I was recently in a video for Book of Mormon Central,
highlighting how archaeological evidence from Nephi’s time helps us understand
what he meant by “the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians”
(1 Nephi 1:2):
Unsurprisingly, anytime you talk about archaeology and the
Book of Mormon, there is push back from predictable corners of the internet.
The main pushback I am seeing is over the nature of the documents and the
extent of hieratic writing in Israel. As noted in the video itself (~2:33
mark), current evidence for the use of hieratic by Nephi’s day is limited to numerals and signs of
measurement, etc., and there is no evidence for full literary or historical
texts. For some, this apparently renders the evidence moot and not even the
least bit interesting in light of 1 Nephi 1:2.
Obviously, I disagree. In the video, I immediately follow
that up with the conclusion of a scholar (David Calabro, see ~2:50 mark), that
the Judahite hieratic tradition lasted in “fuller form” than previously
believed, and that it could have been utilized for larger literary purposes.
There are many good reasons for believing this which go far beyond what could
easily fit in a short video, and indeed Calabro’s erudite analysis is really
only one component to that overall argument.
So, I figured I would just add a few thoughts, for what they
are worth, and provide a (limited) bibliography. Of course, this is still a bit of a simplification of all the
evidence and analysis that supports this conclusion, but I hope it helps
clarify the matter for some who may have questions:
1. My comments about the limited extent of hieratic applies
only to the late period (ca. 8th–6th century BC). We know earlier scribes in
the region had a full understanding of the hieratic writing system, including
the earliest Israelite scribes (Goldwasser 1991). The question is whether
knowledge of the full system was continued over the generations or not.
2. This is where Calabro’s analysis comes in. Calabro (2012)
scrutinized samples from the late Judahite kingdom and determined that although
the samples are limited, they betray a complete understanding of the full
hieratic writing system, and thus hieratic could have been employed by
Israelite and Judahite scribes in more comprehensive ways.
3. Although I emphasize Calabro’s analysis, Wimmer’s work is
important here too. Wimmer’s comprehensive analysis of
all the samples of hieratic overtime revealed that some of the hieratic signs
changed along the same lines as the changes made to hieratic in Egypt (2008:279)
—indicting strongly of continued contact between the scribes of Israel and
Egypt, something that would require Israelite scribes to have a full
understanding of the hieratic writing system. In fact, Wimmer (2012) even goes
so far as to suggest Israelite scribes were being trained by Egyptian scribes—a process that likely involved learning
more than just a limited set of signs and numerals.
4. In addition to the archaeological evidence for hieratic writing,
and the academic analysis of that evidence, there are also historical
considerations. Judah was a vassal of Egypt from at least 609 BC (possibly
earlier, per Schipper 2011) to 605 BC, and there was continued diplomatic
contact between Egypt and Judah right to Judah’s destruction in 587/6 BC, at
which point some Judahites then fled to Egypt. Its hard to imagine that in these
conditions, Judahite scribes at the time did not know how to fully communicate in
Egyptian.
5. There’s also a growing body of scholarship demonstrating
the influence of Egyptian literature on texts from the Hebrew Bible. There was
a panel discussion on the topic at SBL this year, and the participants all
agreed that this was something that needed even more sustained attention. The
implications of this, for my purposes, are that scribes in Israel and Judah
must have had a highly sophisticated understanding of Egyptian language, to the
point that they could not only study Egyptian literature, but they could
interact with it in their own literary and historical compositions.
6. The lack of any extant Israelite literature composed in
Egyptian at this period is mitigated by the fact that we simply do not have
pre-exilic copies of Israelite literature in any language. So it’s really not surprising, nor particularly
revealing. Still, I can agree it would be unusual for an Israelite scribe ca.
600 BC to compose literature in Egyptian rather than Hebrew.
7. But no one (to my knowledge—I certainly am not) is
arguing that what Nephi did was the typical practice of Israelite scribes.
History, ancient and modern, is filled with people who have done exceptionally
unusual things—things that surprise historians and scholars when they learn
about them. If we had more context, we might be able to say more about why Nephi chose to write in Egyptian
instead of Hebrew, but right now we really don’t know. It may have had
something to do with saving space (per Mormon 9:32–34), but I try not to
project Mormon and Moroni’s reason back in time onto Nephi.
8. Nonetheless, all of the above has me materially convinced
that a scribe in Judah ca. 600 BC would have had a comprehensive knowledge of
the hieratic writing system—though, over time, their own hieratic tradition had
developed some independent characteristics influenced by their native Hebrew
language (see Calabro 2012; cf. Wimmer 2012; 2008:271–273)—and if they had
wanted to, really talented scribes at least would have been entirely capable of
composing works using that writing system.
9. Understanding this provides an interpretive context for
the confusing phrase in 1 Nephi 1:2 about “the learning of the Jews and the
language of the Egyptians”—and it’s that explanatory power that I find most
compelling. I am not sure what that phrase is supposed to mean in a 19th
century American context—and I’ve never seen any one try to offer a sensible
interpretation based on 19th century American understanding. But looking at
what we know about Egyptian writing in Israel based on archaeology—and
scholarly analysis of the findings—we have a very sensible interpretation of
the phrase.
That (point 9) carries a lot of weight for me. And that’s also the primary
focus of the video—so watch it now if you haven’t already!
Bibliography
Calabro, David. “The Hieratic Scribal Tradition in Preexilic
Judah,” in Evolving Egypt: Innovation,
Appropriation, and Reinterpretation in Ancient Egypt, ed. Kerry Muhlestein
and John Gee (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2012), 77–82.
Goldwasser, Orly. “An Egyptian Scribe from Lachish and the
Hieratic Tradition of the Hebrew Kingdoms,” Tel
Aviv: Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University 18
(1991): 248–253.
Schipper, Bernd U. “Egyptian Imperialism after the New
Kingdom: The 26th Dynasty and the Southern Levant,” in Egypt, Canaan and Israel: History,
Imperialism, Ideology and Literature, ed. S. Bar, D. Kahn, J.J. Shirley (Boston:
Brill, 2011), 268–290.
Wimmer, Stefan. “Palestinian Hieratic,” Writing in the 7th Century BC Levant, Laura F. Willes
Center Biennial Symposium, August 31, 2012. (Notes from this lecture are in my
possession. A summary is available here.)
Wimmer, Stefan. Palästiniches
Hieratisch: Die Zahl- und Sonderzeichen in der althebräishen Schrift (Wiesbaden:
Harraossowitz, 2008).
Comments
Post a Comment