The Egyptians frequently interacted with various nomadic peoples, both hostile and benign. To begin, the notion of “tribes of the desert” coming against Egypt does not necessarily refer to Israel. This lack of uniqueness also extends to the items he lists as direct parallels to the Exodus tradition. So the Ipuwer Papyrus is certainly part of a “genre” and is not as remarkable or unique as Simcha seems to think. This process also kills off a lot of fish, making the river stink and the water bad. It occurs in Egyptian and other texts spread across a pretty broad period of time, and it is a metaphorical description of the reddening of the Nile when particularly heavy inundation washes a great deal of red sediment down from Upper Egypt. Most importantly for Simcha’s claims, the notion of the river turning to blood is actually not that unique. The Lament for Sumer and Urim, for instance, contains pleonastic lists of devastating circumstances following a deity’s actions against a region, just like the Ipuwer Papyrus. Sumerian city laments are also strikingly similar in style as well as content. Laments for the dead, for instance, are full of pessimism and tragedy. Next, it is a lament, which is a known genre of Egyptian literature (despite Simcha’s assumption that the pessimism is “remarkable” and uncommon). It makes frequent use of conventional poetic elements, like parallelism and metonymy. It not only contains similar stylistic features to other texts, but also subject matter. So is the Ipuwer Papyrus “part of a ‘genre'”? Obviously. To insist that a text is not part of a genre is to betray complete and utter ignorance of the concept. All texts belong to some genre or another. It is not the content of the list that screams “shopping list,” it is those conventional features (small piece of paper, items listed in specific quantities, etc.). Because you know the genre, you can interpret the meaning of the list. How do you know? Because “shopping list” is a genre, and you know the genre and its associated stylistic features. The underlying implication is that this is a list of things I want you to go buy, for whatever bizarre reason. And yet, you can probably tell pretty quickly what I might want you to do with it. Now, obviously, you’ve never seen a text exactly like this before. As an example, imagine I handed you a small piece of paper with the following written on it:įootball helmet full of cottage cheese (low fat) If a text were not part of a genre, it would not be adequately understood. Every text is a part of some genre or another. What they must share are sets of stylistic features, which are never entirely unique. His definition is also lacking, as it seems to indicate that texts of a similar genre have to share the same or similar subject matter, which they do not. The fact is that there is no papyrus like the Ipuwer Papyrus.Įvidently Simcha thinks the Ipuwer Papyrus is not “part of a ‘genre.'” He obviously does not know what a “genre” is, or how the term is used in scholarship. A “genre” is a French word for a series, class or category of stories that share common themes. Scholars have dismissed the Papyrus as a work of fiction and describe it as part of a “genre”. The problems with this conclusion and the methods undergirding it are legion, but I start with a betrayal on Simcha’s part of his complete and utter ignorance of any methodological standards of literary evaluation: According to Simcha, the Israelites “bankrupted” the Egyptians.ģ) The text mentions earthquakes and the Nile turning to blood.Ĥ) The text describes the exodus event itself, stating that “those who were Egyptians foreigners.” Simcha takes this to refer to the Israelites’ departure from Egypt. Now, on what is this conclusion based? Simcha provides only a few pieces of evidentiary support, among them the text’s putative uniqueness and a handful of narrative parallels:ġ) The text states “the tribes of the desert have risen above the Egyptians,” which, in Simcha’s mind, can only refer to Israel.Ģ) The text states “the servant takes what he finds” “poor men have become wealthy” a man who could not afford to have “sandals for himself is now a possessor of riches.” These comments about the poor breaching class boundaries are taken as a “direct parallel” to Exod 12:35, which states that the Israelites borrowed gold, silver, and clothing from the Egyptians. The Ipuwer Papyrus is basically the story of the Biblical Exodus, from an Egyptian point of view. Simcha Jacobovici recently published a blog post insisting in no uncertain terms that the Ipuwer Papyrus is “proof” of the Exodus.
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