b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Re: Another Egyptian text

From: "Reginald Wallace Ponder, Jr." <rwponder AT lycos.com>
To: b-hebrew
Subject: Re: Another Egyptian text
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 12:47:32

This is an interesting and provocative proposal. Clearly there is
sufficient social/religious intercourse between Egypt and Ancient Israel
for this kind of "borrowing" to be possible. But I do not see the evidence
in the Hebrew text for the kind of ontological speculation that seems to be
present in the Egyptian texts under discussion. The Hebrew in Ex. 3:14 is
easily read as a simple tautology: "I will be what I will be" -- or
something akin to that. Not just grammatically but at the
religious/ideological level this may best be understood tautologically.
God is telling Moses that He is a trustworthy Deity. This is consistent
with Ancient Israelite thought in general -- God's character is a basic
concern of the Bible.
Anyway, from my (limited) studied of Egyptian, it seems to be a much
more complex verbal system than is BH. Specifically, Classical Egyptian
contains a number of differentiated grammatical forms to communicate
diverse modalities. Therefore, it is possible to explain the apparently
simpler statement in Ex.3:14 as a function of the BH verbal system. But
the simplest explanation is that the author of Exodus has no desire to
engage in Egyptian-style ontological speculation.
I am still interested in this, however; I have no ideological bias
against Egyptian influence at this or any other point. The Bible both
resembles, and stands in contrast with, other Ancient Near Eastern texts in
a variety of ways.
Shalom,
Rev. Reggie Ponder, Jr.

On 09/18/00, "barre AT nethere.com" wrote:
> This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
>
> --X-X-X-X-X-X--NeoPlanet-MIME-TEXTandHTML--X-X-X-X-X-X-X6393939-X-X
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding:7bit
>
> Here is another Egyptian cosmological text that illustrates the fascination
> with the verb "to be[come]:
>
> The Book of Knowing of the rollings[emanations] of Ra, and the overthrowing
> of Apep.
>
> [These are] the words which the god Neb-er-tcher spoke after he had come
> into being:
>
> "I am he who came into being in the form of Khepera, and I am the creator
> of everything which came into being; now the things which I had created,
> and which came forth out of my mouth after I had come into being myself,
> were exceedingly many. The sky (or, heaven) had not come into being, the
> earth did not exist, and the children of the earth, and the creeping
> things, had not been made at this time. I myself raised them from out of
> the Nu, from a state of helpless inertness."
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> L.M. Barre, Ph.D.
>
> Angelfire.com/ca2/AncientIsrael
>
> Download NeoPlanet at http://www.neoplanet.com
> --X-X-X-X-X-X--NeoPlanet-MIME-TEXTandHTML--X-X-X-X-X-X-X6393939-X-X
> Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding:7bit
>
>
> <HTML><BODY
> BGCOLOR=#FFFFFF>Here is another Egyptian cosmological text that illustrates the fascination with the verb "to  
> be[come]:
>  
>
>
>  FACE="Garamond">The Book of Knowing of the rollings[emanations] of Ra, and the  
> overthrowing of Apep.
>  
>
>  
> [These are] the words which the god Neb-er-tcher spoke after he had  
> come into being:
>  
>
>  
> "I am he who came into being in the form of Khepera, and I am the creator of everything  
> which came into being; now the things which I had created, and which came forth out of  
> my mouth after I had come into being myself, were exceedingly many.  The sky (or,  
> heaven) had not come into being, the earth did not exist, and the children of the earth,  
> and the creeping things, had not been made at this time.  I myself raised them from out  
> of the Nu, from a state of helpless inertness."
> </BODY></HTML>
>  <HTML><BODY
> BGCOLOR=#FFFFFF>---------------------------------------------------
>  L.M. Barre, Ph.D.
>  
>  Angelfire.com/ca2/AncientIsrael</HTML></BODY>
>  Download NeoPlanet at <a
> href=http://www.neoplanet.com>http://www.neoplanet.com</a>
> --X-X-X-X-X-X--NeoPlanet-MIME-TEXTandHTML--X-X-X-X-X-X-X6393939-X-X--

Another Egyptian text, barre, 09/17/2000
- <Possible follow-up(s)>
- Re: Another Egyptian text, Reginald Wallace Ponder, Jr., 09/18/2000