egyptian onomastica and biblical wisdom

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Egyptian Onomastica and Biblical Wisdom

Author(s): Michael V. FoxSource: Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 36, Fasc. 3 (Jul., 1986), pp. 302-310Published by: BRILL

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VetusTestamentumXXVI, 3 (1986)

EGYPTIAN ONOMASTICA AND BIBLICAL WISDOM

by

MICHAEL V. FOXMadison, Wisconsin

There s little oubt hat sraelite idacticwisdom, nown o us

primarilyrom hebook ofProverbs, erivedn form nd contentfrom n internationalenref didacticwisdom,well attestedn

Egypt ndMesopotamia.Moredisputableswhetherther ypes f

foreigniteratureeft heirmpress n Israelitewisdom.Thisstudywill ook into thetheoryhatEgyptianword istswereone suchsourceof nfluence.

Startingfrom a recognitionf the Egyptianantecedents fIsraelitewisdom, Albrecht Alt' sought a foreignorigin for

Solomon'swisdom oncerninglants ndanimals,whichspraisedin 1 Kgs v 10-14.Alt called this ype f wisdomNaturweisheitnd

placed itsoriginnword-listsuch as are known rom gypt nd

Mesopotamia.He described he creation f suchtexts s Listen-

wissenschaft, science of lists , whose purposehe said was

encyclopedic .Altgave particularttentiono theOnomasticonof Amenope,2which constituted, e said, a Versuch einer

Enzyklopaidielles Wissens .3Alt hypothesizedhat Solomon's

3000proverbsnd 1005songs4werereformulationsf tems romencyclopedicists ofthesort oundnEgypt ndMesopotamia.Beforewe consider arallels etweenheonomasticand biblical

literature, e shouldunderstandlearlywhattheonomastica re

1 Die Weisheit Salomos . ThLZ 76 (1951), cols 139-44; E. tr. in James L.Crenshaw (ed.), Studies n AncientsraeliteWisdomNew York, 1976), pp. 102-12.

2 A. H. Gardiner, Ancient gyptianOnomasticaLondon, 1947). There are alsomore specialized lists-body parts, hieroglyphic signs, geographical lists, andmore. See the

survey byH.

Grapowand W. Westendorf n Handbuchder Orien-

talistik, I, 2: Agyptologie/LiteraturLeiden, 1970), ch. 37. For theLate Period see U.

Kaplony-Heckel, Schiiler und Schulwesen in der agyptischenSpatzeit , Studienzuraltagyptischenultur2 (1974), pp. 228-46.

3 p. 141; E. tr., p. 105.4 It should not be taken forgrantedthat the subjectsmentioned in 1 Kgs v 14

were the subjects of the songs and proverbsmentioned in v. 13. Solomon's talkabout themmightbe an additional example of his wisdom.








and (perhaps more importantly)what theyare not.

They are not attempts to organize natural phenomena in

systematic ncyclopedias, n which the order of the temsrepresentsa structuren reality.Gardiner's understandingof the onomasticaas the firststeps in the directionof an Encyclopaedia (p. 1) is

open to doubt. It is based first f all on the titleofOn. Am., whichGardinerhimself escribes as wordy and pretentious and bom-bastic (pp. 1 and 35). The title reads:

Beginningf he eaching or learinghemind, or nstructionfthe

ignorantnd forearningllthingshat xist;whatPtahcreated, nd

whatThoth opieddown,heavenwith ts ffairs,arth nd what s init,what hemountains elchforth, hat s watered ytheflood, ll

things ponwhichRe' has shone,all that s grown n the back ofearth, xcogitatedythe scribe f the sacredbooks n the House ofLife,Amenope, on ofAmenope Gardiner's ranslation,. 2*).

However one understands the list, the claims in the title must betakenwith more than a grainof salt. The title s certainly n exag-geration,somewhatalong the lines of a book blurb, ratherthan a

careful declaration of purpose. At any rate, the titledoes not saywhat the textteaches about things.The label sboyet,instruction ,may refer to any kind of instruction, ncluding the trainingofanimals. The otherEgyptianonomastica make no such grandioseclaims. But we can compare the similarly xaggeratedclaim in the

heading of the Rhind mathematicalpapyrus,which calls itself the

guide forentering nto knowledge of all that exists, all darkness

[and all] mysterieswhich are in things .5The breadth of the title'sassertions,although exaggerated, may

claim some justification n the Egyptian concept ofwriting.The

Egyptians invested theirwritingsystemwith great significance:signs were considered to share in the qualities and powers of the

thingstheyrepresented.The inclusion of a large number of wordsabout manydifferentypesofthingsmay help explain the claim inthe title to be a teaching about all thingsthat exist. But thisclaim would be based on the quantity of the words and their

reference o many different ealms of existence,not on the orderinto whichtheywere put.

