Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Will Parssons:\

 

1.  You wrote:  “[M]y current objections are:  1) Phonological  a) Vocalization: Whereas the common English transcription of this Egyption god is "Ra", this transcription is conventional, to make the purely consonantal Egyption spelling <r`> pronounceable.  The Coptic spelling is ΡΗ (i.e., [re:] or [re]),  and a much earlier (18th dynasty) cuneiform transcription suggests a vocalization /ri`a/ [riʕa].  This doesn't fit particularly well with the Hebrew [ra] in "Abraham".”

 

The only thing that counts in that connection is how Ra was spelled in Canaanite, using Akkadian cuneiform, in the Amarna Letters.  Agreed?  As to that, I go with the world’s leading expert, Richard S. Hess, when he writes at p. 116 of “Ámarna Personal Names” that the Akkadian cuneiform rendering of “Ra” in the Amarna Letters is the cuneiform sign ri, followed by -ia as “a hypocoristic suffix”. Thus Ra itself was heard as a one-syllable name in Canaan during the Amarna Age, and was written in Akkadian cuneiform as ri, with no express ayin. That is to say, in the mid-14^th century BCE, in Akkadian cuneiform Ra was simply R or ri, not a 2-syllable name r(e)-a. Thus though the Egyptian transcription of this sun-god’s name is ra, being R + ayin, the Canaanites heard it as a one-syllable name: R(i).

 

Biblical proof of that is the name of Joseph’s Egyptian master, PW+YPR, where certainly the last two letters, peh/P resh/R, are pA ra, with “Ra” being rendered by the single Hebrew letter resh/R.  That’s the same letter in the middle of the name “Abraham”, except for in that divinely-given name, it’s a generic theophoric, meaning “God”.

 

2.  You wrote:  “b) Consonants: Despite point (a) above, the more serious objection (in my view) is the complete loss of the consonant /`/ in Hebrew.  I really would expect to see this reflected in a `ayin in Hebrew.  The fact that the Hebrew form does *not* have a רע/r` sequence but only a ר/r causes me to doubt the connexion.”

 

No.   There’s no ayin at the end of the name “Potiphar”.  Resh/R, standing alone, is “Ra”.  Why fight both the Amarna Letters and the name of Joseph’s Egyptian master?  Your theoretical arguments, though good in theory, are refuted by those two impeccable sources.

 

3.  You wrote:  “2) Non-phonological:  I'm not aware of any evidence that "Ra"/"Re" was used used in a generic sense to indicate "God", but only as the name of a specific god (though later identified with another specific god      "Ammon").”

 

Au contraire, Amen was a run-of-the-mill Egyptian god, similar to most all of the polytheistic Egyptian gods.  One went to Amen (or, if that didn’t work, to a different god) to ask for fertility, success in business, etc., etc.  The only Egyptian god who was fundamentally different than that was Ra, the creator god.  In the Great Hymn to the Aten, Akhenaten repeatedly makes the following three key theological points:  (i) Ra/Aten, pA itn, pA nTr wa, created everything, but (ii) Ra/Aten is a “distant”/wAt god, and (iii) Akhenaten is the only one who “knows”/rx this “distant”/wAt god.  So with a little stretching, Ra could be viewed like El:  a generic reference to the divine.

 

Yes, that makes us all  v-e-r-y  nervous, because it’s far too close to Egypt for comfort.  But note that Joseph never returns to Canaan, except to attend his father Jacob’s magnificent funeral, with Joseph having adopted Egyptian dress and seeming to have “gone native” in most respects.  Unlike Jacob’s family situation, there’s no marital conflict reported with Joseph’s Egyptian wife, or even any conflict with Joseph’s Egyptian priestly father-in-law, who is a priest of Ra from On.

 

The Hebrew author is willing to go to the edge of blasphemy in trying [unsuccessfully, of course] to get Akhenaten to prevent the Hebrews from being driven out of their beloved homeland in south-central Canaan in Year 14.  But in my opinion, the Hebrew author never goes over the line into actual blasphemy.  The name of Joseph’s Egyptian priestly father-in-law is the perfect example of this.  On one level, it accurately reports Akhenaten’s peculiar theology.  But on another level. that name shows that the Hebrew author, and the Hebrews, did not approve at all of Akhenaten’s outrageous claim to supposedly be the only one who knows [rx] God [“the”/pA “distant”/wAt god].

 

It’s an edgy composition, that flirts with blasphemy in several ways.  That’s one reason why the Patriarchal narratives are so eternally fascinating.  In analyzing these Biblical Egyptian names, I rely almost entirely on the Amarna Letters and Akhenaten’s Great Hymn to the Aten.  On that basis, I am confident that the Canaanite/Hebrew way of writing “Ra” in Akkadian cuneiform was ri, which comes out in alphabetical Hebrew as just resh/R, with no ending ayin.  That’s what’s historically attested, and that’s how the name “Potiphar” works;  in my book, that’s what counts.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois