Defective Spelling: Key to Historicity

[Jim Stinehart]

Defective Spelling: Key to Historicity

If a proper name in the Patriarchal narratives features plene spelling, then either the name is late, not being a Bronze Age name, or the name has been corrupted, or both. Conversely, if a name in the Patriarchal narratives is truly ancient and is not corrupt, then it must feature defective spelling. For example, one reason we can be confident that “Jacob” is a truly ancient name is that it is never spelled using plene spelling in the entirety of the Patriarchal narratives.

On this thread, let’s examine a series of non-Hebrew proper names in the Patriarchal narratives. We will find that the scholarly approach is consistently as follows:

1. N-e-v-e-r consider a defective spelling analysis of such non-Hebrew proper name.

2. Insist on plene spelling no matter how many giant linguistic leaps must be made, and no matter how unsatisfactory the resulting alleged meaning of the non-Hebrew proper name may be.

3. Then announce that such non-Hebrew proper name in the Patriarchal narratives is late, or corrupt, or at best inexplicable.

“Potiphar”

As our first example, consider the non-Hebrew proper name “Potiphar”, which is the KJV English [mis-]transliteration of the name of Joseph’s first Egyptian master, the Captain of the Palace Guard in charge of Pharaoh’s security, at Genesis 37: 36 and 39: 1. The name “Potiphar” is spelled as follows: פוטיפר : PW+YPR : peh-vav-teth-yod-peh-resh.

Pursuant to scholarly practice items #1 and #2 above, the name “Potiphar” has never been analyzed on a defective spelling basis, but rather is always analyzed as follows:

פו [PW/peh-vav] = pA (using plene spelling)

טי [+Y/teth-yod] = dj [di] (using plene spelling)

פ [P/peh] = pA (defective spelling)

ר [R/resh] = ra (defective spelling)

That analysis is unanimous among mainstream university scholars today, despite the inconvenient fact that such plene spelling approach gives the absurd result of the Captain of the Palace Guard and the high-priest of Ra from On then allegedly having the s-a-m-e name! Plus, pursuant to scholarly practice item #3 above, the scholarly community proudly and loudly announces that the name “Potiphar” is allegedly “late”, allegedly post-dating the Bronze Age:

“Potiphera and Potiphar. The first form is universally recognized as deriving from Egyptian P(a)-di-Pare‘, ‘the gift of (the sun-god) Pre’. In this form the name exhibits a form (Pa-di-Deity) first attested in the Nineteenth Dynasty, in the thirteenth century, not earlier; and an actual example of Padipare occurs on a stela of 1070 or after. …Potiphar is usually taken to be the same name with loss of the final consonant, ‘ayin. This would be unusual; but for the present I can do no better on this one!” K.A. Kitchen, “On the Reliability of the Old Testament” (2003), pp. 346-347

In my next post, I will show that the above “universally recognized” plene spelling analysis of “Potiphar” is untenable linguistically. I will also show that a defective spelling analysis reveals the true antiquity, and pinpoint uncorrupted spelling accuracy, of this Biblical Egyptian name.

If and as long as no university scholar has ever even a-s-k-e-d what a defective spelling analysis of the name “Potiphar” would be, then the unanimous verdict of the scholarly community that the name “Potiphar” is allegedly “late” rings hollow. If we on the b-hebrew list want to rescue the historicity and true antiquity of the Patriarchal narratives from the unanimous claims to the contrary of the scholarly community, then task #1 is to i-n-s-i-s-t on doing defective spelling analyses of non-Hebrew proper names in the Patriarchal narratives.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

[Jim Stinehart]

“Potiphar”

A. The “universally recognized” plene spelling analysis by today’s scholars of the Biblical Egyptian name “Potiphar” in the Patriarchal narratives is untenable linguistically.

As I noted in my previous post, the name “Potiphar” has never been analyzed on a defective spelling basis, but rather is always analyzed as follows:

פו [PW/peh-vav] = pA (using plene spelling)

טי [+Y/teth-yod] = dj [di] (using plene spelling)

פ [P/peh] = pA (defective spelling)

ר [R/resh] = ra (defective spelling)

But each of the above two plene spelling items is untenable linguistically.

(1) The Egyptian word pA cannot be spelled in Hebrew as פו [PW/peh-vav].

From the Amarna Letters, we know that the standard cuneiform rendering of the Egyptian word pA [meaning “the”] was: pi. As such, a plene spelling of pi would certainly be פי [PY/peh-yod], n-o-t the פו [PW/peh-vav] that we see in the received Masoretic text. Since pA cannot be spelled pu or po, the Hebrew letters פו [PW/peh-vav] cannot be the plene spelling of pA.

