Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Dr. Reinhard G. Lehmann:

 

You wrote:  “My goodness, will anyone of you maybe take into consideration that early Hebrew tradition was oral, as is normal and most efficient in nomadic societies?”

 

The virtually unanimous view of university scholars is that (i) the Patriarchal narratives were an oral tradition, which was first written down in alphabetical Hebrew, some time well into the mid-1^st millennium BCE,  a-n-d  that (ii) the name of Joseph’s first Egyptian master is the same name as the name of Joseph’s Egyptian priestly father-in-law, even though the former name [“Potiphar”] ends in resh/R, whereas the latter name [“Potipherah”] ends in resh-ayin/R(.  It seems inherently unlikely that an oral tradition would have the same Egyptian name for two entirely different Egyptian characters.  Moreover, and needless to say, an oral tradition that was first written down some time well into the mid-1^st millennium BCE would not accurately reflect the peculiar, unique, unattractive theology that prevailed in Egypt in Year 14.  But note how the seemingly unsolvable problem of two different Egyptian characters allegedly having the same name effortlessly disappears if we discard the first scholarly assumption above, and instead ask whether the Patriarchal narratives, rather than being an oral tradition as heretofore assumed, were instead written down in Akkadian cuneiform 4 years after Year 14, and not transformed into alphabetical Biblical Hebrew until late 7^th century BCE Jerusalem.

 

The name “Potiphar”, having no gutturals, will in that event be letter-for-letter perfect.  Note that the second letter in this Biblical Egyptian name, which is routinely ignored in scholarly analyses of this name but in fact is of critical importance to understanding this name, is vav/W:  P W+  -Y-  P R.  Hebrew peh/P is the Egyptian word pA, namely p + Egyptian aleph, both at the beginning and near the end of this name.  From the Amarna Letters we know that in Akkadian cuneiform, pA was rendered by a single cuneiform sign that was p + generic vowel, often PI, rather than Egyptian aleph being rendered as a separate letter.  So both pA and wA in Egyptian will come out in alphabetical Hebrew, after being filtered through Akkadian cuneiform, as P and W, with no Hebrew letter for the Egyptian aleph in either case.  Vav/W is wA, and with teth/+ being either t or d, here it’s Egyptian t, giving us wAt as the Egyptian word rendered by W+.  pA wAt means “The Distant [God]”, and is a phrase found four times in Akhenaten’s Great Hymn to the Aten in referencing Ra or Aten.  Yod/Y is the xireq compaginis [recognized by scholars as being used both in the Patriarchal narratives and by IR-Heba’s scribe at Jerusalem, though otherwise being virtually unknown in Canaan south of Lebanon and Syria];  it functions like a modern dash.  P R is of course pA ra.  Per the Amarna Letters, we know that the Egyptian ayin in ra was not rendered by a separate cuneiform symbol, so Hebrew resh/R, standing alone, represents the Egyptian god Ra.  The name means “The Distant [God] -- The Ra”.  The nomenclature is coming straight out of Akhenaten’s Great Hymn to the Aten and, with the emphasis being on “Ra” rather than on “Aten”, recalls Year 14 [since Akhenaten named his last two daughters after Ra, not Aten].

 

The name “Potipherah”, which ends with a guttural, namely ayin in the received text, is a prime candidate for evidencing confusion of the gutturals, if the Patriarchal narratives were written down in Akkadian cuneiform 4 years after Year 14, and not transformed into alphabetical Biblical Hebrew until late 7^th century BCE Jerusalem.  The original written version of this name ended with Akkadian cuneiform heth, which could represent heth or ayin or he or emphatic H or aleph.  Not understanding the strange theology that had permeated Amarna 700 years earlier in Year 14, the Jewish scribe in late 7^th century BCE Jerusalem not surprisingly guessed the wrong guttural here, and erroneously wrote down ayin/(.  But the guttural intended by the original Hebrew author here in fact was heth/X.  It’s a classic confusion of the gutturals for a text that started out in Akkadian cuneiform, where a later scribe transforming the cuneiform text into alphabetical Hebrew had no personal knowledge of these exotic foreign proper names using Egyptian words, and simply had to guess as to the gutturals, often guessing wrong.  If the last letter in “Potipherah” was intended to be heth/X, instead of the ayin/( that we see in the received text, then all of a sudden (i) the name “Potipherah” makes perfect sense in the context of Year 14 as the name of the high-priest of Ra from On,  a-n-d  (ii) we see that the name “Potipherah” is entirely different than the name “Potiphar”, which applies to a completely different character.

