delineated by 

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

As I said earlier, states didn't start maintaining chronicles until perhaps
the sixth century BCE, so the text type is extremely unlikely. One can
perhaps imagine a city being able to support scribes outside a court
entourage, but villages? Who would need such specialised services as those
provided by a scribe? Remember, the literacy rate was *almost certainly*
less than 2% perhaps even a lot less.


Ian

>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

(Again, should this thread be taken off list?)