Isaac Fried: 1. You wrote: “Namely, Potipar (aSARIYS) who was busy in Pharaoh's court supervising the kitchen…. (a) Genesis 39: 1 says that Pa-wa-di -- pr was a SRYS/“officer” of Pharaoh. But then it immediately clarifies thatPa-wa-di -- pr was Captain of the Guard, that is, in charge of Pharaoh’ssecurity. Pa-wa-di -- pr had nothing todo with Pharaoh’s kitchen. (b) If we don’t go with the scholarlygambit of gratuitously adding an ayin/( at the end of this name [Ugh!], we seethat it ends with pr, which means “house” or “great house” in Egyptian. “Great house” was used on two boundary stelaeat Akhenaten’s new capital city to refer to Pharaoh, so it nicely fits a Captainof the Guard in charge of Pharaoh’s security. Add in a healthy dose of semi-monotheism from the beginning of this name,and one sees that pA-wa-di -- pr is the perfect name for a Captain of the Guardduring the Amarna Age, while not fitting any other era in human history. In that connection, why don’t you seethe vav/W as the second letter in the name of Joseph’s Egyptian master, P-W-+ -Y- PR, as being a consonantal vav/W? Proper names in the truly ancient Patriarchal narratives don’t use plenespelling. 2. You continued: “[Potipar]…leftthe entire management of his estate to his young graceful and able slave(Potifar did not bid on him a goodly sum for nothing….” Yes, that’s correct. 3. But then you added: “…theMidyanites having very probably turned a handsome profit from his sale)” At Genesis 37: 36 we see: H-MDN-YM. H- means “the”, and -YM is a standard west Semitic plural form. The people being referenced are MDN, which isthe same as the name of one of the sons of Abraham’s Hurrian minor wifeQa-ti-i-ri/QTWR[-H] [“Keturah”], all of which sons are sent out east to theHurrian homeland of eastern Syria. WithD and T often not being distinguished in cuneiform writing of west Semiticwords or foreign proper names [and with cuneiform being the first writtenversion of the Patriarchal narratives], the MDN in the received text isactually MTN, being the consonantal rendering in Hebrew defective spelling of Mi-ta-ni from the Amarna Letters. Those traders who took Joseph to Egypt areIshmaelites who have become permanent residents of Mitanni, which is the sameplace as Naharim/NHRYM at Genesis 24: 10 [the same name, except spelled with heth/Xinstead of he/H, as in the Amarna Letters], namely eastern Syria in the time ofthe Hurrians in the Late Bronze Age/Patriarchal Age. Rather than non-historical “Midyanites”,they’re historical “Mitannians” in Years 12-14 [the exact time periodreferenced at Genesis 14: 4-5]. Notethat a-l-l of these various proper names make perfectsense in the Amarna Age, while being inexplicable otherwise. 4. You continued: “Joseph ben JacobHA-IBRIY.” Yes. The phrase “the Hebrews” is H-(BR-YM at Genesis 40: 15. The tent-dwelling Hebrews proudly andaudaciously claimed to be as powerful as the Hurrian lordly charioteers whodominated the ruling class of Canaan in Years 12-14. The Hebrews called themselves (BR, which inHurrian means “lord”. With B and P oftennot being distinguished in cuneiform, note that the Hurrian/XTY/xu-ti-ya lord who charges Abraham an armand a leg for Sarah’s gravesite has a name with the same root: (PR, at Genesis 23: 8. [The full name, adding the -WN classicHurrian suffix, is (PR-WN.] The Hebrewsproudly called themselves “lords”, using a Hurrian-based name for themselves. That nomenclature makes perfect sense in theAmarna Age, which is the Patriarchal Age when Hurrian charioteers dominated theruling class of Canaan, while not making sense in any other historical timeperiod. 5. You continued: “Potipar had suchcomplete a trust in Joseph that he did not intervene naught in his doings,their only point of contact being an occasional tete-a-tete lunch, possibly anelegant vegetarian meal at the classy Ritz-on-the-Nile.” No, Pa-wa-di -- pr let Joseph take careof managing his domestic estate, with Pa-wa-di -- pr simply eating the food athis own house that Joseph made sure was available, without having to worry aboutother matters concerning his domestic estate. That allowed Pa-wa-di -- pr to focus on his all-important job of tryingto figure out which of Pharaoh’s officers was committing treason. At Joseph’s suggestion, as I mentioned in myprior post, Pa-wa-di -- pr decided to sneak young Joseph into the jail wherewere being held the two suspected officials of “Pharaoh”. [“Pharaoh”= P-R( -H = pA ra plus Semiticizing -H,with Akhenaten being the king of Egypt who semi-monotheistically honored pAra: the one and only god Ra. Every name fits the Amarna Age/PatriarchalAge, while being out of place in any other time period.] Pa-wa-di -- pr’s plan was that Joseph mightoverhear what the Cup Bearer and the Baker [who may be historical Panhesy] weresaying, and thus help figure out which one of them was guilty. The pretext was that the master’s wife wassupposedly upset with Joseph, but that was a mere ruse to insinuate Joseph intothat jail. As I mentioned in my priorpost, Joseph showed unbelievable chutzpah in ostentatiously having thetwo prisoners go over to his master’s house (Genesis 40: 7), where he grandlyinterprets their dreams to one and all. Then in his master’s presence, at his master’s own house, Josephbrazenly asks the innocent Cup Bearer at Genesis 40: 14 to tell Pharaoh to freeJoseph from his master’s house! That’s chutzpah. 6. In closing, perhaps I might note that thePatriarchal narratives end exactly the way they began. The favorite son [Haran, Joseph], who is thefirstborn son of his father’s favorite main wife, unfortunately dies in aforeign land, in the presence of his father’s descendants [MWLDT]. Same. Haran doesn’t even survive his own father, and correspondingly Josephdoesn’t survive a single one of his 10 older half-brothers. You see, a firstborn favorite son [who was asuccessor princeling in the valley] historically gave the first Hebrews no endof grief in Year 14. That’s why each andevery favorite son and each and every firstborn son gets the shaft and properlyso in the Patriarchal narratives. Jim Stinehart Evanston, Illinois
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