Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Liz Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

Dear Karl,
I don't understand your reasoning below.
Whenever Pharaoh came to be regarded as a god,
it was certainly long before the stories of Genesis were written.
The question is what is the author of the Genesis stories trying to say?
If it's not "our god is better'n your god," then what??

> > I don't know from what era "the earliest written [Egyptian]
> > sources" hail
>
> That’s the rub. If they are contemporanious to the
> pharaohs in question (e.g. the pharaoh who elevated
> Joseph to prime minister)

Was there such a pharaoh? Was there a Joseph?


then the earlier
> qestion concerning the meaning of QCP pertaining
> to a god is strengthened, but if the [Egyptan] sources stem
> from a much later time (e.g. attributing divinity
> to strengthen later claims) then the claim that QCP
> is for a superior but not necessarily a god to an
> inferior is strengthened.
>
> Genesis, as it presently stands, favors the latter
> reading, as it does not attribute divinity to the
> pharaoh of Joseph’s time.
>

Liz