The Ten Commandments (Pt 1): Borrowed from Egypt? No.

The "Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance" Website attempts to make a case that the Ten Commandments were plagiarized from the Egyptian Book of the Dead:
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'According to Wikipedia:

"Some historians....have argued that the Ten Commandments originated from ancient Egyptian religion, and postulate that the Biblical Jews borrowed the concept after their Exodus [c. 1491 BC] from Egypt . Chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead [c. 1800 BC] ... includes a list of things to which a man must swear in order to enter the afterlife. These sworn statements bear a remarkable resemblance to the Ten Commandments..."

 Many religious liberals, historians, and secularists have concluded that the Hebrew Scripture's Ten Commandments were based on this earlier document...'

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 The "many historians"  however, are not named; (as is usual with exaggerated claims), nor are their credentials offered.

The fraudulent presentation however has much deeper flaws and dishonest aspects.

For instance, they only quote a portion of the Book of the Dead (BoD) namely 13 crimes, rather than the whole passage, to give the impression of a nearly equal number of crimes/sins (their secondary source lists only 11 crimes, so they must be fully aware of the fudging).

The actual passage  however, lists over TWENTY-NINE specific crimes, after five general statements of innocence, so there is no numerical similarity with the Hebrew Decalogue of TEN unique commands intended to summarize a whole moral code.

The 29 'crimes' are a long and random (but not exhaustive) list of common offences, with no hierarchy or indication of relative importance.  They are merely an expression of a wordy prayer and claim of general innocence.

In no way can they be interpreted as a "Law Code", nor is there any evidence that the list is based on any earlier formal Egyptian Legal Code now lost.   Rather, this is just an ordinary funeral text, a prayerful plea meant to impress God(s) with its attempt at thoroughness of claim.

This discrepancy in the count makes it more obvious how dissimilar the two lists are.

Even the supposed "matches" are often at best only approximately similar in meaning:

(TC 6) Do not kill -  
(BoD 7) - I have not killed

(TC 7) Do not commit Adultery - 
(BoD 13,14) - I have not Sodomized with a Sodomite.
(the interpretation here of "adultery" is dubious, since the text says literally:
"I have not penetrated the penetrator of a penetrator",
suggesting buggery.)
 (BoD 14) - "I have not masturbated"  Adultery?  another implausible stretch.

(TC 8) Do not steal - 
(BoD 1)        - I have not cheated the Orphan of his goods. 
(BoD 20)      - I have not taken milk from babies' mouths. 
(BoD 11,12) - I have not taken the offerings of the Gods/dead.
(BoD 15-19) - I have not cheated with various weights and measures. 

Certainly these are examples of modern "stealing", but there appears to be
no specialized word for "steal" in early Egyptian,  and these were handled as separate crimes, as the text plainly illustrates.

Even the truncated source that the Ont. Consultants on Religious Tolerance (OCORT) use doesn't render any part of the BoD text as "stealing".

Other 'renderings' offered appear to contain 'glosses' or interpretations that reflect the modern liberal ideologies of the website rather than ancient Egyptian priests:

" I have not murdered or given such an order...." (unsourced quote)
"I have not killed; I have not turned anyone over to a killer." (unsourced)  

Both of these quotes appear to be 'interpretations' or elaborations offered by various unnamed translators.   The Egyptian text seems not to support it, if the UCL and JISC supported sites are reliable.  They give this for the portion of the text under consideration:

"I have not killed; I have not harmed the offering-cattle;" (Chapter 125a)

Which seems to have quite a different meaning than that offered by OCORT.

Out of 29 possible crimes in BoD, only ONE appears to correspond directly to a commandment in the Decalogue:  "murder".

But the context in both cases gives no indication that the two cultures had similar views on how to define "murder" or what the punishment should be in various nuanced cases.   We know that "Do not Kill" was a crime moderated by manslaughter and 'crime of passion' considerations, from the fact that Israelites allowed fugitives to flee to another city of refuge.  Nothing in Egyptian culture seems to correspond to these legal nuances.


OCORT do admit the following:

"One major difference between the two documents is that statues of the Gods and Goddesses formed a major part of the ancient Egyptian religion. The religion of the ancient Hebrews forbade any image or statue of Yahweh. Another difference was the Decalogue's emphasis on the Sabbath -- one day of rest each week. It is not found in the Book of the Dead or in ancient Egyptian culture."

This is not a small difference.  Hebrew Law forbade idolatry, while Egyptian culture celebrated it.   The Sabbath was completely foreign to Egyptians.
Thats  at least two, possibly three Commandments which are are directly opposed to Egyptian legal ideas.  Statistically twice the clear disagreement (20%) as seemingly direct agreement (10%).

And this is being generous in the use of statistics.
From the BoD viewpoint, only 1 match out of 29 crimes is a much lower agreement: (3.4%).  That is, while TC agrees with the BoD list for 10% of its own commandments, the BoD only agrees with TC for 3.4% of its crime list.
 

The other differences are just as serious.  The Egyptians appeared to have no 'core set' of values like the Hebrew Decalogue.   Instead, they had a complex and often arbitrary set of laws, enacted by Pharoahs and seemingly based on Egyptian religious values and social sensibilities, but unorganized or reasoned out by any unified worldview or legal philosophy.

But from early times, it appears that Hebrew culture embraced at least a legal awareness or core-value system, based on their careful preservation of early history in Genesis.

While Egyptians held core religious beliefs based on early history or myth (i.e., the afterlife and Osiris), they appear not to have based a legal code on their stories.

There seems no evidence that Hebrews borrowed their legal code from Egypt, although they may have been culturally influenced to a significant degree by their interaction, and service to the Egyptian state.

The similarities (e.g., prohibition of murder) can best be understood as universals that arose from situations common to all early peoples and hardly traceable to a specific culture or nation.

The Canon by Denomination

I have made some modified charts based on internet chart:

Who killed whom when the giant died? An exercise in textual reconstruction

And there was againe a battell in Gob, with the Philistines, where Elhanan the sonne of Iaare-Oregim a Bethlehemite, slewe the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staffe of whose speare was like a weauers beame.

So the KJV at 2 Samuel 21:19. Much ink has been spilt attempting to justify the KJV's interpolation of the brother of in order to keep the text from reading as the Hebrew does, that Elhanan, rather than David, killed Goliath. But what most KJV proponents fail to mention is that the lack of 'brother' is not the only textual problem in this verse. There are only a couple ways to reconcile this verse with 1 Chronicles 20:5--

And there was warre againe with the Philistines, and Elhanan the sonne of Iair, slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spearestaffe was like a weauers beame.

Disregarding all the spelling variations, the core of both verses reads thus:
Elhanan the son of Jair slew Goliath the Gittite, whose spear staff was like a weaver's beam.

To which Samuel adds "Oregim the Bethlehemite" and Chronicles adds "Lahmi the brother of".

So the KJV stopped short of interpolating the whole plus from Chronicles into Samuel--Lahmi is not named. Or is he--but as the killer, not the killed? Let's look at the Hebrew.

2 Samuel 21:19
WYK ALXNN BN-Ya3RI ARGIM BITh H-LXMI ATh GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Yari weavers house-of-the-bread: Goliath the-Gittite and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

1 Chronicles 20:5
WYK ALXNN BN-[K:YA3UR] [Q:YA3IR] ATh-LXMI AXI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Yaur: Bready, brother-of Goliath the-Gittite; and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

In these transcriptions I have added vowels only for the name of Elhanan's father, which is found in two forms (K and Q) in each verse of the Masoretic text. The Masoretes themselves obviously recognized a corruption here, but couldn't settle on how to fix it.

Note that the last word in the verse, ARGIM, is an element in the extra of 2 Samuel, where it is tacked on to Jair's name. Note also that the word LXMI, which is an element in the name Bethlehem ("House of Bread"), is given as an extra in 1 Chronicles for the name of Goliah's brother. Furthermore, the name Jair is spelled two (or four) different ways in the two texts, and all cases are Hebrew hapax legomena: Jair is always spelled differently in the Hebrew Bible than either verse has it, whether Q or K.

Clearly there are three different places where the two verses need to be reconciled, not just one. I propose, therefore, the following possibilities for reconstructing of the source for both verses (the changes could have happened in a different order, especially with the first possibility):


 Possibility #1: Only Samuel is corrupted; Chronicles has the correct reading

WYK ALXNN BN-Y3UR ATh-LXMI AXI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Yaur: Bready brother-of Goliath the-Gittite, and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

1. The last word of the verse was copied into the first half, probably due to skipping to the next line of text, so that both lines now end with the same 7 letters:
H-MLXMH B-GUB 3M-FLSTIM WYK ALXNN BN-YA3UR ARGIM
ATh-LXMI AXI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.

