Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Studium Biblicum Franciscanum <sbfnet AT netvision.net.il>]

Title: Re: 'eyeh 'asher 'eyeh

On  03/06/99 ('eyeh 'asher 'eyeh) Lloyd Barre wrote:

> Dear List:
>
> Even intuively it is apparent that this divine name is not Semitic.  God is described on a reveling in the verb, "to be[come]" (Egyptian: xeper).  It is a religion of ontology whose only source into Israelite tradition could have been Egypt.

        <snip>

>  "I am Becoming what I am Becoming" would be the sense of the name.  If we know Moses' full name, it may well have been Ptah-mose.
>
> Egyptian ontology lived on in the Levites, those thinkers like Ptah-mose who argued with his royal sibling Rameses II that the treatment of the Hebrew slaves did not conform to Maat, the immanent moral characteristic of Becoming.  According, Ptah-mose and his followers offered to take the Hebrews home and leave with them as Moses.
>
> The thought-word-creation of an ontological concept of God extends to the Johannine community and then to the Doctrine of the Trinity.    Accordingly, ontological thought originated with Ptah, passed through Israelite history to its most eloquent _expression_ with the Levitical Priestly Writer, whose theology allowed him to absorb El and Yahweh, and to the Community of the Beloved.  
>

        <snip>

Dear Lloyd M. Barre,

It may be, as you affirm, that the Divine Name is not Semitic in its original form; I would not affirm it, though.

However, in the form it appears in Exod. 3:14--and in the Hebrew Bible in general-- and in the way it is explained there it is definitely Semitic, specifically BH.

I allow me to doubt about the correctness of your assumption: "It is a religion of ontology whose only source into Israelite tradition could have been Egypt."

The term "ontology" is hardly suitable for either BH *hayâ* or Egyptian *xeper*. I would say that it is totally different. Actually, the LXX rendering "Egô eimi ho ôn" as well as that of the Vulgata "Ego sum qui sum" bring forth an "ontological meaning" that is foreign to the BH phrase. The "ens" category is alien to both BH and Egyptian thought; it is Greek, Latin, and later.

In _Liber Annuus_ 1985 I analyzed  *ehyeh 'a$er ehyeh* as "I will be what I was". I tried to show that the two *ehyeh* do not share the same time reference but the first refers to the future (volitive future: "I promise that I will be") and the second to the past (continuous past, as is the function of yiqtol with past reference: "what I was").
The meaning of the phrase is what we read in  the Midrash Hagadol: "Just as I was with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, so I will be with you."
It is not a revelation of the Name of God; it is rather a word play on It on the basis of verb *hayâ*. What God is trying to do is to re-establish a link with the past. He presents Himself first as the God of Moses' father and then as the God the fathers of the people. He is the same God; they are His people; He has seen and is going to take care of their situation.

The link you establish between Ptah-mose/Moses, the Gospel of John and the Doctrine of Trinity is challenging. One would like to see some evidence of it.
I would only point to the fact that, differently from the BH and Egyptian theologians, John was clearly able to conceive and express the opposition between the divine *ên* ("was") and the human *egeneto* ("came into being, became"). See John 1:1-2 *En archêi ên ho Logos, kai ho Logos ên pros ton Theon, kai Theos ên ho Logos, houtos ên en archêi pros ton Theon*--4 times with the divine *ên*; and contrast 1:3 *panta di' autou egeneto...*, and 1:14 *kai ho Logos sarx egeneto..." That opposition is clearly established in the Greek idiom. It is not attested in BH or in Egyptian.

Despite how much I love ancient Egypt I doubt that "the devotees of Ptah knew the same God as the Johannine Christians".

Peace and all good.

Alviero Niccacci

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