leonarde

No, I probably skimmed much of the post. But the point still stands: you wouldn't have Egyptian names for Hebrews of that era (especially for a Hebrew as important as Moses) arbitrarily. It is a good indication there's SOMETHING behind the account of the time in Egypt and, at least in embryonic form, the Exodus (ie a journey from Egypt BACK to the Levant).....So "the best one can do" is pretty darned good indeed!

Cheers!

The Evil One

Here are some common English names:

Catherine (Greek)
Louise (German)
Michael (Hebrew)
Claudia (Roman)
Helen (Greek)
Elizabeth (Hebrew)
Peter (Roman)
*Henry (German)
Jennifer (Welsh)
*George (Greek)
Ben (Hebrew)
Julia (Roman)
[... plenty more...]

As you can see, having a whole barrelful of names from another language (including the names of two sets of very important kings!) does not really prove very much. Names cross language borders very easily (much more easily than normal words - how many English words, other than names, come from Hebrew?). So names alone constitute no evidence for an Exodus, because we can easily account for them without postulating an otherwise unsupported event.

Marduk and spin - thanks for the clearup. I think I'd heard the Hebrew etymology of Moses before, thus my confusion, but the Egyptian one seems at least equally plausible.

DrJim

Leonarde,
No, the best one can do is virtually nothing at all.

It is an issue of verisimilitude: a writer can give his characters historically and contextually plausible names. I can write a story about a German immigrant and call him Fritz or Karl or Jurgen. It does not mean this character existed. I can set the story in the early part of the 17th century. It does not mean anything like my plot-line ever happened. Even if there is no considerable presence of Egyptian loan words in Hebrew (I'm not qualified to say), the liklihood of some knowlege of at least Egyptian names among the scribal elite would probably be pretty high in any era. These were professional writers. There were Judean communities in Egypt in the post-monarchic community and even before. There is also evidence of some interaction between these communitites and Jerusalem and Samaria in the Persian period.

You imply that one should expect an ignorance of Egyptian names in ancient Israelite literature set in the late 2nd millenium bce unless the story employing those names was written in that time. This is a completely unjustifiable position. The story could be very much later. Egyptian names occuring in it prove nothing about its historicity.

leonarde

It's you who doesn't "get it". There are TWO Hebrew languages (actually more than that but for our present purposes this oversimplification suffices):

1) ancient Hebrew: a long-dead language a small fraction of which we can see in the Bible and other religious texts, prayers etc. (and precisely because it IS a religious language it tries to preserve the OLDEST religious terms and those things related to religion, sacrifice, agriculture etc. , ie those that pre-date their stay in Egypt.......though that doesn't prevent a number of names from showing up with an Egyptian origin). But the entire lexicon from those religious texts would be a tiny tiny fraction of the vocabulary of the Hebrews of circa 1000 BC. Just as the koine Greek of the NT represents a tiny fraction of the vocabulary of that living (at the time) language.

2) the Modern Hebrew language which was built on the ancient one but which required updating from the two millenia or so that had passed since Aramaic (and later Yiddish and Ladino) supplanted Hebrew as the vernacular of the Jewish people. Updating via invention, borrowing etc.

In the case of 2) there would be no reason on earth for there to be ancient Egyptian lexical items except as inherited from 1). But proper names ARE a part of the quotidian language. And Moses (and perhaps some others) appear in 1) (ie appear in ancient Hebrew). For you to claim this is a MERE thing is silly and arbitrary.

If Moses' name had been 'David', then you would discover that names ARE important and that the Hebrewness of 'David' was proof that the leader had never spent a day of his life in Egypt.

Cheers!

leonarde

Incorrect. Some plagues, like anthrax affect both humans and animals. We just had an outbreak of "avian flu virus". Killed 14 people in Vietnam. Naturally, as the name indicates it infects birds as well. Today we have health organizations trying to tamp such things down immediately. In ancient times they didn't have a clue as to what the cause was, what was going on. Naturally there were no efficacious treatments, preventive measures. Surely you aren't NOW asking the archaeologists to go look for high concentrations of dead livestock from the mid to late 2nd millenium BC??????

