George Athas wrote: “Conventionalwisdom, which is followed by approximately 99% of folk, places Akhnaton in the14th century BC.” Yes! However, beforeanyone starts accusing me again of going mainstream [but which I always am historically,by the way], let me hurry to add that the analysis in my preceding post of fourEgyptian names strongly suggests that the Patriarchal narratives were to alarge extent composed in Year 14, and that the Patriarchal Age historically isthe Amarna Age [in the mid-14th century BCE]. If so, then for the first time we can figureout where “Goshen”/G$-N is located. The final -N in G$-N is likely a west Semitic ending thateffectively means “place”. G$-N refersto a place in Egypt that is a largely rural area in the general vicinity of G$. To the best of my knowledge, the onlyEgyptian locale that fits Hebrew G$ linguistically is Qis [the misleadingEnglish transliteration of the Egyptian name that will be the focus of thispost]. Qis is the capital city of nome#14, located in central Egypt just south of Amarna on the west bank of the NileRiver. The two true consonants in the Egyptian city name “Qis” are as follows. First is Egyptian Q, which is the Egyptian hieroglyphthat is the first letter of item #104 on the mid-15thcentury BCE Tuthmose III list of places in Canaan [less than a century beforethe Amarna Age]. That’s Gazru, with a G,per many Amarna Letters (e.g. EA 253: 22). And of critical importance Biblically, that city name is GZR, with agimel/G, in Hebrew (e.g. Joshua 10: 33). The second true Egyptian consonant in Qis is the Egyptian sibilant at item #28 on theThutmose III list. The direct Hebrewequivalent of this item’s name is ($TRT, at Genesis 14: 5. Amarna Letter EA 197: 10 similarly hasA$tartu. So that second consonant isshin/$. Voila, we’ve got it! Qis in Egyptian is equivalent toG$/gimel-shin in early Biblical Hebrew. Based on the foregoing, the Egyptian city name “Qis” is a perfectlinguistic match to the Hebrew word “Goshen”/G$-N that appears 10 times in thePatriarchal narratives. As far as Iknow, there is no other potential linguistic match of G$-N to any other Egyptiangeographical locale, prior to the 5th century BCE or so. On a textual basis, Qis as Biblical Goshen fits the storyline ofthe Patriarchal narratives if and only if the Patriarchal Age is the AmarnaAge. A sleepy rural place, near Egypt’scapital city, would be the most logical place for Hebrews to sojourn in Egypt,where they tended Pharaoh’s livestock. TheAmarna Age is the only time period in history in which it would make any senseat all for the Hebrews to be sojourning so far south in central Egypt. If the Patriarchal Age is the Amarna Age, andif the bulk of the Patriarchal narratives was composed in Year 14, theneverything about Qis is a perfect historical and linguistic match to Biblical Goshen in everyway, all the way. Yes! Otherwise, G$-N is just another inexplicable 3,000-year-oldBiblical mystery in the Patriarchal narratives. Jim Stinehart Evanston, Illinois
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