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  • From: Kevin Riley <klriley AT alphalink.com.au>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Pharaoh Khepera'a in Jeremiah 44:30
  • Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2010 11:46:54 +1000

Egyptian kh could not be represented by Greek X until after it had changed from an aspirated stop to a fricative. That is usually dated to after the time of the LXX.

'Απριηςis what would have been expected up until that time.

Kevin Riley


On 26/07/2010 10:54 AM, Will Parsons wrote:
On Sat, 24 Jul 2010 22:43:26 +0300, Yigal Levin<leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
wrote:
"Conventional wisdom" is that "Hophra" in Jer. 44:33 is the same as the king
that the Greek historians call Apries, 4th king of the 26th dynasty, who
ruled from 589 to 570 BCE. The form "Khepera" is not the name of a king, but
rather a title of the sun god Re, actually referring to the sacred dung
beetle. But if you or anyone else think that "Hophra" should be identified
with someone else, I'm sure that we would all be happy to hear your
evidence.
There is an Egyptian name Kheper-re` (ḫpr-rˁ), however.

Phonetically, Hebrew H.ophra` can be seen to match pretty closely,
especially if we take the vocalization of the Egyptian form to be something
like Khopi-ra`.

The Greek form Απριης/Apries can also be seen to match such a form,
especially if we take the vocalization of the Egyptian form to be something
like Khapi-re`. (This is, however, not as straight-forward as the Hebrew
correspondence, since one might reasonably have thought that an initial
Egyptian ḫ/kh would be rendered as χ/kh in Greek.)

The LXX, however, renders the name as Ουαφρη/Ouaphre. This does not match
the attested Hebrew form particularly well, but matches an Egyptian form
of the name of a Saite Pharaoh Wa'ah-ib-re` (w3ḥ-ỉb-rˁ).

As to what to make of this, I'm not sure. But, I'll throw out the
evidence for what it's worth.





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