 

The end of the name “Potipherah” was intended to be P RX.  Hebrew peh/P is the  Egyptian word pA, but this time as a demonstrative pronoun, which can be translated as “who”.  Yet at Amarna this use of pA could still have the overtone, as did pA meaning “the”, of implying “the one and only one who”.  Hebrew resh-heth/RX is the well-known Egyptian verb rx, meaning “to know”.  So the name P W+  -Y-  P RX means:  “[Akhenaten Is] The One and Only One Who Knows -- The Distant God Ra” : “The One and Only One Who/pA/P Knows/rx/RX --/Y-- The/pA/P Distant/wAt/W+ [God Ra]”.  That is  e-x-a-c-t-l-y  Akhenaten’s unique, core theology in the Great Hymn to the Aten, where in addressing the “distant god” Ra Akhenaten infamously says:  “there is none other who knows you”.  Thus the name of Joseph’s Egyptian father-in-law, the high-priest of Ra from On, embodies the very essence of Akhenaten’s unattractive theology as of Year 14.  As such, that name must have been recorded in writing during late Amarna.

 

The analysis of these Biblical Egyptian names near the end of Genesis, instead of being inexplicable on the current view of scholars [who cannot explain the vav/W in either name, and who cannot distinguish the two names from each other], is actually quite straightforward, once one realizes that the Patriarchal narratives were written down in Akkadian cuneiform 4 years after Year 14, and not transformed into alphabetical Biblical Hebrew until late 7^th century BCE Jerusalem.  On that basis, we confidently predict (i) confusion of the gutturals in the name “Potipherah”, because Akkadian cuneiform cannot distinguish one guttural from another, (ii) all other letters being letter-for-letter perfect as being the expected Hebrew rendering of the Egyptian words that comprise these Biblical Egyptian names, and (iii) everything is redolent of Akhenaten’s unattractive, self-centered brand of monotheism in Year 14.  Not a single one of those signature characteristics would be possible on the current view that the Patriarchal narratives allegedly are an oral tradition.  They aren’t!  Rather, the Patriarchal narratives were composed in the northeast Ayalon Valley in Year 14 by the first Hebrews, were written down in Akkadian cuneiform about 4 years later, using Canaanite/pre-Hebrew/Hebrew words, with the scribe likely being IR-Heba’s former scribe from Jerusalem, and these 50 cuneiform tablets were retained intact for approximately seven centuries.  The originals were then [for the first time] transformed into alphabetical Biblical Hebrew for the most part in late 7^th century BCE Jerusalem, at about the same time as II Samuel was being composed and written down [hence the fact that the spelling and grammar of Hebrew common words is basically the same in most of the Patriarchal narratives and in the second half of II Samuel].

 

Note how the foregoing theory of the case better explains the Biblical Egyptian names “Potiphar” and “Potipherah” than does any prior theory of the case.  That’s because most prior theories assume, erroneously, that the Patriarchal narratives were for centuries an oral tradition.  Not.  From the very beginning, the Patriarchal narratives were written down, with a scribe using Akkadian cuneiform to write Canaanite/pre-Hebrew/Hebrew words.  That is the  o-n-l-y  way to account for the  p-i-n-p-o-i-n-t  historical accuracy of what’s in the received text of the Patriarchal narratives as compared to what we know from non-biblical sources actually happened in Year 14.

 

Dr. James Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois