The Sojourn

I stumbled on Gili Kugler awhile ago; this points out that early(ish) Biblical accounts although repeatedly recalling the Egyptian "sojourn" don't consider it a "captivity". Isaiah 30, for one, considered Egypt a refuge for contemporary Judah. This irenism, so far as to praise Egypt as a land of milk and honey(!), would include Genesis 13; Exodus 16, 22-3; Numbers 11, 16, 20; Deuteronomy 11, 23. This irenism continues to the assuredly postexilic Holiness Code in Leviticus 19.

Oracles against Egypt do crop up. Relevant here might be Isaiah 9, 19 or Ezekiel 29-32. But even these make no mention of the slavery. Calum Carmichael wrote whole books on the Priestly subversion of Egyptian religion. This subversion makes sense to me only on assumption that other (Jewish!) priests were taking Egyptian cues. Just as Sigmund Freud taught us, about the Levites. Contemporary with the Holiness Code and other Persian-era Levitical works I am given to understand that Second Isaiah knew Israel's Exodus including that Egypt was restraining Israel (pdf) although this author might still be wanting (say) the Commandments and the plagues (pdf).

Exegetes would likely call Kugler a shlabotnik who hadn't considered the Genesis/Exodus bridge, between the wise king whom the Quran will name 'Azîz and the Pharaoh whose name be erased. The sojourn would concern Joseph's secretariat, before all that Dynasty XIX unpleasantness.

The whole Exodus narrative is nowadays considered sus. As for my reasons: that the Egyptians so widely disseminated a rival tradition under the later Ptolemies suggests that they were caught off-guard by an anti-Egyptian narrative from the Jews, that is that few high-caste Egyptians had read our Torah until recently. We might further consider the total absence of the Haggada in the Elephantine Pesach.

So: Jan Joosten, on the case of Joseph's form of Hebrew. Hebrew is a Canaani language. Ancient Hebrew is to be exhumed from such preciously-preserved tribal chansons as (now) Judges 5. Classic Hebrew is what we read in the Lachish and immediate preëxilic ostraca, and the core of Judges-Reigns. "Late Biblical Hebrew" seems the acrolect of the Temple after the Exile (excepting quotations, like Nehemiah 9). Books from this late time like Esther might feel uncomfortable with the full dialect-shift, doing the best it can. In Haggai, Lamentations, and Zechariah 1-8 is a "transitional" stage which implicates, also, Ezekiel and some Jeremiah.

LBH will betray itself by its Aramaisms. Joosten's classic, if you like, LBH example is iggeret famous in Syriac where CBH preferred some mutation of seper (as in Arabic, CBH suffered no aspirants in matn!).

Joosten dates most of the Joseph story to the CBH era. Should he?

Joosten is aware some LBH has entered into the Seper Yusef. Joosten writes off the whole of Genesis 39 for the preponderance of LBH therein. From chs. 40f the Aramaic shelyt is in verse 42:6 - although the bare root had come to Aramaic from Bronze Age times, as it exists in Ugaritic; and I must allow the sultan from the Arabia. Joosten's point is that proper Israelites bucked this governance, working rather with msl. Contrariwise comes a LBH word for "food" 45:23, where the CBH would side with Arabic and I think Ugaritic akl and lhm. Joosten points to 1 Samuel/Reigns 20:31, that for MT's malakût which is Aramaic (and LBH and indeed Qâric, borrowed pre-aspiration and pre-emphatic); 4QSam^b retains proper CBH memluka.

So we might just be missing Genesis' pre-MT text. Recall, again, that the most-extensive "4QGen" is a MT scroll not actually found at this cave in the Jordan Desert, such that we remain short on Genesis scrolls BC. Although: I must ask where the Samaritans stand on Genesis 42 and 45. Keeping in mind the Samaritans agree with MT on what Deuteronomy 1:44's bees were up to.

Joosten is aware that authors of sacred literature, on occasion, archaise. In Greek Bibles one only has to look at Luke's aping of the Septuagint. But - he points out - this trick is difficult to pull off, at least with consistency. Goodacre might consider, in a time before Apache OpenOffice, "fatigue". Joosten might point to Genesis 39, which owns much more LBH than 40f owns, as contradicting fatigue. This criterion bolsters Joosten that this chapter 39 was composed after 40f, to be inserted before.

With fatigue in mind (rather more so given the length of this blogpost) I do have to ask after the LBH in Genesis 45. Seems late in the text.

And now I must return to the Plagues of Egypt, and the slavery theme. Are they pure CBH?