2.The  text suffered loss of the word אֲחִי AXI (the brother of), by homoeoteleuton I ... I :

WYK ALXNN BN-Y3UR ARGIM ATh-LXMI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Yaur Weavers: Bready Goliath the-Gittite, and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

3. A 'helpful' scribe changed the unheard-of name Y3UR to the equally unheard of plural form Y3RI, both of which are cognates of a word that means 'wood' (in the British meaning of 'forest'):

WYK ALXNN BN-Y3RI ARGIM ATh LXMI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Woods-of-Weavers: Bready Goliath the-Gittite, and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

4. Another 'helpful' scribe changed ATh-LXMI to BITh-H-LXMI, changing the meaning again:

WYK ALXNN BN-Y3RI ARGIM BITh H-LXMI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Yariorgim the Bethlehemite Goliath the-Gittite and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

5. A final scribe put the ATh back in where it now belonged, tidying up the grammar to yield the Samuel reading:

WYK ALXNN BN-Y3RI ARGIM BITh H-LXMI ATh GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Yariorgim the Bethlehemite: Goliath the-Gittite, and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

That's a lot of changes to hypothesise! And it doesn't even account for the K-Q variants in the Masoretic text.


Possibility #2: Both verses are equally corrupted forms of the archetype.

Reconstruction A: The original text read:

WYK ALXNN BN-YAIR BITh H-LXMI ATh AXI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Ya'ir the Bethlehemite: the-brother-of Goliath the-Gittite, and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

1a,b. While the Samuel scribe dropped  אֲחִי AXI, the Chronicles scribe dropped אֵת ATh, the Hebrew indicator of a following direct object :

WYK ALXNN BN-YAIR BITh H-LXMI [S:Ath][C:AXI] GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Ya'ir the Bethlehemite[S:] [C:the-brother-of] Goliath the-Gittite, and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

2a. In Chronicles, a 'helpful' scribe re-inserted ATh in place of BITh H-:

WYK ALXNN BN-YAIR ATh LXMI AXI GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Ya'ir: Lehmi the-brother-of Goliath the-Gittite, and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

2b. In Samuel, ARGIM got duplicated after YAIR, as explained above:

WYK ALXNN BN-YAIR ARGIM BITh H-LXMI Ath GLITh H-GThI W-3Ts XNIThU KMNUR ARGIM.
and-killed Elhanan son-of-Ya'ir Weavers Bethlehemite: Goliath the-Gittite and-wood-of spear-his as-beam of-weavers.

3a,b. Finally, the Chronicles scribe changed the spelling of YAIR to Y3UR, while the Samuel scribe changed the spelling to Y3RI to better fit the corrupted context.

WYK ALXNN BN-Y[S:3RI][C:3UR]  . . . thus yielding the final readings in only three steps each.

Other reconstructions are possible, but this one best passes Occam's Razor: three steps, to account for three differences between the texts, prior to the Masoretes taking over the transmission of the two texts. So what was Goliath's brother's name? Well, according to this reconstruction, we don't know, and we can only guess that Elhanan's father was a man who spelled his name the same way that four other Jairs in the OT did. It's also possible that this was the Elhanan the son of Dodo of Bethlehem mentioned in both books, but that would involve a greater level of corruption in the transmission.

These three corruptions, by the way, must have been very early. The Septuagint reads exactly like the Hebrew, even down to a reasonable approximation of the names.

The Targum for Chronicles isn't much help. It reads: "David, the son of Jesse, a pious man, who rose at midnight to sing praises to God, slew Lachmi, the brother of Goliath, the same day on which he slew Goliath the Gittite, whose spear-staff was like a weaver's beam."

The other ancient versions supply the word 'brother' in Samuel, although, as did the KJV, they may well have just moved it in from Chronicles.

The Syriac also paraphrases somewhat, while translating the invented name in Samuel:
Samuel: Elhanan the son of forest a weaver, a Beth-lehemite, slew a brother of Goliath the Philistine, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.
Chronicles: Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi of the descendants of the giants, who was the brother of Goliath the mighty man of Gath, whose spear staff was like a weaver’s beam.

The Vulgate also translates Elhanan and Jair/Jaare-Oregim:
Samuel: God-given the son of Forest Weaver, a Bethlehemite, struck the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spear wood was like a weaver's beam.
Chronicles: God-given the son of Forest struck Lehmites the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the wood of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.