If thepurpose ofthese istswere to reveal ordersand hierarchies

5 A. Eisenlohr,Ein mathematischesandbuch er ltenAegypterLeipzig, 1877; repr.Walluf bei Wiesbaden, 1972).

303







MICHAEL V. FOX

in thenature of all phenomena, theywould have tobe judged com-

plete failures.They do group phenomena in categories,but the

cohesion of thecategories s often o questionable thatthescribe oftheGolenischeff apyrusof On. Am.] mayhave founddifficultyn

deciding upon a suitable course of action (in placing the rubrics)(Gardiner, p. 36). The rubrics are often llogicallyand erraticallyplaced. While there s some ordering n certaincategorieswhere anassociative ordering s natural (e.g., in the categories of typesof

people and the south-north rderingof Egyptian towns), most ofthecategoriesshow no internal tructure r hierarchy;nor is there

much attemptto show relations among the categories. Differentkinds ofcake are each givenas much attention s thecityMemphisor heaven itself,while some major towns and the earth itself re

missing. Other items are repeated in differentwritings. It is

unnecessarilycondescendingtowardEgyptianlearningto imaginethat this was thebestthat could be achieved in theway oforderingnatural phenomena, as ifthe grossdistinctionbetween beverageson the one hand and the towns ofEgypton the other was ofsuch

interest hatit deserved to be writtendown, copied, and taught.Far more likely,theprimarypurpose of the onomastica was the

teachingofwriting.This suppositioncan bestexplain theinclusionof orthographicvariants (e.g., On. Am. no. 18 i3dt and no. 19

3wdt)and the nclusionofthesame word in synonymous hrasesas

separateentries e.g., t3ty vizier , no. 73) and t3tymy-riwtn T3

Mry the vizier and overseer of the citiesofEgypt , no. 86). Ifthescribe were categorizing hings,he would have included Edfu only

once ratherthan treatingtwo of its names as two separate items(nos. 318, 319). And one entrywould sufficefor the s'wt-cake,which now appears three times in differentwritings in theRamesseum Onomasticon (nos. 222, 227, 236). If the onomasticawere primarily eaching-aids n the studyofwriting, t is doubtfulthat theywould have been known in Israel, where the alphabetcreated quite different edagogical needs.6

6 H. Brunner says thatthe listswere catalogues ofthings Sachverzeichnis )intended to give a overviewofthethingsof theworld,but at the same time to teachtheir names and the correctwritingof the names. He regards this last purpose,even if it was not the author's main goal, to have been the primaryone for theschools (AltdgyptischerziehungWiesbaden; 1957], pp. 93-4). If that was indeedtheirprimarypurpose for heschools, that s theonly conceptof the iststhat couldhave influenced scribes of later generations, forthe original author's intentionwould not have been known or transmitted.

304








It is also possible that some lists served as aids in instructionabout realia, and thattheywere accompanied byelucidation on the

teacher's part. Several later lists add briefexplanations in a waythat suggestssuch a practice; forexample:

Further:mountains-Roshat,mountain fturquoise,Hahe, mountain of gold (CAmame).Tefrore,mountain f apis-lazuli.7

The focusof nterest ere is not theorderof theitemsbut informa-

tion about them. The explanations look like glosses that earliermighthave been communicatedorally.This typeof ist s apparent-ly ate (theabove text omes from he Roman period). As is the caseformuchPtolemaic literature, his textmay show an attempt oputintowriting usage that was earlier taken forgranted.

Numerous listshave been preservedfrom he ate period,mostlyin Demotic. Many Demotic lists reveal their oncernforwriting r

grammar by their organization according to initial consonants,

determinatives,or roots . Other lists are not organized by in-disputablyorthographic r linguisticfeatures,but theytoo seem tohave been aids in theteachingofwriting.One ostraconshows twocamels and adds, these are two male camels . Another ostraconshows a man holding two dogs on leash and the legend gives the

dogs' names or breeds and adds a man, who holds them . Such

legends suggest that the students wrote down an oral glossingmeant to identifyhe signsratherthan the animals theyrepresent.

The objects picturedwere familiar nd hardlyneeded explanationin themselves.8

A hieroglyphic-hieraticign-listfrom the second centuryC.E.

brings, in three columns, hieroglyphic signs, their hieratic

equivalents, and, apparently, the signs' names. The signs are

grouped in categories: men standing, women squatting, men

falling, nimals, body parts, etc. But even here,wherewe do findsome organizationby meaning-category, hepurpose is to elucidate

the written igns rather than what they represent n the external7 W. J. Tait, The mountains of apis-lazuli , GottingerMiszellen0 (1974), pp.

49-54. Tait says that there are numerous fragments fthissort n thepapyruscol-lection at theUniversityofCopenhagen.

8 For information n the lists discussed in thisparagraph see Kaplony-Heckel,Schiiler und Schulwesen (above, n. 2). Kaplony-Heckel accepts thetheory hat

the basic idea of the Sachw6rterbiicher is contentual ordering p. 235).

305







MICHAEL V. FOX

world. First of all, the list is organized by individual signs, not

words,and signsare not n themselves pecific noughto impart n-

formationabout things. Second, the third column identifies hesignsrather han giving nformation bout things n theworld; for

example: turning back , a woman carrying , mouth of ahuman being .9 In its typeoforganizationand formof glossing,this istbears similarity o the sign-list n Gardiner's Grammar.

I am not claimingthat no listsseek to teach about orders n theworldbymeans ofschemata; schematicorganization n accordancewithan externalreality s undoubtedlyessential to the educational

purpose of some lists-geographical lists, forexample.10I wouldnot, however, view this quality as the basic featureof lists anddeduce from t the existence of a science of lists .

In the wake of Alt's article, t became widelytaken forgrantedthat Israelitewisdom included a science of ists . Not long after-

wards, G. von Rad published a studythatderived the first alfofGod's answer toJob (chs xxxviii-xxxix)n partfrom his scienceof ists .11The theorypresented n thatarticlehas been influential

in the interpretationfJob in particularand wisdom literature ngeneral. This theory s still live issue and worthy f reassessment.

Von Rad soughtthe originof the spezifische Form of God's

speech first f all in Egyptianonomastica, givingparticularatten-tiontothe ongestoftheextant ists,theOnomasticon ofAmenope,which von Rad too considered to be ein wissenschaftlichnzyklo-padisches Werk (p. 293). He claimed that, although thisonomasticon does not correspond exactlytoJob xxxviii,there s a

close resemblance n the enumerationofmeteorological henomena(snow, hail, wind) and the stars. He granted that we cannot

suppose direct dependence of Job xxxviii upon thisonomasticon-- trotzdem muss doch wohl eine Beziehungzwischen beiden Texten bestehen (p. 294). Such listsmay havefound theirway to Israel, where theywere reworked nto poeticcompositions.Such lists,he said, also underlie the enumerationof

phenomena in Ben Sira xliii,Ps. cxxxviii nd Dan. iii 52-90 LXX.

9 F. LI. Griffith, The Sign Payrus , in Griffithnd W. M. F. Petrie, TwoHieroglyphicapyri romTanis (London, 1899); discussed in Kaplony-Heckel (n. 2,above), p. 235.

10e.g., The Geographical Papyrus in Griffith nd Petrie.

11 Hiob xxxviii und die altagyptischeWeisheit , SVT 3 (1955), pp. 293-301,E. tr. n The Problemf heHexateuchnd Otherssays Edinburgh and London, 1966),pp. 281-91, and Crenshaw (n. 1 above), pp. 267-77.

306








In particular,Ps. cxlviiifollowswhat he calls dem herk6mmlichenwissenschaftlichenchema (p. 296) by proceedingfrom he stars

to meteorologial phenomena to the earth.In summary,von Rad says,

Wirsahen,dass ob xxxviii . hinsichtlicherAbfolge erkosmologi-schen nd naturkundlichenhanomene inemvorgegebenenchema

entlang eht,das letztlich eragyptischen issenschaftntstammt,wie sie in den Onomastiken niedergelegt st.12

The strongest argument against connecting Job xxxviii-xxxix

withthe onomastica is the ist von Rad himself uppliesas evidence12 p. 300. In that rticle on Rad also arguedfor n Egyptian arallel o the

eigentiimliche(n)tilform f God's speech,which s composedmostly frhetoricaluestions.Von Rad found parallel n PapyrusAnastasi , known sA Satirical etter .Accordingo vonRad, in one section f he ext18,9-28,1)

thescribeHori (accordingo vonRad) sarcasticallysks hisopponent series frhetoricaluestionsmeant oprove he atter'sgnorancefAsiatic eography.utthissuggested aralleltoo is irrelevant. irstofall, the misnamed) SatiricalLetter s notcomposed lmost ntirelyfrhetoricaluestions.See Gardiner'sremarksnEgyptianieratic exts,eries. Literaryextsf heNewKingdom[Leip-

