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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Goshen
  • Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2010 14:39:36 EDT


Dr. Arnaud Fournet:

1. You wrote: “In my humble opinion, it is near doubtless impossible that
Goshen could be this place in Egypt. It is clearly written Q S with an
emphatic Qoph.”

The Egyptian Q in Qis is a hieroglyph that looks like a curvy triangle.
See here:

http://hieroglyphs.net/000501/cgi/lookup.pl?ty=en&ch=q&cs=0

That curvy triangle is hieroglyph N29, it is transcribed Q, and it is
described as “K pronounced in the back of the throat”.
http://www.ancient-egypt.org/index.html

What is of critical importance here is that we see that identical curvy
triangle as the first letter at item #104 on the mid-15th century BCE
Thutmosis
III list of places in Canaan, where Gezer/GZR is written in Egyptian as
follows: QDR. [The D is underlined, indicating a Z-type sound.]

So an Egyptian curvy triangle, transliterated as Egyptian Q, is the first
letter in GZR/Gezer, having as its Biblical Hebrew equivalent gimel/G. Thus
the first letter in Qis in Egyptian matches the first letter in G%-N in
Biblical Hebrew perfectly, in a Late Bronze Age context.

2. You wrote: “In addition Latin, Greek and Arabic are coherent with the
first vowel being a long /u:/ and the next /a/. So it sounded something
like /Qu:sa/”

There are no vowels in the unpointed Masoretic text in original defective
spelling, prior to exilic times. No one knows what the vowel sound is. As
to referencing Greek, the Septuagint indicates an E, not a long U. Note that
each of Qesy and Gesa has E for the vowel, which matches the Septuagint.
The Egyptian hieroglyph suggests I for the vowel.

3. You wrote: “In addition Arabic has emphatic s, but this does not
appear in Egyptian /s/.”

The Egyptian hieroglyph is S29 (per the above-noted cites), and it’s
pronounced S. This hieroglyph appears at item #44 on the T III list, KNT
JSN.
Egyptologist Paul James Cowie sees the Hebrew equivalent as being GT )$N. If
so, then this Egyptian hieroglyph is sin/shin in Biblical Hebrew.

4. You wrote: “So not a single letter matches.”

Au contraire, there are only two letters to match, G and %, and both of
them match the Egyptian hieroglyphs [N29 and S29] in Qis perfectly, per the T
III list. [The other Egyptian hieroglyphs in Qis are vowel-type sounds,
which were not recorded in early Biblical Hebrew defective spelling.] An
early
Hebrew author trying to write down Egyptian Qis would be expected to write
down G%, and then add a standard west Semitic suffix -N. The linguistic
match is p-e-r-f-e-c-t.






The pinpoint historical accuracy of the Patriarchal narratives never ceases
to amaze.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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