(2) The first letter in Joseph’s Egyptian name at Genesis 41: 45 is צ [ssade/C], which is viewed as rendering the Egyptian phoneme dj, being a shortened form of the well-known Egyptian word djed. The second hieroglyph for the attested Egyptian name pA-dj-pA-ra [“Padipare”] represents dj, which as such would be expected to map to either צ [ssade/C] or ז [zayin/Z]. Accordingly, there’s no way that the dj in pA-dj-pA-ra could be rendered by the טי [+Y/teth-yod] that we see in the received Hebrew text for “Potiphar”. The Egyptian phoneme dj does not map to Hebrew ט/teth/+.

Thus we see that the “universally recognized” plene spelling analysis of the name “Potiphar” is untenable linguistically.

B. A defective spelling analysis of “Potiphar” is, by contrast, natural and shows the great antiquity and historical accuracy of this Biblical Egyptian name in the Patriarchal narratives.

Per a defective spelling analysis, the second letter in “Potiphar”, being ו [W/vav], is a consonantal vav, not a generic vowel indicator being used in plene spelling. The ט [teth/+] that follows maps to Egyptian t. [Thus the city name “Tob” for example uses teth in Egyptian hieroglyphics, in cuneiform, and in Hebrew spelling.] Implying Egyptian aleph, just as one does for the פ [peh/P] each time it appears in this name, results in the second Egyptian word in this name being: wAt. That means “distant”, so that the first three Hebrew letters are rendering pA wAt, meaning: “The Distant [one]”. The last two letters, פר [peh-resh/PR], are the expected Hebrew defective spelling of pA ra, meaning “The Ra”. These two substantive elements of this Biblical Egyptian name are connected by a hyphen, that is, a xireq compaginis, namely the Hebrew letter י [yod/Y].

Note how natural the defective spelling analysis of “Potiphar” is, as compared to the heroic, if misguided, efforts by scholars to try to forcefit “Potiphar”, via plene spelling, to match the 11th century BCE attested Egyptian name “Padipare”/pA-dj-pA-ra, which is simply not possible.

The effective meaning of this Biblical Egyptian name, which literally is “The Distant [one] -- The Ra”, is: “Devoted to Ra”. As such, “Potipherah” is the Biblical Hebrew equivalent of the historical name of the Captain of the Palace Guard at Amarna in Year 13: “Ra-mose”, which literally means “Born to Ra”, but whose effective meaning is identical to that of “Potiphar”: “Devoted to Ra”.

Rather than being “late”, as university scholars would have it, “Potiphar” is the Biblical Hebrew equivalent of the historical name of the Captain of the Palace Guard at Amarna in Year 13. All it takes to see that is to apply defective spelling to this Biblical Egyptian name in the Patriarchal narratives.

* * *

The key to confirming the great antiquity and historical accuracy of the Patriarchal narratives is to analyze the non-Hebrew names in the received text strictly on the basis of defective spelling. Based on what they have published, university scholars have never done that. But on this thread we will see the Late Bronze Age bona fides of many non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives come shining through, by using the simple but necessary expedient of always strictly applying defective spelling. Plene spelling analyses of these names are invariably like the above plene spelling analysis of “Potiphar”: such a plene spelling analysis simply will not work on any level. By sharp contrast, a rigorous defective spelling analysis routinely enables these otherwise mysterious names to become virtually self-explanatory, always having an ideal meaning, and deftly showing their great antiquity and historical accuracy.

It all comes down to insisting on doing a strictly defective spelling analysis of each and every non-Hebrew name in the Patriarchal narratives. The ubiquitous scholarly claims that such names are late or corrupt or inexplicable fall by the wayside one by one -- but if and only if one is willing to apply a defective spelling analysis.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

[Isaac Fried]

1. Possibly פוטיפר POTIYPAR of Gen. 37:36, and פוטי פרע POTIY PERA of Gen. 41:45 are the same name, with the fractions פר and פרע being both the "defective spelling" of פרעה, namely, the name meaning 'the servant of Pharaoh'.

2. The addition of the reading props yod and waw is possibly late, and is often inconsistent. For instance, in Deut. 22:14 it is
והוצא עליה שם רע
with והוצא lacking a yod. Yet down in verse 19 it is
כי הוציא שם רע
with הוציא having a yod.

3. It is understandable that a well known name is written "defectively".

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Jim Stinehart]

Isaac Fried:

You wrote: “Possibly פוטיפר POTIYPAR of Gen. 37:36, and פוטי פרע POTIY PERA of Gen. 41:45 are the same name, with the fractions פר and פרע being both the "defective spelling" of פרעה, namely, the name meaning 'the servant of Pharaoh'. ...The addition of the reading props yod and waw is possibly late, and is often inconsistent.”

For Hebrew common words throughout the Bible, it’s true that “The addition of the reading props yod and waw is possibly late, and is often inconsistent.” But not for non-Hebrew proper names in the Patriarchal narratives! In a Biblical Egyptian name in Genesis, that ו/vav/W you see as the second letter in “Potiphar” and “Potipherah” is not a late-added generic vowel in a consonant-vowel syllable, per mid-1st millennium BCE plene spelling, as the scholarly community would have it. No way. Rather, that ו/vav/W is a consonantal ו/vav/W, per the defective spelling that always applies to non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives. That consonantal vav is the first letter in the Egyptian word wAt, meaning “distant”, where the two consonants in the expected Hebrew rendering of such Egyptian word are ו/vav/W and ט/teth/+. The Egyptian aleph/A is effectively acting like a vowel, so in defective spelling such a vowel will not be expressly rendered by any Hebrew letter, but rather must be implied.

In that connection, please consider this key, objective fact. The name “Jacob” never has plene spelling in the Patriarchal narratives. So why should the names “Potiphar”, “Potipherah” and “Pharaoh” be thought to have plene spelling? They don’t!

Well then what about the Hebrew letter ע at the end of “Potipherah”? That’s no ayin. No way. That’s Hebrew ghayin/ġ, and renders the only one of the three Egyptian heths that, like Hebrew ghayin, was a velar fricative. So the last element of “Potipherah” is rx, that is, Egyptian r, Egyptian velar fricative heth. The Egyptian word rx means “know”, and as such the name “Potipherah” has a different meaning than the name “Potiphar”. “Potiphar” is the Biblical Hebrew equivalent of the historical name of the Captain of the Palace Guard at Amarna in Year 13, Ra-mose, and “Potipherah” is the Biblical Hebrew equivalent of the historical name and title of the high-priest of Ra from On at Amarna in Year 13: Pawah, Greatest Seer.

But now we come to the name “Pharaoh” itself. Isaac Fried, why don’t you analyze that name on the basis of strictly defective spelling? If it’s old and not corrupt [which indeed is the case], then it’s got to be defective spelling. You’re seeing four true consonants there being rendered by those four Hebrew letters [and remember it’s ghayin, not ayin], with nary a vowel-type phoneme in sight as an explicit Hebrew letter: פרעה : PRġH : peh-resh-ghayin-he. Just ask what those four elements would be in Egyptian, and we’ll be in for a great and wondrous historical surprise.

When you’re talking non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives, you’re talking d-e-f-e-c-t-i-v-e spelling, all the way in every way. These names are perfect in the unpointed Masoretic text as is, with their antiquity and great historical accuracy in the context of Year 13 coming shining through -- but if and only if one is willing to ask if they’re spelled using strictly defective spelling.

No university scholar has ever a-s-k-e-d what “Pharaoh” would mean if strictly defective spelling applied. But we can do that on the b-hebrew list! The Hebrew letter ע is a ghayin, rendering the Egyptian heth that was a velar fricative, which is x in the Buurman standard transliteration scheme for Egyptian. The Hebrew letter ה is the softest of the three Egyptian heths, being X in Buurman transliteration. All of the vowels, being Egyptian aleph or, in one case in non-initial position, Egyptian ayin, are implied, because this is defective spelling, which did not render vowels explicitly. Egyptian aleph, Egyptian velar fricative heth is Ax, meaning “spirit” or “soul”. Egyptian softest heth, Egyptian aleph is XA, meaning “body”. So the last two Hebrew letters in “Pharaoh”, עה, mean “body and soul”. The first two letters, פר, are the same as the last two letters of “Potiphar”, and have the same meaning: pA ra : “The [sun-god] Ra”.

Now think Year 13 and you’ve got it. The key to confirming the great antiquity and stunning historical accuracy of the Patriarchal narratives is to analyze the non-Hebrew names in the received text of Genesis on a strictly defective spelling basis. That includes, first and foremost, “Pharaoh”.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

[Isaac Fried]

Says Jim: among many other things "That’s Hebrew ghayin/ġ"

Say I: there is no "ghayin" in Hebrew. It is imitation of Arabic (via Greek), where the ע Ayin is pressed so deeply into the gullet that it metamorphoses into a throaty stoppage G, or even R. The city name Gaza (occasionally Raza) is certainly עזה and the Maghreb is certainly מערב 'the west'.

Isaac Fried
Boston University

[Jim Stinehart]

Isaac Fried:

You wrote: “Say I: there is no "ghayin" in Hebrew. It is imitation of Arabic (via Greek), where the ע Ayin is pressed so deeply into the gullet that it metamorphoses into a throaty stoppage G, or even R. The city name Gaza (occasionally Raza) is certainly עזה and the Maghreb is certainly מערב 'the west'.”

1. “Tidal”

In Ugaritic alphabetical writing, one royal Hittite name was written as follows: tdġl. That third letter is clearly a ghayin in Ugaritic. The only way to write that same Hittite royal name in Hebrew is exactly the way it’s done at Genesis 14: 1, 9: תדעל : TDġL : tav-dalet-ghayin-lamed.

In non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives, the Hebrew letter ע in non-initial position represents a ghayin, not an ayin.

2. “Shinar”

In the Amarna Letters, Hurrian-dominated Syria is on one occasion [EA 35: 49] referred to as: $a-an-xa-ar. Though ambiguous in cuneiform, further linguistic analysis reveals that the heth in this Hurrian-derived name is the Hurrian ghayin-heth, not the regular Hurrian heth. The most accurate way to spell $a-an-ġa-ar in Hebrew defective spelling is exactly what one sees in the received unpointed Masoretic text at Genesis 14: 1, 9 [where the Hebrew letter ע is ghayin]: שנער : $NġR : shin-nun-ghayin-resh. Note once again that in non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives, the Hebrew letter ע in non-initial position represents a ghayin, not an ayin. And as always, we’re dealing solely with defective spelling of these non-Hebrew names.

3. “Potipherah”

The same principle applies to this Biblical Egyptian name. The Hebrew letter ע at the end of this name is a ghayin, not an ayin. Accordingly, the name “Potipherah” is a different name than “Potiphar”, rather than these two Biblical Egyptian names being, as university scholars unanimously but erroneously assert, the same Egyptian name, simply having slightly different Hebrew spellings. No way. That scholarly view cannot possibly be right.

4. “Pharaoh”

As with the three prior examples, the Hebrew letter ע in this name is a ghayin, not an ayin. As with “Potipherah”, that Hebrew ghayin renders the only one of the three Egyptian heths that is a velar fricative, as is Hebrew ghayin itself. The Hebrew letter ה at the end of “Pharaoh” likewise does not render some sort of a vowel sound or an Egyptian aleph, as university scholars would have it. No, the Hebrew letter ה/he/H renders the softest of the three Egyptian heths. The third Egyptian heth [not present in these particular Biblical Egyptian names] would be rendered by the Hebrew letter ח/heth/X.

Most importantly, there are no vowels or vowel-type phonemes expressly rendered by Hebrew letters in any of these names. Not. Rather, in these non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives we are seeing one true consonant after another, per defective spelling. [When we get to Hurrian names in the Patriarchal narratives, we will see vowels as their own separate syllables, which is commonplace in Hurrian, if non-existent in Hebrew. But we’ll never see plene spelling in non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives, where interior ו/vav/W or interior י/yod/Y is used as a generic vowel indicator for the vowel in a consonant-vowel syllable.]

* * *

A millennium or so later, the Septuagint remembered the ghayin in “Tidal” [as in Gaza], but not the ghayin in “Shinar” or “Potipherah” or “Pharaoh”. That hit-or-miss lack of accuracy regarding whether it’s a ghayin or an ayin is par for the course for the Septuagint, which cannot be relied upon regarding this issue.

By contrast, please note the letter-for-letter spelling accuracy in the received Masoretic text of the first two above non-Hebrew names from the mid-14th century BCE, as fully verified by non-biblical sources. University scholars insist that the non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives are “late” and corrupt and often feature plene spelling. Not! All of the non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives that we have been examining on this thread -- Potiphar, Potipherah, Pharaoh, Tidal, Shinar -- are, on the contrary, truly ancient [dating to Year 13], not corrupt, and a-l-w-a-y-s use only defective spelling.

By insisting on reading the Hebrew letter ע as ayin instead of ghayin, and by insisting on using a plene spelling analysis whenever there is an interior י/yod/Y or interior י/vav/W, university scholars have completely misinterpreted these ancient non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives. The Masoretic text, as is, is perfect as to all of the above names. We in fact have pinpoint accurate, letter-for-letter spellings of dozens of names in various languages from Year 13 in the received text, if only we are courageous enough to a-s-k if defective spelling always applies to these names.

The #1 key to restoring the antiquity and great historical accuracy of the Patriarchal narratives is to analyze all non-Hebrew names therein on a defective spelling basis. The #2 key regarding non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives is to view (i) the Hebrew letter ע in non-initial position as being ghayin, not ayin, and (ii) the Hebrew letter י/yod/Y, when it appears between two elements in a name, as being hireq compaginis [and as such functioning as a dash or hyphen]. No vowel-type phonemes are rendered in the defective spelling of ancient non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives. It’s true defective spelling, all the way in every way.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

[Isaac Fried]

Adding to the evidence on the antiquity of the dagesh and the relative newness of the inserted reading props yod and waw is the word הַיּוּלָּד of Judges 13:8, which has a clearly superfluous dagesh in the letter L, following a U.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Jim Stinehart]

Isaac Fried:

You wrote: “Adding to the evidence on the antiquity of the dagesh and the relative newness of the inserted reading props yod and waw is the word הַיּוּלָּד of Judges 13:8, which has a clearly superfluous dagesh in the letter L, following a U.”

That is a Hebrew common word in Judges, not a non-Hebrew name in the Patriarchal narratives.

For Hebrew common words, one often sees plene spelling, and sometimes questionable plene spelling, throughout the Bible. Scribes routinely added plene spelling to Hebrew common words, including in the Patriarchal narratives.

But by sharp contrast, scribes n-e-v-e-r added plene spelling to non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives, nor did they ever add plene spelling to the name “Jacob” in the Patriarchal narratives either.

You cannot trust the spelling of Hebrew common words in the Bible to be the original spelling. But you can trust the spelling of non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives to be the original alphabetical spelling by a scribe in late 7th century BCE Jerusalem; that spelling was never changed thereafter, even unto the present day. [However, the truly original spelling was in cuneiform in the Late Bronze Age, so sometimes the scribe in late 7th century BCE Jerusalem misunderstood certain ambiguous cuneiform signs.]

What’s exciting about non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives is precisely that there is n-e-v-e-r any plene spelling! If that’s not exciting, then what is exciting?

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

[Isaac Fried]

There is, of course, a simple explanation to this. The name יעקב is known to all and needs no props, whereas the foreign פטפר is a puzzle without reading props. This is how it is done to this day, to write the Japanese car name מיצובישי in full.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Jim Stinehart]

Isaac Fried:

You wrote: “There is, of course, a simple explanation to this. The name יעקב is known to all and needs no props, whereas the foreign פטפר is a puzzle without reading props.”

Not true on either count.

1. “Jacob”

The name “Jacob” appears only once in Leviticus, and there at Leviticus 26: 42 we see plene spelling: יעקוב : Y‘QWB : yod-ayin-qof-vav-bet. Accordingly, it is notable that one never sees plene spelling of “Jacob” in the Patriarchal narratives. If it were true as to “Jacob” that such name “is known to all and needs no props”, then why does Leviticus 26: 42 have plene spelling of that name?

2. “Potiphar”

There is no such Biblical Egyptian name as the פטפר that you have made up. Rather, “Potiphar” has as its second element וט : vav-teth : W+, where the vav is a consonantal vav, and the Egyptian word being rendered there is wAt, meaning “distant”. That key word references the important fact that in his Great Hymn, Akhenaten on several occasions says that the sun-god Ra/Aten is a “distant”/wAt god. If one manually takes out the ו/vav/W, as you have done, then that totally destroys this Biblical Egyptian name. The ו/vav/W absolutely must be there, because it’s a consonantal vav, and it’s an integral element of the Egyptian word wAt.

You see, in non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives, one n-e-v-e-r sees plene spelling! Never. Rather, what you see is what you get, with no later editor having ever added in any plene spelling. An interior ו/vav/W is either a consonantal vav, or [in Hurrian names] it’s the vowel U [or an anaptyxe vowel] as its own separate syllable. An interior ו/vav/W in a non-Hebrew name in the Patriarchal narratives is n-e-v-e-r a “prop”, never being a generic vowel indicator in a consonant-vowel syllable using plene spelling. Not. Not in non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives.

If you’re wondering why the scholarly explanations of the Biblical Egyptian names in Genesis often make little or no sense, it’s primarily because scholars don’t realize that such names are always spelled in the received text using solely defective spelling. And if you wonder why dozens of Hurrian names in the Patriarchal narratives are misunderstood as being west Semitic names with plene spelling and absurdist meanings, that is in large part because all of those Hurrian true vowels as their own separate syllables are misinterpreted as being plene spelling. For example, erroneously applying plene spelling is what leads scholars to make the manifestly untenable claim that the name of Esau’s first wife was allegedly “Jewess”. No way. As we will see later in this thread, such name makes perfect sense [in Hurrian], once one applies defective spelling in analyzing such name.

The exciting new news on this thread is that non-Hebrew names in the Patriarchal narratives n-e-v-e-r use plene spelling.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois