101 Myths of the Bible: how ancient scribes - Conscious Evolution TV

74 101 Myths of the Bible
of vowels is speculative. It is interesting that“Nun,” the Hebrew name for the first letter
of Noah’s name, is the same word the Egyptians use to name the primeval flood.
The name of the biblical flood hero, therefore, corresponds to the name of the Egyptian
deity who represents the great flood of Creation and guides the solar boat
across the waters.
Another interesting coincidence between Noah and Nun involves the image of a
serpent. Egyptians depicted the four males of the Ogdoad (the eight gods, including
Nun, who emerged from the flood) as serpents. In early Hebrew writing, the letter
Nun evolved from the image of a serpent.
The names of Noah’s three sons—Ham, Shem, and Japheth—also show connections
to the Hermopolitan Creation story. Shem is the oldest of Noah’s three sons
and he has a most unusual name. In Hebrew, it means“name.”Therefore, Noah named
his son “name,” something that doesn’t quite make sense. Among religious Jews,
though, the word“shem” is often substituted for God’s name, and it seems unlikely that
Hebrew scribes meant for Noah’s son to be equated with the Hebrew deity.
The word “shem” also forms the root of the Hebrew word “shemoneh” meaning
“eight.” This gives us a connection to the Egyptian city of Hermopolis. Hermopolis is
the Greek name of the city but Egyptians called it Shmn, which means “eight-town,”
after the eight Hermopolitan deities that emerged from the flood. (The Hebrew and
Egyptian words for“eight” are the same.) The name of Noah’s son—Shem—and the
Egyptian name for the city of Hermopolis—Shmn—therefore, both refer to the
eight Hermopolitan deities that emerged out of the primeval flood.
Ham, the name of Noah’s second son, is pronounced“Chem” in Hebrew, and he is
depicted as the father of the Egyptian and African peoples. The name derives from the
Egyptian word“Keme,” an ancient name for Egypt. It means“the black land” and refers
to the fertile black soil left behind when the annual Nile flood withdraws to its banks.
The third of Noah’s sons is Japheth, and many people have tried to identify the
name Japheth with the Greek Iapetos, a mythological deity whose son, Deucalion, was
the hero of a Greek flood myth. Tempting as that correlation may be, it only makes
sense if the Greek myth influenced the development of the biblical story, a conclusion
for which we have no evidence.