Karl:
1. You wrote: “Are you trying to resurrect your argument from Feb. four
years ago?”
I have done considerable additional research since then. Back then, I
honestly didn’t know that scholars have never come up with a satisfactory
explanation of Joseph’s Egyptian name, with Steindorff’s 1899 attempt being
much-criticized but never supplanted. Nor did I realize the key issue of
whether Hebrew ssade could be D in Egyptian or s in Egyptian.
2. You wrote: “Don’t neglect the linguistic pronunciation
substitutions that may have changed greatly the pronunciation of the Egyptian
language
used about 3,900 years ago when Joseph lived, to when it was first
transliterated to alphabetic language over a millennium later. Therefore,
short of
finding his name in hieroglyphics, any translation of his name will be
highly speculative and impossible to prove.”
Along those very lines, the scholarly community keeps looking for an
attested Egyptian name as the basis for Joseph’s Egyptian name. There is
none.
That’s why scholars can’t make sense of Joseph’s Egyptian name. In fact,
the early Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives created Joseph’s
Egyptian name, using 4 super-simple Egyptian common words. Let’s take a look,
and solve this 3,000-year-old Biblical mystery once and for all.
Per my prior post, if the Hebrew ssade/C at the beginning of Joseph’s
Egyptian name is an emphatic sin, and hence is the Egyptian letter s, then the
first word in Joseph’s Egyptian name is sA, meaning “son”. Now all of
Joseph’s Egyptian name is child’s play to figure out: C P NT P (NX.
Each peh/P is pA, meaning “the” in Egyptian. In the New Kingdom, pA/“the”
before a divine name had a monotheistic connotation. To highlight that
key fact, I will render this Egyptian word pA with a capital T in English: “
The”.
Steindorff and the overwhelming majority view of scholars are right as to
the other two Egyptian words. NT is nTr, meaning “god” or “God” or “the
divine”. The Hebrew rendering has no resh/R at the end, because as
Egyptian linguist Loprieno points out, a final R in multi-syllable Egyptian
words
was undergoing “lenition” in the New Kingdom, and in Late Egyptian was not
pronounced at all. This Egyptian word was probably pronounced ne-tje(r),
and such a 2-syllable Egyptian word would be expected to be rendered by 2
Hebrew letters: nun-tav/NT. [That is the overwhelming majority view of
scholars, and I agree with it.] The one and only word for which there has
always been unanimous agreement is (NX, which clearly is anx, misleadingly
spelled “ankh” in English. This is probably a 3-syllable Egyptian word,
khe-ne-xe, that rhymes with “Hannukah”. The Egyptian word anx means “life” or
“eternal life” or “to live”.
C P NT = sA pA nTr. On the first level, that beginning of Joseph’s
Egyptian name is somewhat similar to sA ra, which was the grandest and
best-known
pharaonic title, befitting the fact that Joseph has just now been given
powers that are almost equivalent to that of a Pharaoh. But on another level,
taking note of the monotheistic word pA/“The”, Joseph has in effect been
more or less adopted as a “son” by a Pharaoh who worships pA nTr, “The
[one and only] God”. pA nTr may well be an abbreviated form of the phrase pA
nTr wa that appears in Akhenaten’s Great Hymn to the Aten, which is the most
monotheistic phrase possible in the Egyptian language: “The one and only
God”.
The word sA appears frequently in Akhenaten’s Great Hymn to the Aten, as
Akhenaten insists that he is the “son” of Aten. We see the phrase sA ra,
followed by anx, in the last verse of such Hymn, which can be compared to
both sA pA nTr above and pA anx below in Joseph’s Egyptian name.
Continuing on with this monotheistic theme, the rest of Joseph’s Egyptian
name is P (NX = pA anx, which can be compared to the following three
phrases in the Great Hymn to the Aten: itn, followed by anx; pA itn; sA ra,
followed by anx. The implied phrase pA itn anx means: “The [one and only]
Aten lives eternally”. [Absent the deity name itn or ra being implied in
the middle of pA anx, the phrase “The eternal life” would seem a bit odd.]
pA anx works perfectly as an abbreviated version of either pA itn anx or pA
ra anx, recognizing [as to that latter implied phrase] that after Year 9
Akhenaten used a Ra-based name for his deity, no longer the name itn/Aten.
[In Egyptian inscriptions, anx would customarily begin a new standard
phrase praising the deity. In Joseph’s name, we have only anx.]
So Akhenaten’s most famous and most highly monotheistic phrases from his
Great Hymn to the Aten seem to be present in Joseph’s Egyptian name in
abbreviated form. First, pA nTr = pA nTr wa: “The one and only God”.
Second, pA anx combines itn anx and pA itn, effectively being pA itn anx:
“The
[one and only] Aten lives eternally”. But since “itn” does not literally
appear in Joseph’s Egyptian name, perhaps the implied phrase here
[post-Year 9] is actually pA ra anx: “The [one and only] Ra lives eternally”.
This Egyptian name for Joseph could only have been created in Year 14,
when Akhenaten was at the height of his monotheistic zeal. [As to the exact
date of Year 14, Genesis 14: 5 refers to “the fourteenth year”, immediately
after the express reference at Genesis 14: 4 to: “Year 13”.] The early
Hebrew author who created this name was hoping that pharaoh Akhenaten might
help the Hebrews stay in their homeland in south-central Canaan, after the
Amorite princeling ruler Milk-Ilu [whose historical name is honored and
set forth at Genesis 46: 17], whose Patriarchal nickname at Genesis 14: 13 is
“Mamre the Amorite”, died in early Year 14, succeeded by his awful
firstborn son Yapaxu. [That’s why 7 of 7 firstborn sons in the Patriarchal
narratives are portrayed as getting the shaft and properly so: Haran, Lot,
Ishmael, Esau, Reuben, Er, Manasseh.]
Not surprisingly, Akhenaten in fact did not lift a finger to help the
first Hebrews. The pre-Hebrews historically became the Hebrews when they
finally realized late in Year 14 that Akhenaten would be of no help to the
Hebrews whatsoever. From now on, the first Hebrews had to trust solely in
YHWH.
Historically, that’s what happened in Year 14, which was the historical
birth of Judaism. The Patriarchal narratives record that historical event
of earth-shaking importance with a pinpoint historical accuracy that is
possible only for a contemporary who knew exactly what he was talking about
(and who was utterly brilliant to boot). The scholarly claim that the
Patriarchal narratives are “late” and “oral folklore” is akin to, and is just
as
unconvincing as, the scholarly misunderstanding [dating back to 1899] of
Joseph’s Egyptian name.
Jim StinehartEvanston, Illinois
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