Cheers!

Amaleq13

You really can't think of one reason why an author would give the character "Moses" an Egyptian name? Even with the helpful hints from spin and DrJim? I think you would benefit from actually reading what they have posted rather than just "skimming".

No, it would have been evidence that the author was an idiot who lacked sufficient sense to appropriately name the character given the story in which he is featured.

leonarde

You could not be more wrong: England, the country, and the English-speaking world have been profoundly touched and influenced by ALL the languages and nations you mention:


Catherine (Greek)-Helen (Greek)George (Greek)
koine Greek is the language of the holiest of religious texts (ie the NT) of the predominant religion of the British and of the English-speaking nations. In addition, there has been for centuries now a fascination with the ancient Greeks (and Romans, so let's throw 'Claudia' in the pot now!), so much so that Latin and Greek were taught in primary and secondary schools through much of Western (and even some Eastern European countries). For centuries. As a legacy language (and lingua franca) Latin was the language of scholars (and is preserved somewhat in names of plants, animals etc.).

Hebrew was the second most important religious language (OT language) and since England and other English-speaking countries have enjoyed influxes of Jews whose religious language it was, the prominence of Hebrew names is not at all mysterious.

German name: even if you ignore all the previous wars involving Prussia, Austria, and England, in the 20th Century the English-speaking nations have had extensive dealings with Germans and Austrians via WWI, WWII and the attendant occupations. In the case of the US West Germany was practically a second home for soldiers, and that for 4 or 5 decades. Oh, and Germans are the single biggest "white" ethnic group in the United States. Immigrants, they were. German-named immigrants even.

So, yes, names can mean quite a lot!

Jennifer (Welsh). Gosh and Wales is so faaaar from England, isn't it? Such a name must have been dropped off by a stork!

Cheers!

leonarde

Oh, so you're a mindreader as well as an archaeologist!

Cheers!

The Evil One

You don't seem to have actually understood the point I was making, however. The English language has of course been influenced by the languages from which common English names are derived. But those languages have influenced English in many different ways. As you rightly point out -

Welsh - a neighbour
French - conquered the English
Latin - language of learning/religion
Greek - ditto.
etc. etc.

Now surely, it follows that the fact of these names existing in English does not by itself tell us anything about the type of contact / influence that caused the names to cross into English.

Similarly, the fact of a few Egyptian names in Hebrew does not by itself tell us anything about the type of contact / influence that caused the names to cross into Hebrew.

The Egyptian-Hebrew names can be quite easily explained by reference to the political/academic prominence of Egypt in the Ancient Middle East, Egyptian military activities in or around Canaan/Israel, and so on and so forth. It happened that way for Latin and English, so it could easily have happened that way for Egyptian and Hebrew.

We have no reason to suppose in the absence of any other evidence that the Egyptian-Hebrew names must have resulted from a sojourn in Egypt by the Hebrews followed by an Exodus - just as the names in English don't give us any reason to suppose that the English had sojourns in Israel, Rome, Greece, France and Germany.

Do you see what I'm getting at now?

In short: names on their own demonstrate nothing other than "some form" - any form - of contact/influence!

leonarde

You're right about that: a name, in itself, doesn't tell us much. But it tells us there was contact. For what type we must look elsewhere. And where else but to the Biblical narrative? The story of being turned into forced laborers in a foreign country is NOT the typical background that is made up for a nation. Certainly not a nation in the throes of expansion, nationalism. The particulars of Moses: hot-tempered, the murderer of an Egyptian overseer (and then a fugitive!), a poor speaker (perhaps he had a speech impediment?) are also not the typical description of the mighty hero who is just an invention.
The Egyptian name is just one element which is indicative that there's something to this narrative.....

Cheers!