Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

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