Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Will:

 

In analyzing PR(H [“Pharaoh”] in the received alphabetical text on the assumption that this Biblical Egyptian name was originally written down in Akkadian cuneiform, let’s examine how Egyptian aleph and Egyptian ayin come out in the Akkadian cuneiform of the Amarna Letters.  You will quickly see that in Akkadian cuneiform, Egyptian ayin cannot be distinguished from Egyptian aleph.

 

As I noted previously, Amarna Letter EA 29 features mAat being spelled as mu-u, where the same Akkadian vowel U is used for both Egyptian aleph and Egyptian ayin.

 

But now let’s see how Akkadian cuneiform A can also represent both Egyptian aleph and Egyptian ayin.  In Amarna Letter EA 1: 2 written by Amenhotep III himself, mAat is written, as you point out, as mu-a.  To me, that means that the Akkadian vowel A can stand for Egyptian ayin, although you oddly opt for seeing no ayin whatsoever being written down by Amenhotep III.  Without getting bogged down as to that one example, however, it is easy to confirm that Egyptian ayin could be represented by the Akkadian vowel A.  That is the case in the Egyptian name ap-pi-xa in four different Amarna Letters, including EA 105: 35, and the Egyptian name xa-ip in four different Amarna Letters, including EA 107: 16, where the Akkadian cuneiform vowel A is used for Egyptian ayin.

 

But the Akkadian cuneiform vowel A can also be used for Egyptian aleph!  For example, in both the Amarna Letters and the Patriarchal narratives, the most frequent beginning of an Egyptian name is pA.  The Egyptian name pa-xa-na-te in four different Amarna Letters, including EA 60: 10, spells the Egyptian aleph with an A.  The Egyptian name pi-wu-ri features four different spellings of pA, but in three separate Amarna Letters, including EA 287: 45 from IR-Heba of Jerusalem [whose scribe may have been the scribe who, shortly after leaving Jerusalem, was commissioned by the tent-dwelling Hebrews to write down the Patriarchal narratives in Akkadian cuneiform], the second letter in pA is spelled with the Akkadian vowel A.

 

So when PR(H in Genesis is setting forth an Egyptian name, the Hebrew alphabetical ayin/( that one sees in the received text could just as easily have been originally intended to be a Hebrew alphabetical aleph/).  Why?  Because that name was first written down in the Late Bronze Age, when the only way to write down a sophisticated composition like the Patriarchal narratives was by means of Akkadian cuneiform.  The Amarna Letters attest that sometimes the Akkadian vowel U was used to render both Egyptian aleph and Egyptian ayin, and sometimes the Akkadian vowel A was used to render both Egyptian aleph and Egyptian ayin.  In fact, on a more general level, Akkadian cuneiform generally was unable to differentiate among the various gutturals.  That applies in spades to ayin vs. aleph.

 

As to PR(H in particular, we note that Akkadian cuneiform heth could render, among other letters, alphabetical Hebrew ayin/( or alphabetical Hebrew heth/X, and that the Akkadian vowel A was sometimes used to render both Egyptian aleph and Egyptian ayin.  PR(H in the received text started out in Akkadian cuneiform as something like PR – RI – A – XI.  Those four Akkadian cuneiform signs could mean [among other possibilities] either (i) PR(H [per the received text], or (ii) P R )X, with the latter being pA ra Ax : pA ra a-khe : “Devoted to The Ra”, which compares nicely with Akhe-n-Aten : “Devoted to Aten”.

 

If we reverse engineer the received alphabetical text as to the Biblical Egyptian name PR(H and determine what the original Akkadian cuneiform signs were, we then see an  e-x-a-c-t  letter-for-letter match of the original cuneiform version of PR(H to P R )X : pA ra Ax : pA ra a-khe : “Devoted to The Ra”.  Will, it’s an  e-x-a-c-t  match of  a-l-l  the letters.  It’s not merely close, it’s  e-x-a-c-t .

 

Surely you would agree that if the Patriarchal narratives were not originally written down in the Bronze Age using Akkadian cuneiform, they can’t be old and accurate as to an historical Patriarchal Age.  To see then if the Patriarchal narratives are or are not truly ancient and accurate, simply reverse engineer the Egyptian names in the received text to determine how they would have originally been recorded in Akkadian cuneiform.  Then the gorgeous result is  e-x-a-c-t  letter-for-letter matches to Late Amarna nomenclature that in each case fit the storyline perfectly.  The greatest wordsmith of all time created these Biblical Egyptian names.  But we cannot appreciate them unless we reverse engineer the alphabetical Hebrew letters in the received text to determine the Akkadian cuneiform originals, and then ask what Egyptian names could result from such Akkadian cuneiform originals.  For example, the name of Joseph’s Egyptian priestly father-in-law, once it is recognized that the final intended letter was heth, not ayin, is:  pA wAt  -Y-  pA rx, referencing such priest’s devotion to Akhenaten as allegedly being “the only one/pA who knows/rx the distant/pA wAt [God]”.  Only Akhenaten ever made such a daunting theological claim.  And Akhenaten himself is fittingly referred to as P R )X : pA ra Ax : pA ra a-khe : “Devoted to The Ra”, which exemplifies Late Amarna theology perfectly.

 

The true antiquity and historical accuracy of the Patriarchal narratives come shining through when we reverse engineer the alphabetical Hebrew letters in these Biblical Egyptian names to determine the Akkadian cuneiform original signs, and then ask what Egyptian names could result from those original Akkadian cuneiform signs.  We find that, unlike all previous attempts to explain these Biblical Egyptian names, we don’t have to stretch a single letter!  Rather, we merely need to recognize that Akkadian cuneiform writing, such as in the original written version of the Patriarchal narratives, usually did not distinguish one guttural from another.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois