Dear Carla,
Thank you for posting the notice about the Samaritan Pentateuch. Volume 1 is
available for download at archive.org, thanks to being out of copyright:
http://archive.org/details/derhebrischepent01gall. I was reading it a bit this
morning, and it is fantastic. So far, the copy I have seen is very clear, and
the citation of textual witnesses along the left margin is a very welcome
feature. Would that other critical editions cited their witnesses in this
fashion.
Does anyone know where we might be able to download the remaining volumes in
this set? They do not appear to be on archive.org, but volumes 2-5 must surely
be out of copyright.
Sincerely,
Christopher Lovelace
There is a print edition in modern Hebrew script of the Samaritan Pentateuch:
Der Hebräische Pentateuch derSamaritaner;
August Freiherrnvon Gall, editor
Alfred TöpelmannVerlag, 1918
Best wishes,
Carla Sulzbach
>________________________________
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>Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2013 12:00 PM
>Subject: b-hebrew Digest, Vol 123, Issue 17
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>Today's Topics:
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> 1. Re: P R (H/"Pharaoh"" Three Meanings ([email protected])
> 2. Re: Samaritan Pentateuch (George Athas)
>
>Will:
>
>In analyzing PR(H [“Pharaoh”] in the received
alphabetical text on the assumption that this Biblical Egyptian name was
originally written down in Akkadian cuneiform, let’s examine how Egyptian aleph
and Egyptian ayin come out in the Akkadian cuneiform of the Amarna Letters.
You will quickly see that in Akkadian
cuneiform, Egyptian ayin cannot be distinguished from Egyptian aleph.
>
>As I noted previously, Amarna Letter EA 29 features mAat
being spelled as mu-u, where the same Akkadian vowel U is used for both
Egyptian aleph and Egyptian ayin.
>
>But now let’s see how Akkadian cuneiform A can also
represent both Egyptian aleph and Egyptian ayin. In Amarna Letter EA 1: 2
written by
Amenhotep III himself, mAat is written, as you point out, as mu-a. To me, that
means that the Akkadian
vowel A can stand for Egyptian ayin, although you oddly opt for seeing no ayin
whatsoever being written down by Amenhotep III. Without getting bogged down as
to that
one example, however, it is easy to confirm that Egyptian ayin could be
represented by the Akkadian vowel A. That is the case in the Egyptian name
ap-pi-xa in four different Amarna
Letters, including EA 105: 35, and the Egyptian name xa-ip in four different
Amarna Letters, including EA 107: 16, where the Akkadian cuneiform vowel A is
used for Egyptian ayin.
>
>But the Akkadian cuneiform vowel A can also be used for
Egyptian aleph! For example, in
both the Amarna Letters and the Patriarchal narratives, the most frequent
beginning of an Egyptian name is pA. The Egyptian name pa-xa-na-te in four
different Amarna Letters, including
EA 60: 10, spells the Egyptian aleph with an A. The Egyptian name pi-wu-ri
features four
different spellings of pA, but in three separate Amarna Letters, including EA
287: 45 from IR-Heba of Jerusalem [whose scribe may have been the scribe who,
shortly after leaving Jerusalem, was commissioned by the tent-dwelling Hebrews
to write down the Patriarchal narratives in Akkadian cuneiform], the second
letter in pA is spelled with the Akkadian vowel A.
>
>So when PR(H in Genesis is setting forth an Egyptian
name, the Hebrew alphabetical ayin/( that one sees in the received text could
just as easily have been originally intended to be a Hebrew alphabetical
aleph/). Why? Because that name was first written down
in the Late Bronze Age, when the only way to write down a sophisticated
composition like the Patriarchal narratives was by means of Akkadian
cuneiform. The Amarna Letters
attest that sometimes the Akkadian vowel U was used to render both Egyptian
aleph and Egyptian ayin, and sometimes the Akkadian vowel A was used to render
both Egyptian aleph and Egyptian ayin. In fact, on a more general level,
Akkadian cuneiform generally was unable
to differentiate among the various gutturals. That applies in spades to ayin
vs. aleph.
>
>As to PR(H in particular, we note that Akkadian cuneiform heth could render,
>among other letters, alphabetical Hebrew ayin/( or
alphabetical Hebrew heth/X, and that the Akkadian vowel A was sometimes used to
render both Egyptian aleph and Egyptian ayin. PR(H in the received text
started out in Akkadian cuneiform as something like PR – RI – A – XI. Those
four Akkadian cuneiform signs
could mean [among other possibilities] either (i) PR(H [per the received text],
or (ii) P R )X, with the latter being pAra Ax : pAra a-khe : “Devoted to The
Ra”, which compares nicely with Akhe-n-Aten : “Devoted to Aten”.
>
>If we reverse engineer the received alphabetical text as
to the Biblical Egyptian name PR(H and determine what the original Akkadian
cuneiform signs were, we then see an e-x-a-c-t letter-for-letter
match of the original cuneiform version of PR(H to P R )X : pAra Ax : pAra
a-khe : “Devoted to The Ra”. Will,
it’s an e-x-a-c-t match of a-l-l the letters. It’s not merely close, it’s
e-x-a-c-t .
>
>Surely you would agree that if the Patriarchal narratives
were not originally written down in the Bronze Age using Akkadian cuneiform,
they can’t be old and accurate as to an historical Patriarchal Age. To see
then if the Patriarchal
narratives are or are not truly ancient and accurate, simply reverse engineer
the Egyptian names in the received text to determine how they would have
originally been recorded in Akkadian cuneiform. Then the gorgeous result is
e-x-a-c-t letter-for-letter matches to Late Amarna
nomenclature that in each case fit the storyline perfectly. The greatest
wordsmith of all time
created these Biblical Egyptian names. But we cannot appreciate them unless we
reverse engineer the alphabetical
Hebrew letters in the received text to determine the Akkadian cuneiform
originals, and then ask what Egyptian names could result from such Akkadian
cuneiform originals. For example,
the name of Joseph’s Egyptian priestly father-in-law, once it is recognized
that
the final intended letter was heth, not ayin, is: pAwAt -Y- pArx,
referencing such priest’s
devotion to Akhenaten as allegedly being “the only one/pA who knows/rx the
distant/pAwAt [God]”. Only Akhenaten ever made such a daunting theological
claim. And Akhenaten himself is fittingly
referred to as P R )X : pAra Ax : pAra a-khe : “Devoted to The Ra”, which
exemplifies Late Amarna theology perfectly.
>
>The true antiquity and historical accuracy of the
Patriarchal narratives come shining through when we reverse engineer the
alphabetical Hebrew letters in these Biblical Egyptian names to determine the
Akkadian cuneiform original signs, and then ask what Egyptian names could
result
from those original Akkadian cuneiform signs. We find that, unlike all
previous
attempts to explain these Biblical Egyptian names, we don’t have to stretch a
single letter! Rather, we merely
need to recognize that Akkadian cuneiform writing, such as in the original
written version of the Patriarchal narratives, usually did not distinguish one
guttural from another.
>
>Jim Stinehart
>Evanston , Illinois
>This further response comes courtesy of Carla Sulzbach in Montreal:
>
>
>There is a print edition in modern Hebrew script of the Samaritan Pentateuch:
>Der Hebräische Pentateuch derSamaritaner;
>August Freiherrnvon Gall, editor
>Alfred TöpelmannVerlag, 1918
>
>
>
>
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Carla Sulzbach
>
>
>
>
>GEORGE ATHAS
>Dean of Research,
>Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au)
>Sydney, Australia
>
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