Middle Egyptian Grammar Exercises and Answers Lesson XII

Lexicography in Perill

There are rare words in the Bible and especially in the Old Testament. Why? Because the Old Testament was not written as Julius Wellhausen thought, by the JEDP editors after Ahab and after the Exile.

Babylonian cuneiform literature is a big help to many semitic words in the Bible, common and uncommon, but, Akkadian has its limitations. Why? Because the people of the Hebrews did not only live in Sumer and Akkad and in Canaan or Palestine, they also lived in Egypt and in Midian as they were migrating during forty years sojourn on their way down to Gilead, from Sinai.

They came from Egypt where they were enslaved for 400 years or 430 years from 1880 when Joseph died and 1850 BCE when that Pharaoh did not know Joseph any longer.

Egyptian was the lingua franca. Moses in the palace learnt Egyptian and Akkadian so that the Amarna Tablets, the Ugaritic language and Hittite literature, are indispensable for a proper knowledge of Old Testament Lexicography.

Loanwords, simulations and reverse reading of names, were sometimes very common. Many examples can be cited. Kush Rishathaim in Judges is such a case where the reverse would be Nazimarutash, the Kassite king.

Middle Egyptian and Late Egyptian is a wealth of information for the serious student of the Old Testament since it opens up the world of Moses and in turn those rare "take overs" by Isaiah, Amos and Jeremiah from Moses.

What books should a student buy?

a. Leonard H. Lesko, A Dictionary of Late Egyptian Volumes I to IV (Providence: B.C. Scribe Publications, 1989).

b. A. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar 3rd Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1927 but also 1988).

c. David Shennum, English-Egyptian Index of Faulkner's Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian (Malibu, Undena Publications, 1977).

BDB or Brown Driver and Briggs are very helpful for nearly 95% of the words in the Old Testament but as far as the hapax legomena is concerned, one should not consult only BDB. It has limitations since it gives priority to Arabic meanings and semantics of a post-byzantine period.

Moses lived in 1450 BCE, wrote Genesis in 1460 as well as Job. Exodus, Leviticus, Numeri and Deuteronomy were written between 1448 to 1411 BCE. Psalm 90 also.

This is the oldest literature in the Old Testament contra Julius Wellhausen or Semler or De Wette or Eichhorn.

Semantic comparisons of Hebrew with Egyptian is a responsible science that cannot just hook everythings left right and center.

Sometimes the Arabic will have remained a faint particle of the original meaning and that suggestion is to be a navigational tool plus the context simulations of what it may have meant if it was a loanword from Egyptian. Control test of the new meaning [Egyptian] should be made in all its appearances to see if it brings a better understanding.

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