I ran across the term Чермное море in my Russian reading; for a moment I was confused by its resemblance to Черное море ‘Black Sea,’ but it turns out чермный is an old (Church Slavic) word for ‘(dark) red’ which Vasmer derives from an IE word for ‘worm’ (cf. Lith. kirmìs, Skt. kŕ̥miṣ, Alb. krimb, OIr. cruim, Welsh рrуf). So far so good, but is this red sea the Red Sea? Who knows? The Russian Wikipedia article links to English Yam Suph, a term I was unfamiliar with (though I’d doubtless seen it before):
In the Exodus narrative, the Yam Suph (Hebrew: יַם-סוּף, romanized: Yam-Sup̄, lit. ’Reed Sea’), sometimes translated as Red Sea, is the body of water where the Crossing of the Red Sea happened in the story of the Exodus. This phrase appears in over twenty other places in the Hebrew Bible. This has traditionally been interpreted as referring to the Red Sea, following the Septuagint’s rendering of the phrase. However, an appropriate translation remains a matter of dispute, as is the exact location.
I’ll be interested to see what the Hattery has to say about all this.
I don’t have much to say, will just point out the Gorazd entry for the CS word.
It seems to be transparently “reed sea” in the Hebrew; the various alternative readings of סוּף seem pretty far-fetched to me. The question is not so much what it (literally) means, but where it was, and whether it’s actually the Red Sea – or not.
will just point out the Gorazd entry for the CS word.
Thanks!
The question is not so much what it (literally) means, but where it was, and whether it’s actually the Red Sea – or not.
And? I expect you to have an opinion on these things, or at least an Oti-Volta take!
The historical inundation that inspired the story would have been on the Mediterranean side. It could have been, perhaps, a stretch of marshland in the Nile delta.
I expect you to have an opinion on these things, or at least an Oti-Volta take!
Sadly, the Kusaal Bible opts for simply translating the translations: Atɛuk Zɛn’ug “Red Sea.” The Kusaasi are not very clued up on seas (atɛuk is a loanword.)
But the Mooré Bible has rudum ko-kãsengã, “the great water of rudumdi“, where rudumdi, the dictionary tells me, is Vetiveria nigritana
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysopogon_nigritanus
Not sure where they got that; the Mooré Bible strikes me as usually following French versions more literally than the Kusaal version follows English, but it’s “la mer Rouge” in Louis Second’s version. The parallel French text in the Mooré Bible Android app has “la mer Rouge” too. Good for the Mooré translators, though!
[I see that it’s a revision: my dead-tree 1983 Mooré Bible has (in modern orthography) mogr Miuugã “the Red Lake.”]
Here is my previous comment on what I think is by far the best theory explaining the signs and wonders of Exodus. The story is discussed a bunch here as well and this has another previous mention of “Yam Suph.”
There is no record in any Egyptian histories of a substantial part of its army being swallowed by a body of water pursuing some fleeing slaves. Given their meticulous record-keeping you’d expect there would be. There’s no record of any large number of slaves all fleeing at the same time. The whole biblical story is made up out of whole cloth IMO — and in the opinion of (say) Bart Ehrman.
About the only thing that’s clear is that ‘Red Sea’ is a terrible translation. (And I’ve a feeling there was a previous Hattery thread that touched on ‘Reed Sea’. Edit: ninja’d by Brett.)
Whereas the diaspora to and return from Babylon has archaeological support, the whole Israel-in-Egypt gig seems, as @V says, to be some sort of allegory. It’s not even clear Moses was a historical figure. This could all be just some ruse for the priests to assert the authority of the Commandments. I guess Cecil B DeMille could be blamed.
I must take to calling Afroasiatic “the Suphic languages.” Much better.
Lots of interesting stuff in Wikipedia, including Egyptian mentions of p3 ṯwfj.
Given their meticulous record-keeping you’d expect there would be.
It’s a good thing we can rely on the Son of the Sun, King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Lord of the Two Lands (may he be given life and health) to speak publicly and frankly about his occasional losses (that is, if such things ever happened), and to make sure they are durably recorded for posterity.
this red sea
Wine dark?
Well, there’s a White Sea … no Rosé Sea, though.
(At one point there was much talk in the UK of the EU having a Wine Lake. Whether this appealing geographical feature still exists, I do not know.)
https://youtube.com/watch?v=JqowmHgxVJQ
I see from WP that the familiar version is just a tad sanitised: original last verse:
The punk rolled up his big blue eyes
And said to the jocker, “Sandy,
I’ve hiked and hiked and wandered too,
But I ain’t seen any candy.
I’ve hiked and hiked till my feet are sore
And I’ll be damned if I hike any more
To be buggered sore like a hobo’s whore
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Rock_Candy_Mountains
WP says:
Yam-Sup̄
Nitpicking: s/b Yam-Sūp̄; סוּף not סֻף.
יַם yam ‘sea.of’ is the construct case of יָם yām, ‘sea’. sūp̄ is a mass noun.
Note that in Exodus 10:19 God summmons a רוּחַ יָם rûaḥ yām, lit. ‘sea wind’, to drive the locusts it had been punishing Egypt with into yam sūp̄. If we literally interpret it as northern wind, coming from the sea in Egypt, then yam sūp̄ would reasonably fit in the Nile delta. However, yām is used elsewhere in the OT to mean ‘west’, a metaphor which comes from a vantage point in Palestine. If the passage was written in Palestine, the local metaphor would imply a western wind which would plausibly drive the locusts into the Red Sea, at least the more southern ones. The ones in the delta, where I believe most agriculture was, would not suffer that indignity. On balance, literal yām and hence a delta location of yam sūp̄ seems more straightforward to me.
That said, I don’t know Ancient Egyptian geography, and no doubt this verse has been closely inspected by people who do.