zig,1911],p. 20*,n. 11.)Von Rad was edastray erebyErman'smistranslationofcertain entences, hichmakesmanyofthenegativendicative entencesntoquestionsA. Erman,Die Literaturer gypterLeipzig,1923],pp. 286-7;E. tr. TheLiteraturef heAncientgyptiansLondon, 1927],p. 228, reprinteds TheAncientEgyptians:Sourcebookf heirWritingsNewYork,1966],p. 228). Sentences rmantranslates s rhetoricaluestions, .g. Bist du nicht umChattiland egangenund hast du das landUpi nichtgesehen? ,wouldrequire ffirmativenswers,whilethespeaker s assertingheopposite-theopponent's gnorance nd inex-perience.There is no grammaticalndicationof the interrogativen thesestatements.heyare to be translated,You havenotgoneto the andofKhatti,andyouhave not seenthe and ofUpe . In fact,most fthe ectionnquestionconsists f indicative ssertions f theaddressee's gnorance. here are severalquestions hat hallenge nowlege, utthey o notpredominate.ince we do nothaveanythingike a catechismnP. Anastasi , it s hardlyustifiableouse thiswork s evidencefor heexistence fschoolcatechismsn Egypt-and thentoderive the form-categoryf God's speeches in Job xxxviii-xxxixrom thishypotheticalenre.

In anycase, there s a fundamentalifferenceetweenHori's questions ndGod's. Hori attempts o demonstrate is opponent's gnorance y askinghimquestionshat e cannot nswer, .g., What s theDjemerofSese ike?On whichsideof t sthe own fCher...?What s its treamike? ,etc. 18,8-19,1).Hori'squestions re difficultutnot impossible or n educatedscribe.Theyare not

essentiallyhetorical,.e., indicativetatementsn nterrogativeorm. ori'sques-tions hallenge isopponent yaskingfor nformation.od's questions,n con-trast, re (with woexceptions)ruly hetorical.heyare actually eclarationsfGod's powerncreatingndmaintainingheworld.God is not ttemptingocon-found obso much s toremind imofwhathealready nowswell-divinepowerand rule; see M. V. Fox, Job 38 and God's Rhetoric ,Semeia 9 (1981),pp. 53-61.

307







MICHAEL V. FOX

fora scientific chema commonto both. Von Rad lists the first50 itemsofOn. Am. nextto the 39 items mentioned nJob xxxviii

12 (the verse he takes as the startingpoint of the comparison)through xxix26. Of these39, onlynine have some correspondencein the onomasticon, and thereis no similaritywhatsoeverin the

sequence of tems.The otherworksthat von Rad comparesto On.Am. proceed from the heaven, to the sun, moon and stars, to

meteorologicalphenomena, as does On. Am. But thisgeneralorderis so natural and predictablethat tspresencein differentomposi-tionsdoes not prove geneticconnection.

Certainly,we must hesitate to speak of a scientific schemarepresented n the onomastica. There is scarcelya schema in On.Am. itself.There is no schema common to thenumerousEgyptianlistsofvarious sorts,and there s certainlyno schema common toOn. Am. and Job xxxviii,as von Rad suggested.

Another scholar nspiredbyAltto detectthe science of ists inbiblical literature was S. Herrmann,13who suggested that theauthor of the first reationstory sed onomastica as the basis ofhis

descriptionof thecreationof the human sphereof ife,thethird osixthdays of creation. But there is nothingin common betweenthem other than the mention ofthingsthat are in the world.

On. Am. is so comprehensive hatany mentionofthingsofanysort s likely o have some items n common with t; it willcertainlyhave some categories in common with it. We could justify a

hypothesisof dependence only if we could find a fairlystrict,specificschema maintained in both, preferably ne whose order

was not quite predictable.As forMesopotamian lists such as the harra-hubbulueries, it is

significant hat von Rad explicitlyrejects a connection betweenthem and Job xxxviii (p. 301). Those lists are apparentlyevenfarther emoved from he assumed scientific chema. I expect thatsimilarargumentscould be brought against an attemptto draw aconnection between themand thepresumednature wisdom in theBible.