Esther, Star of the OT: Part 9: Luther's Contradictory Platform

Before passing to other issues, we need to re-examine Martin Luther's radical position on Esther.
The observation of Peter J. Leithart  (2005) nails the problem squarely:

"Luther was famously hostile to the book of Esther. Luther was also famously enamoured of the idea of the Deus absconditus, the hidden God. These positions are inconsistent: No book of the Bible better narrates the power and providence of the hidden God than Esther, which refrains even from naming Him."

 Leithart notes that Luther's strong advocacy of Providence, the idea of God acting behind the scenes in history with a hidden hand, ought to have caused Luther to embrace the book as the center-piece of his platform!  In fact, the idea of God's Providence was a fundamental part of the Reformation.

The question of the authenticity and/or historicity of the book is not relevant to the point before us, because Luther didn't question the fundamental point that it was indeed a Jewish book, originally written in Hebrew.  He did not deny that it was part of the Jewish canon, accepted by Jews everywhere and included in the Tanach (Holy Scripture).  Luther did not doubt that the book had been adopted by the entire Jewish nation since the 200 B.C., and was the basis of the annual celebration of the Festival of Purim, or that Esther was publicly celebrated as a historical document, and had been since time immemorial.

Luther instead attacked the book on the two points already discussed:

(1) That the book (Hebrew version at least) didn't openly use God's name [YHWH], and that no specific prayers are recorded in the book;
(2) And infamously, because the book was too Jewish.

The whole basis of the attack is that somehow Esther is different than all  the other accepted Holy books, because it presents a different God, or  has a different way of presenting God.  i.e., the claim is that either :

 (1) After the captivity of Babylon, Jews had now become non-religious and had abandoned worship of the God of Israel for Babylonian paganism, and so their writings from this period are simply not inspired, or,
(2) God ceased to inspire Hebrew writers during and/or after the Babylonian Captivity.

This is not a natural Christian or Jewish position on the OT canon, and Luther's attitude seems rather based on criticisms by various opponents of both religions, ancient and modern.  There is indeed some substance in these claims regarding the book's superficial appearance.   The problem was noticeable enough that  some early Christians felt moved to rectify the alleged lack by adding sections to give the book a more overtly 'Godly' look.  The Jewish scribes however,  lthough aware of the claims, felt no such need, and continued to copy the book verbatum.

The point is not that the claim had no superficial reality, but that the two  conflicting ideas in Luther's position are in fact ultimately incompatible:   The book can't be too Jewish, and at the same time not Jewish enough.  But recognizing this contradiction is not enough to solve the problem.  We have to decide which side of the fence to come down on.  

The essential issue is this:

I.  Is Esther qualitatively different from, and thus incompatible with, recognized Holy Scripture?

For this is the core challenge thrown down by Luther and others who would reject the book from the canon of Holy Scripture.

(to be continued...)

Diactritical Symbols for Hebrew texts

The following is taken from "Scribal Practices" by Emanuel Tov.  They are useful in reading printed critical editions of the Dead Sea Scrolls texts:

Click to Enlarge

Azazel (Lev16): Finally a Plausible Explanation

While you're on Hebrew studies, you may enjoy this as much as I did. It concerns new evidence of a sensible explanation and interpretation of the word "Azazel" in Leviticus 16:6-10:

Its from the July 25 post on Doug's blog, Biblia Hebraica et Graeca:

The Scapegoat Ritual in Leviticus 16

Azazel from Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal(Paris,1825).

Leviticus 16 presents the ritual requirements for the Day of Atonement. One of the most enigmatic rituals involves the scapegoat sent off into the wilderness for “Azazel” described in Lev 16:6-10:

6 “Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering for himself and shall make atonement for himself and for his house. 7 Then he shall take the two goats and set them before the LORD at the entrance of the tent of meeting. 8 And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot for the LORD and the other lot for Azazel. 9 And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the LORD and use it as a sin offering, 10 but the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the LORD to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel.

There has been much speculation about who or what “Azazel” was: the main interpretations have been a local deity, a wilderness goat-demon, or a desert mountain. Later Jewish literature, notably the Book of Enoch, understood Azazel as a demon, one of the fallen angels and brings him into its complex mythology of supernatural angels and demons.

Rabbinic interpretation understood Azazel to be a cliff off which the goat was driven to its death.

