Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Will Parsons <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu>]

Hello Tony,

On Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:31:48 +0800 (SGT), Tory Thorpe <torythrp AT yahoo.com> 
wrote:
> Jim and Karl:
> 
> I wish not to become embroiled in the seemingly 
> never ending back and forth on Jim's ideas. However I am interested in 
> the possibility of narrative material produced by some educated Asiatics
>  domeciled in Egypt. The story of Moses is that he was born, raised, and
>  educated among the elite of the elite in Egypt. This bespeaks a 
> literary training in hieratic. This man would have known the classics 
> (i.e. Sinuhe, etc.) well. All "narrative" of this time and location was 
> composed in hieratic. Perhaps a figure fitting the description of Moses 
> did know "ethnic" proto-Hebrew script. That does not a-priori mean he 
> would compose narrative material in that script to the exclusion of 
> hieratic.

Egyptian script, whether hieroglyphic or hieratic, was hard to master
and required extensive training.  It's not obvious that even the elite
were necessarily literate - they may have preferred to hire scribes
instead.  (I think I vaguely remember an Assyrian king who prided
himself on his ability to master the equally complex Akkadian
cuneiform script, implying that not even kings where necessarily
literate.)

But let's suppose Moses *did* know how to write in hieratic.  Hieratic
is by its nature intimately bound to the Egyptian language.  I'm not
aware of its being adapted to other languages (unlike Sumero-Akkadian
cuneiform).  So if Moses wrote in it, it would have been in Egyptian,
which would be unintellible to non-Egyptian speaking Hebrews.

-- 
William Parsons