There is no evidence for a science of lists in ancient Israel.What is more,there s no science of ists n Egypt n any significantsense. There are only ists, istsof all sorts,withvaried contents nd

principles of organization-medical, zoological, religious, geo-

13 Die Naturlehredes Sch6pfungsberichtes , ThLZ 86 (1961), cols 413-24.

308








graphical,and more.14 There is nothing o suggestthatthecreationof lists was considered a single enterprise, s if geographical lists

and lists ofbodypartswere in someway intended to contribute o acommon purpose ofexpanding and organizingthebody of shared

knowledge.Alt's and von Rad's articles suggested that biblical wisdom

literature derives in part from observational sciences. Alt

hypothesized that one link in this derivation was the Egyptianonomastica. Von Rad argued thatone literary nd productof the

process was Job xxxviii-xxxix.This pictureof the developmentof

wisdom literature reinforces the common idea that it was ahumanistic,fundamentally mpirical,enterprise.This idea, whichI considerdoubtful,requiresfurther iscussion. Here, however, Iwishonlyto consider thenotion that God's answertoJob is depen-dent on the observationsof science,whetheror not these observa-tions were mediated by lists.15

There were, ofcourse, natural sciences in Egypt,so far as obser-vationsof nature wereused inmedicine,astrology,geography, nd

the like. There may well have been similar activities in Israel.Wisdom literature,however,showsno relationto any sortof scien-tific nterprise, ven understanding science in the broad, non-technical sense that Wissenschaft can have. Wisdom literatureshows no attempt to derive knowledge about human or divinebehavior from observations of the natural world. Some proverbs,such as the one about the ant (Prov. vi 6-8), mentionanimals as

examples reinforcing teaching about human behavior, but the

content of the teaching never originates n observationof animallife. Three passages in Proverbs-xxx 18-19,24-8, 29-31-do show

curiosityabout the natural world, but this curiositytoo is static

admiration, mplyingno attempt o extend therange ofknowledgeby observationof the natural world. Rather, theseproverbsseekto

14 See the surveyby Grapow and Westendorf above, n. 2).15 As Von Rad describedtheprocess,Job xxxviii-xxxixand Ben Sira xliii 1 ff.)

were not directlydependent on onomastica: yet:... dies kann immerhin

behauptetwerden, dass solche

enzyklopadischenWerke auch nach Israel gekommensind und dass man es auch in Israel ge-lernthat, die kosmischenund meteorologischenPhanomene, aber auch dieTierwelt derartwissenschaftlichufzureihen.Die Weisen, wohlbewandert naller gelehrtenLiteratur,standen dann vor der nichtallzuschwerenAufgabe,bei der HerstellungihrerLehrdichtungendiesemvon der damaligen Wissen-schaft angst sanktioniertenSchema entlang zu gehen und die niichternenReihen in Dichtungen umzusetzen (p. 296).

309







MICHAEL V. FOX

arouse a sense ofwonderin thecommonplace. In general, descrip-tion ofnature in the Bible is intended either o exemplify eachings

about human natureand behavioror to testifyoGod's power andmystery.

The references o naturalphenomena inJob xxxviii-xxxix o notderive from n intellectual ctivity nalogous to science. After ll,science (and Wissenschaft ) minimally implies the under-

takingofobservations nd the extensionofknowledge beyondfactsthateverybody an readilysee and know,whereas thepointofJobxxxviii-xxxix s that God's power and providenceare immediately

manifest n the mysteries nd wonders of nature. As for the factsJob does not know-such as wherelightdwells or when the rock-

gazelle givesbirth-the messageofGod's speechassumes thattheseare hidden from ll people (and this would include natural scien-

tists ). If anything, he author assumes thathuman knowledge s,in itsfundamentals,defined n advance. There isnothing hat God

says Job knows that anyone else could not know, and there is

nothingthatGod saysJob does not know that anyone else could

know. In these chapterswe get no sense that human intellect scapable of pushing back the frontiers f knowledge throughits

powersof observation. Human intellect s sufficientocomprehendwhat is most important:divine power and providence. And it is

capable of realizing its own boundaries. True wisdom consists n

recognizing in those boundaries evidence fordivine power (Job

xxxviii).Clearly, we must be more restrained in explaining formsof

biblical literatureby presumptionofforeign nfluence.At theveryleast, our comparisonsshouldbe restricted oexemplarsofthe same

genre, xcept in the case of localized comparisonsbetween specificmotifs, concepts, or linguistic usages. The comparativemethod --undoubtedly legitimate when applied to wisdomliterature-can workeffectivelynlywhenthe termsofcomparisonare well defined. Gattungsforschungust be allowed to work two

ways, not only bringing iteraryexemplars together n order to

disclose a Gattung,ut also holdingapartworksoftypes hatare notproperlycomparable.16

16 I wish to thankProfessorsJ. L. Crenshaw and M. Tsevat forreading and

commentingon earlier drafts of this essay.

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egyptian onomastica and biblical wisdom

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