Biblical Hebrew Forum

[MarianneLuban AT aol.com]

In a message dated 8/5/2004 10:58:26 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
peterkirk AT qaya.org writes:


> >I hope some people here are more knowledgeable in Greek than I am because 
> I 
> >want to make certain of some passages from the Greek text of Josephus.  It 
> has 
> >to do with his reference to a certain "Amenophis", a wiseman, universally 
> >accepted to be a well-documented actual person from AE, Amenhotep son of 
> Hapu.  
> >When Josephus first mentions the wiseman he writes, "Amenophis patros de 
> >Paapios" and then later 
> >"Amenophis ton Paapios", both translated as "Amenophis son of Paapis.  I 
> know 
> >that
> >"patros" means "father", but I can't understand the presence of "de" in 
> >the 
> 
> >phrase.  Also, I think "ton" can mean "the son of" but also just plain 
> "of".  
> >Anybody?
> >
> >  
> >
> "de" means "and" or "but" but is positioned after the first word 
> following it. So "Amenophis patros de Paapios" means something like 
> "Amenophis and of the father (of) Paapis" - assuming that "Paapios" is a 
> somewhat unusual genitive form from Paapis. "ton" is a form of the 
> article, but it doesn't make sense here because it is accusative, but 
> "Amenophis ... Paapios" may mean "Amenophis [son] of Paapis", with "son" 
> implied which is quite common. Of course the whole thing could be more 
> clear from the Greek context, especially as Greek word order is very 
> free and different phrases can interleave with one another.
> 
> 

Well, the sentence apprears to say "(the king) communicated his desire to his 
namesake (men auto) Amenophis patros de Paapios" whose widsom and knowledge 
of the future were regarded as marks of divinity".  This last made everybody 
certain all this referred to Amenhotep son of Hapu, an individual who later 
became deified.
But I'm not so sure.  In the writing of "Paapios", the second a has an accent 
mark above it.  Why?  And the footnote says the editor prefers "Papios" 
--with only the second a.  The next context says "Amenophis, king of Egypt, 
who 
recalled the prediction of (para Amenophis ton Paapios mnestheis 
prodeloseos).  
Would any of this make more sense of "Paapios" was a toponym instead of a 
proper name?

Marianne Luban