Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG]

Dear Ian,

I don't think I or anyone else claimed on this list that Abraham 
brought written documents from Harran or Ur. I would suggest that he 
brought culture and oral traditions but not writing. Perhaps the first 
literate Israelites were Ephraim and Manasseh, grandsons of the priest 
of On. But then I thought writing in Egypt was not just a religious 
thing, but was used also (in hieratic script) for "the mundane 
purposes of administration" (quoting New Bible Dictionary), even if 
the scribes were also nominally priests. If an Israelite called Moses 
was indeed brought up at the Egyptian court, he would very likely have 
learned to write on papyrus. If there was no papyrus available during 
the wilderness wanderings, there were surely animal skins to write on, 
and hours to spend just watching sheep which could also be used for 
writing. After the conquest of Canaan, papyrus would have been 
available again, either from the Jordan valley or imported from Egypt, 
and indeed "strangely enough" we have evidence for this, a surviving 
pre-exilic Hebrew papyrus as well as impressions of papyrus on the 
backs of pre-exilic seals.

Of course it is hard to disprove to you theories that the Exodus 
tradition was a post-exilic invention if you reject a priori the main 
evidence to the contrary which is the Exodus narrative itself. Maybe 
there was indeed a link between the Exodus and the expulsion of the 
Hyksos, though I know there are dating problems with that. But then 
are there contemporary accounts of the expulsion of the Hyksos? Or do 
the arguments in the books you recommend assume (improbably) the 
reliability of Manetho and Josephus while giving no weight to 
documents such as Exodus?

Peter