‘How happy would the godly Joseph have been to bear the name of the Egyptian sky god, Horus?’ Patrick Clarke
Joseph of Egypt
The biblical evidence seems to be against those, who, like Creationist, Patrick Clarke, are uncomfortable with the notion of Jews (Hebrews) bearing - in the name assigned to them in captivity - the theophoric of a foreign god.
Clarke, in an article examining the name given to Joseph by the ruler of Egypt (anachronistically called “Pharaoh”), “Joseph’s Zaphenath Paaneah—a chronological key”, Journal of Creation, 27:58–63, December 2013), will scrutinize various scholarly interpretations of the Egyptian name, Zaphenath Paaneah.
Joseph, a figure in the Book of Genesis.
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View full-sizeDownload Joseph is a common male name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the modern-day Nordic countries. In Portuguese and Spanish, the name is "José". In Arabic, including in the Quran, the name is spelled يوسف, Yūsuf. In Kurdish (Kurdî), the name is Ûsiv or Yûsiv, Persian, the name is Yousef, and in Turkish it is Yusuf. In Pashto the name is spelled Esaf (ايسپ) and in Malayalam it is spelled Ousep (ഔസേപ്പ്). In Tamil, it is spelled as Yosepu (யோசேப்பு).
In the process, Clarke will criticize a popular view - and it is very much the one that I favor - that Joseph was Imhotep (of the 3rd Dynasty).
is vocalized as iy, which is an epithet of the god Horus (all the Egyptian gods and goddesses had multiple epithets which people incorporated into their personal names);
is hotep which means content. Brought together, Imhotep translates as Content is Horus (lit. Horus who is content).
Again the question must be asked,
‘How happy would the godly Joseph have been to bear the name of the Egyptian sky god, Horus?’ ….
The solution, as Clarke will then go on cleverly to argue, is that Zaphenath Paaneah was actually a “title”:
Solution
Moses spent four decades living as an Egyptian where
“[he] was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words (Greek logos) and deeds” (Acts 7:22)
This clearly implies that Moses was very accomplished in the use of words; and not just in speaking.
The Egyptian system of teaching was very thorough and, after four decades of life in the royal household, Moses would have understood the complexities and applications of the Egyptian language and court etiquette.
Therefore, his choice of the Hebrew, Zaphenath Paaneah, is very likely to be a valid transliteration into Hebrew from the original Egyptian.
The first section of Joseph’s Egyptian name is, as earlier indicated, not a proper name; rather it is a very important and, as far as I can discern, unique title.
The Egyptian equivalent of Zaphenath is almost certainly ḏf3wn‘ty, which translates into modern English as ‘Overseer/Minister of the Storehouse of Abundance’.
Part one, ḏf3w, is a noun derived from the verb ḏf3—(to provide for/to abound in supplies), where ḏf is the etymological equivalent of the Hebrew tsof. Part two, n, is the masculine genitival adjective ‘of’.
Finally, part three, ‘ty—is a noun expressing the official title ‘Storehouse Overseer/Minister’, which is drawn from the Archaic Egyptian30 root ‘t—
The first part, p3n, ‘he of’ is written but there is no grammatical or historical evidence for it necessarily being vocalized.
The second part, n’i, and the third, 3ḫ, combine to express Joseph’s new Egyptian name literally as [p3n]n’i3ḫ ‘[He of the] Excellent/Gracious Spirit’ where n’i translates as ‘excellent/gracious’ and 3ḫ translates as ‘spirit’.
In the list of proposed names shown earlier, many indicate the belief that the end of Joseph’s name is to be translated as ‘life’ (Egy. ankh anḫ).
This is, however, completely wrong. In the Hebrew ‘spirit’ is rendered as רוּחַ ruwach (pronounced rü’·aḫ) with the entirely legitimate understanding of ‘impelling a prophet to utter instruction’ or ‘warning’.
Ancient Egyptian has a number of words for ‘spirit’, but it is 3ḫ, the equivalent of the Hebrew ruwach, that confirms the intimate inside knowledge of the writer of the Joseph narrative.
