JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

egypt
when Sinhue returns to Egypt and is welcomed back into the
royal household, His wish that he be allowed to returned to
Egypt so he may die and be buried there is fulfilled. Sinuhe’s
flight from political danger may be compared to Moses’ flight
from Egypt to avoid Pharaoh’s wrath (Ex. 2:15). Sinuhe’s subsequent
wanderings though the Egyptian Delta and into Canaan
along with his new found prosperity in a foreign land may be
compared with the accounts of Abraham’s peregrinations. Another
frequently cited parallel is that Sinuhe very much wants
to be buried in his native Egypt, just as Jacob desires that his
body be returned from Egypt to Canaan (Gen. 47:29–30). Similarly,
Joseph adjures the children of Israel to carry his bones
out from Egypt when they leave (Gen 50:25, Ex. 13:19).
Narrative parallels are not limited to the Torah. One of
Sinuhe’s exploits has been compared to David’s slaying of Goliath.
“He came toward me while I waited, having placed myself
near him. Every heart burned for me; the women jabbered. All
hearts ached for me thinking: ‘Is there another champion who
could fight him?’ He [raised] his battle-axe and shield, while
his armful of missiles fell toward me. When I had made his
weapons attack me, I let his arrows pass me by without effect,
one following the other. Then, when he charged me, I shot
him, my arrow sticking in his neck. He screamed; he fell on
his nose; I slew him with his axe. I raised my war cry over his
back, while every Asiatic shouted. I gave praise to Mont, while
his people mourned him” (Lichtheim in COS) Both Sinuhe and
David are underdog warriors who surprisingly vanquish the
enemy champion with his own weapon (I Sam 17:51).
Scholarly consensus recognizes that the biblical Wisdom
tradition, and much of the poetic and instructional literature
related to that tradition, has very close associations
with Egyptian Wisdom Literature. Within the Bible there is
a conception of Egypt as a source of great wisdom (I Kings
4:30, “Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all
the Kedemites and than all the wisdom of the Egyptians”), but
this “wisdom” is not that of the Wisdom Literature. Egyptian
Wisdom Literature deals with “truth,” “justice,” and especially
“order,” the “cosmic order” as ordained by the gods. Biblical
Wisdom focuses primarily upon Wisdom personified and the
“fear of God” associated with it. So the larger conceptions that
inform the genre are not identical, but the Egyptian material
most certainly has influenced the biblical.
Psalm 104 is frequently viewed in light of “The Great
Hymn to the Aten.” Both texts venerate the solar aspects of
the deity and use similar language in so doing. Song of Songs
is widely recognized as having significant parallels to Egyptian
love poetry (Fox) There are parallels of phraseology: In
the Song of Songs “sister” is used as a term of intimacy between
the two lovers (4:9, 10–12, “…my sister, my bride…”;
also 5:1, 2), and in the Egyptian Love Songs both “sister” and
“brother” are used as terms of love and intimacy. In both literatures
there is an alternation between the speech of the girl
and that of the boy, but with a difference; In the Bible the
lovers engage in dialogues, whereas in the Love Songs from
Egypt the lovers are given alternating soliloquies. Another
common feature is found in the so-called “Praise Song,” where
the physical beauty of the beloved body is described limb by
limb. (4:1–7; 5:10–16; 7:2–10a).
Even more striking parallels are to be found in instructional
literature; these connections were first recognized in the
early 20th century, and are regularly noted in modern commentaries.
The prime example is the “Instruction of Amenemope.”
Proverbs 22:17–24:22 and Jeremiah 17:5–8 are both
thought to be inspired by “Amenemope.” Of particular interest
is Proverbs 22:20 and the difficulty surrounding the Hebrew
word traditionally written both shlshwm (ketiv) and shlyshym
(qere) and vocalized to mean either “officers” or “the day before
yesterday.” Neither makes any sense in the context of the
pericope. Accordingly, many scholars vocalize this word as
sheloshim, “thirty” (“Have I not written for you thirty sayings
of counsel and wisdom”) especially since there are 30 chapters
in the “Instruction of Amenemope” and that text ends “Look
to these thirty chapters, They inform, they educate ….”
The points of contact between biblical and Egyptian literature
go beyond content, and include linguistic borrowings
as well. There are close to six dozen agreed upon Egyptian
loan words in the Bible, not including personal names and
toponyms (place names); some of these words are Hebraized,
whereas others are used in forms that are close to their Egyptian
form. Understandably, there is a remarkable clustering
of these loan words in the biblical accounts relating to Egypt.
We have come to expect Egyptian words used to describe
the natural environment of Egypt, so the biblical words for
“reeds” (Ex. 13:18, 15:4, 22, 23:31; passim), “Nile” (Gen. 41:1–3;
passim), “papyrus” (Ex. 2:3; Isa. 18:2, 35:7; Job 8:11), and “marsh
grass” (Gen. 41:2, 18; Job 8:11) all are Egyptian loans. The same
goes for specifically Egyptian offices like the hartumim typically
translated as “magicians” (Gen. 41:8, 24; Ex. 7:11, 22, 8:3,
14–15, 9:11; Dan. 1:20, 2:2, 10, 27, 4:4, 6, 5:11). Pharaoh is a royal
title (literally “big house” / “palace”) used in the Bible both
as a royal title with a specific royal name following (Pharaoh
RN – II Kings 23:29, 33–35; Jer. 46:2), or alone as a virtual royal
name or specific appellative (this usage is consistent in the
Torah text). Attempts have been made to date biblical passages
according to the usage of the word “Pharaoh,” but such
arguments are speculative at best, and ignore the literary aspects
of the text.
[Sharon Keller (2nd ed.)]
The Hellenistic Period
THE PTOLEMAIC PERIOD. Egyptian Jewry traced its history
back to the time of Jeremiah (Letter of Aristeas, 35), but it was
not until the conquest of *Alexander the Great in 332 B.C.E.
that the second great wave of Jewish emigration to Egypt began.
Alexander’s successors in Egypt, the Ptolemid dynasty,
attracted many Jews early in their reign to settle in Egypt as
tradesmen, farmers, mercenaries, and government officials.
During their reign Egyptian Jewry enjoyed both tolerance and
prosperity. They became significant in culture and literature,
and by the first century C.E., accounted for an eighth of the
population of Egypt. The majority of the Jews of Egypt lived,
226 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6