The Rabbis, interpreting "Azazel" as "Azaz" (rugged), and "el" (strong), refer it to the rugged and rough mountain cliff from which the goat was cast down (Yoma 67b; Sifra, Ahare, ii. 2; Targ. Yer. Lev. xiv. 10, and most medieval commentators). Most modern scholars, after having for some time indorsed the old view, have accepted the opinion mysteriously hinted at by Ibn Ezra and expressly stated by Nahmanides to Lev. xvi. 8, that Azazel belongs to the class of "se'irim," goat-like demons, jinn haunting the desert, to which the Israelites were wont to offer sacrifice (Lev. xvii. 7 [A. V. "devils"] (from the Jewish Encyclopedia).

Of course, all of that may be for naught if this Hittite parallel is correct and the term is connected with a type of offering.

“In the Leviticus 16 ritual a crux has always been the term laʿ^azāʾzēl rendered in the Septuagint and Vulgate by “as a scapegoat” (followed by the English AV), but replaced in more recent English translations by “for Azazel,” sometimes thought to denote a wilderness demon. Appealing to scapegoat rites in the Hurrian language from the Hittite archives, Janowski and Wilhelm would derive the biblical term from a Hurrian offering term, azazḫiya. This is particularly appealing to me. There were two goats used in the Leviticus 16 ritual. One is designated for Yahweh as a “sin offering” (Heb. ḥaṭṭāʾṭ, LXX peri hamartias) (16:9), and the other is “for Azazel,” but is presented alive before Yahweh to make atonement, and is sent away into the wilderness “to/for Azazel.” The contrast is twofold: (1) Yahweh versus Azazel, and (2) sin offering versus Azazel. If one adopts the first, Azazel seems to be a divine being or demon, who must be appeased. But if one adopts the second as primary, the word ʿ^azāʾzēl represents the goal of the action. In the system of Hurrian offering terms to which Wilhelm’s azazḫiya belongs, the terms represent either a benefit that is sought by the offering (e.g., keldiya “for wellbeing,” cf. Heb. š^elāmîm), or the central element offered (e.g., zurgiya “blood”). If Janowski and Wilhelm’s theory is correct, the Hebrew term would not denote a demon as recipient of the goat, but some benefit desired (e.g., removal of the sins and impurities) or the primary method of the offering (e.g. the banishment of the goat).”^[1]

Similar rituals are widely attested in the ancient Near East with examples from Ebla and elsewhere. I'm sure much more could be said about the practice and its ancient parallels. Leviticus 16 and the term Azazel provide a fascinating example of how misunderstandings and speculation sometimes spin off into elaborate traditions that fall far from the likely original meaning of the biblical text.

---

Harry A. Hoffner, Jr., “Hittite-Israelite Cultural Parallels” in Hallo, W. W., & Younger, K. L. (2003). Context of Scripture, vol. 3 (xxxii). Leiden; Boston: Brill.

2009 Hebrew Scroll Find:

Possibly dated within four years of Temple's destruction (c. 74 A.D.):

The IAA press release:

Fifteen lines of Hebrew text, written from right to left and one below the other, can be discerned in the document. In the upper line of the text one can clearly read the sentence “Year 4 to the destruction of Israel”. This is likely to be the year 74 CE – in the event the author of the document is referring to the year when the Second Temple was destroyed during the Great Revolt. Another possibility is the year 139 CE – in the event the author is referring to the time when the rural settlement in Judah was devastated at the end of the Bar Kokhba Revolt.

The name of a woman, “Miriam Barat Ya‘aqov”, is also legible in the document followed by a name that is likely to be that of the settlement where she resided: Misalev. This is probably the settlement Salabim. The name Miriam Bat Ya‘aqov is a common name in the Second Temple period. Also mentioned in the document are the names of other people and families, the names of a number of ancient settlements from the Second Temple period and legal wording which deals with the property of a widow and her relinquishment of it."

The Bibliahebraica.blogspot comments:

"Since the find is unprovenanced, the authenticity of the scroll is officially yet to be determined. After viewing the photo, I strongly suspect it will turn out to be genuine. Finds like this of legal or business documents in Hebrew provide important data for exploring the issues of literacy and the use of Hebrew in Palestine in the 1st-2nd centuries CE. Gone are the days of simplistic models of how Hebrew all but died out, supplanted by Aramaic and Greek. Why use a nearly dead classical language to record a legal transaction? It's intended to be read and the terms understood."

peace
Nazaroo