Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

George Athas wrote:  “Conventional wisdom, which is followed by approximately 99% of folk, places Akhnaton in the 14th century BC.”

 

Yes!  However, before anyone starts accusing me again of going mainstream [but which I always am historically, by the way], let me hurry to add that the analysis in my preceding post of four Egyptian names strongly suggests that the Patriarchal narratives were to a large extent composed in Year 14, and that the Patriarchal Age historically is the Amarna Age [in the mid-14^th century BCE].  If so, then for the first time we can figure out where “Goshen”/G$-N is located.

 

The final -N in G$-N is likely a west Semitic ending that effectively means “place”.  G$-N refers to a place in Egypt that is a largely rural area in the general vicinity of G$.  To the best of my knowledge, the only Egyptian locale that fits Hebrew G$ linguistically is Qis [the misleading English transliteration of the Egyptian name that will be the focus of this post].  Qis is the capital city of nome #14, located in central Egypt just south of Amarna on the west bank of the Nile River.

 

The two true consonants in the Egyptian city name “Qis” are as follows.  First is Egyptian Q, which is the Egyptian hieroglyph that is the first letter of item #104 on the mid-15^th century BCE Tuthmose III list of places in Canaan [less than a century before the Amarna Age].  That’s Gazru, with a G, per many Amarna Letters (e.g. EA 253: 22).  And of critical importance Biblically, that city name is GZR, with a gimel/G, in Hebrew (e.g. Joshua 10: 33).  The second true Egyptian consonant in Qis is the Egyptian sibilant at item #28 on the Thutmose III list.  The direct Hebrew equivalent of this item’s name is ($TRT, at Genesis 14: 5.  Amarna Letter EA 197: 10 similarly has A$tartu.  So that second consonant is shin/$.  Voila, we’ve got it!  Qis in Egyptian is equivalent to G$/gimel-shin in early Biblical Hebrew.

 

Based on the foregoing, the Egyptian city name “Qis” is a perfect linguistic match to the Hebrew word “Goshen”/G$-N that appears 10 times in the Patriarchal narratives.  As far as I know, there is no other potential linguistic match of G$-N to any other Egyptian geographical locale, prior to the 5^th century BCE or so.

 

On a textual basis, Qis as Biblical Goshen fits the storyline of the Patriarchal narratives if and only if the Patriarchal Age is the Amarna Age.  A sleepy rural place, near Egypt’s capital city, would be the most logical place for Hebrews to sojourn in Egypt, where they tended Pharaoh’s livestock.  The Amarna Age is the only time period in history in which it would make any sense at all for the Hebrews to be sojourning so far south in central Egypt.  If the Patriarchal Age is the Amarna Age, and if the bulk of the Patriarchal narratives was composed in Year 14, then everything about Qis is a perfect historical and linguistic match to Biblical Goshen in every way, all the way.  Yes! 

 

Otherwise, G$-N is just another inexplicable 3,000-year-old Biblical mystery in the Patriarchal narratives.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois