Biblical Hebrew Forum

[<tladatsi AT charter.net>]

Karl & Bryant,

The key element that the author seemed to have known was 
that the audience would understand that the Egyptians 
feared invasion and/or internal revolt.  This fear was used 
to explain the enslavement / oppression of the Israelites.  
The oppression of Israelites actually moves forward the 
liberation of the Israelites by increasing their numbers 
and sets in motion Moses mission.  This is the key literary 
(irony) and theological (Yahweh`s control of the situation 
despite appearances to contrary) point.

How would either of these point be served by the author if 
the king in question were Hyksos?  As is agreed, the fact 
that of he very existence of the Hyksos was (and is) 
largely unknown.  Even if the author were aware of this 
historical nuance, it would be counter-productive to try to 
use this nuance in story.   No one would have got it.  It 
would simply confuse the audience and the blunt the point 
of the story.  (Imagine watching the movie *The10 
Commandments* and Yul Brenner started going on about being 
Hyksos and ruling both the native Egyptians and those 
foreign Israelites.  Even it were historically true, it 
would simply have confused everyone watching it and served 
no point whatsoever).

This is an entirely different issue from what occurred 
historically in Egypt during the Hyksos period and any role 
the Israelites might have played then.  This is an 
archeologically issue that does not inform the translation 
or meaning of Ex 1.  

It is also an entirely different question from how Ex 1 was 
composed and how the historical events in Egypt may have 
influenced its composition.   If we accept that Moses is 
the only author who composed it after the Exodus and he 
himself understood all of these nuances, he made no serious 
effort to incorporate them into the text.  If Ex 1 were 
composed by one or more later authors who worked with some 
pre-existing oral or written tradition (as the DH folks 
would assert) which had some historical core in a possible 
Hyksos ? Israelite relationship, they seem to have made it 
far less than clear.  This could be either because they had 
no understanding of the history contained in these 
traditions and found it confusing, or, even if they did 
understand them themselves, they knew their audience would 
find it confusing.

If you would like an analogy (or even if you don`t), 
consider the novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville.   It is 
based on an actual great sperm whale known as either Mocha 
Dick or Big Tom.  This whale actually sank a New England 
whaling ship by ramming it.  It was notoriously dangerous 
and had killed and maimed other whalers.  These historical 
facts do not inform the literary or theological thrust of 
Melville`s book.  Whatever roots in actual history, if any, 
are found in Ex 1, they do not assist us in understand or 
translating Ex 1.  This is not a general rule, only an 
observation for this particular story.


Jack Tladatsi