The Egyptian 3ḫ most often refers to spiritual power and/or intellectual ability; both qualities agree with the Hebrew and were abundantly exhibited by Joseph.
This accords perfectly, when compared contextually, with Genesis 41:38–39:
“And Pharaoh said to his servants, ‘Can we find such a one as this, a man in whom is the Spirit of God?’
Then Pharaoh said to Joseph
‘Inasmuch as God has shown you all this, there is no one as discerning and wise as you [emphases added]’.”
Pharaoh is clearly asking his courtiers a rhetorical question; in his mind he has already decided the right course of action.
Pharaoh wastes little time in conferring upon Joseph a title and a new Egyptian name, ḏf3n‘ty p3nn’i3ḫ
yet Joseph’s particular title appears to be unique in the record as indicated by the etymological link between the Hebrew tsophnath pa`neach and the Egyptian ḏf3n‘ty p3nn’i3ḫ. ….
Whether or not Patrick Clarke is correct in this interesting interpretation of his, he does succeed, at least within his own context, in saving Joseph from an uncomfortable association with the god Horus:
‘How happy would the godly Joseph have been to bear the name of the Egyptian sky god, Horus?’ ….
The etymology of the name is not clear, and its form has no parallel in Hebrew.
The name is possibly related to the Akkadiankhambbaququ (Akkadian: … ḫâmbaququ) the name of a fragrant plant,
Whilst I cannot add anything further to the name, in this case, I can insist that the reason why the books of Job and Habakkuk have so much in common, as is generally attested, is because Job (Tobias) was Habakkuk.
It is at this point in the Bible that Patrick Clarke’s view falls down, that pious Hebrews (Jews) would not accept a pagan name.
Daniel is re-named Belteshazzar, a name that the Chaldean king, Nebuchadnezzar, specifically says pertained to his own god (Daniel 4:8):
But at the last Daniel came in before me, whose name was Belteshazzar, according to the name of my god, and in whom is the spirit of the holy gods:
and before him I told the dream, saying,
Contrary to what is often thought, Belteshazzar is not a Bel-name, like that of Nebuchadnezzar’s son, Belshazzar.
If Daniel bore the name of Nebuchadnezzar’s god, which is Nebo (Nabu), then his new name should be a Nabu name, in which the element -belte would be something like balatsu.
I would suggest that Belteshazzar is a poorly transliterated Hebrew version of a Babylonian name such as Nabu-balatsu-iqbi.
Now King Nabonidus (who is my King Nebuchadnezzar), when he referred to his pious father by that name, Nabu-balatsu-iqbi, was, in my opinion, intending Daniel.
Haman, likewise, was called “father” by King Ahasuerus and the Persians.
The same use of pagan theophoric would apply to Daniel’s three young friends, re-named
Shadrach
Meshach
Abed Nego
The latter is probably (like Belteshazzar) an imprecise Hebrew transliteration and should read as Abed Nebo (“Servant of Nebo”), once again, the god of Nebuchadnezzar.
William H. Shea has likely found him in a chronicle of Nebuchadnezzar, as the identically meaning Ardi-Nabu.
And Shea claimed to have found Meshach there as well; Meshach being a shortened version of the chronicle’s, Mušallim-Marduk - Marduk being the supreme god of the city of Babylon.
Jacob Hoschander will properly explain Mordecai’s other name, “Bilshan” as a Babylonian name (The Book of Esther in the Light of History”, Vol. V, p. 330):
The name Mordecai is a hypocoristicon of a complex name compounded with the divine name Marduk.
Thus, the full name was undoubtedly of idolatrous character.
If the Talmudic statement
‘Mordecai is identical with Bilshan’ … is based on tradition, the compounded name of Mordecai was Marduk-bēl-shunu, ‘Marduk is their lord’ ….
I think that I would settle for Mordecai’s having been given a Babylonian name, just as were Daniel and his three companions (Daniel 1:7) - though Shadrach looks Elamite.
Jacob Hoschander (ibid, p. 332) links Esther (Ishtar) to both the Babylonian name, Ishtar-udda-sha (“Ishtar is her light”) and, thereby, to Hadassah (-udda-sha).
