Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Brian Roberts <formoria AT carolina.rr.com>]

On Friday, July 30, 2004, at 12:10  AM, Yigal Levin wrote:

> Marianne,
>
> Thanks for the explanation. The etymology, or perhaps etiology, given 
> for
> Moshe in Exodus is obviously legendary,

Wait a second. How is it "obviously legendary"? Did anyone stop to 
consider that the ark of reeds story was indicative of an actual ritual 
of future rulers in the ANE? And that explains its multiple occurrences 
just as well as the going theory that it is simply a borrowed story with 
no real meaning to the Hebrews at all?

Best Salaams,

Brian Roberts



> which is why many scholars assume
> that the name must actually be Egyptian. The fact that the name Moshe 
> (and
> Aaron) is not used could have one of three reasons:
> 1. As Karl has suggested, pure chance. The biblical text is quite 
> limited.
> Especially if the name is Egyptian, how many later Hebrew-speaking
> Israelites would use it.
> 2. Some "minimalist" scholars, such as Van Seters, Garbini and others, 
> have
> suggested that the whole Moses story is a very late invention - in other
> words, most Iron-Age Israelites did not know of a Moses to name anyone
> after.
> 3. A third explanation is cultural - that Moses and Aaron were held in 
> such
> high esteem, as to be above naming people after. The Samaritans don't 
> name
> children Moshe, for just that reason, to this day. If they do wish to 
> honor
> Moses by naming a child for him, they use Marqeh - Resh + Qoph have the 
> same
> numerical value as Shin. This is like the name Jesus, being very rare 
> in the
> English speaking world, although its common in Spanish. The fact is, 
> that
> Moshe is uncommon in the Talmud as well, and did not become a common 
> Jewish
> name until the Middle Ages.
>
> Yigal
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <MarianneLuban AT aol.com>
> To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Friday, July 30, 2004 1:20 AM
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Ramases
>
>
> > In a message dated 7/29/2004 1:11:15 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
> > leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il writes:
> >
> >
> > > While not an Egyptologist, I do know that it means "born of Re". Re, 
> > > of
> > > course, is the sun god. The "mese[s]" is the same element as in 
> > > Thutmose
> > > (there were several pharaohs by that name), and, presumably in 
> > > "Moses",
> > > assuming that that was a real Egyptian name, with some theophopic
> element
> > > cut off.
> >
> > You're right--sort of :-)  However, the name "ramss" is not quite the 
> > same
> as
> > "DHwtyms" which means "Thoth is born".  Such a name can't really mean
> "Born
> > of Thoth" because the Egyptians were quite consistent in the order of
> their
> > words in any phrase--and nearly all Egyptian proper names were a 
> > phrase.
> If it
> > isn't, then you know it's a nickname, of which the Egyptians were very
> fond.
> > In order to say "Born of Thoth", it would have to be "ms n DHwty".
> "Ramss"
> > is a different story because it is actually a truncated version of
> "Ramssw" or
> > "Ra fashioned him", actually the name of the grandfather of Ramesses 
> > II.
> > However, there was a very popular name in the 18th and 19th Dynasties,
> written
> > simply "ms".  Since this name constitutes no phrase, no one is quite 
> > sure
> what it
> > is all about.  My guess is it just means "man-child", a strange name 
> > for a
> > person--but there it is.  It doesn't seem to be a truncated version 
> > of a
> > theophoric name, because those fit to a certain pattern.  In fact, the
> nickname of
> > "ms", itself, seems to be "Maya", actually pronounced "Meeya".  But I
> doubt that
> > the name "Moshe" has anything to do with any of this.  I doubt it's a
> proper
> > name at all, for a number of reasons.  And the explanation in Exodus is
> not a
> > satisfactory one, at all--unless you can believe that an Egyptian 
> > princess
> > would give her adopted son a Semitic name that was even rather a silly
> one,
> > totally unfitting to his station in life as the son of the princess.
> Egyptians
> > never had names like "drawn out of the water" or "he who dances with
> wolves" like
> > the Amerinds did.  Please note that the names of Moshe and Aharon never
> again
> > appear in the HB--which would be very odd if these were names that 
> > meant
> > something in Semitic.  They became used in the Diaspora only when such
> distinction
> > were no longer so well-drawn as even before that Jews had begun to be
> called
> > by foreign names quite routinely--mostly Greek or Roman ones.  
> > However, we
> > know the name "Joseph" was used before the Roman dispersion--because,
> after all,
> > Joseph really is a Semitic name the meaning of which is clear.
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