Egyptian influence on
Israel and
Judah was particularly strong in the reign of
Hezekiah during Egypt's
Third Intermediate Period; as a result, "
Hebrew literature is permeated with concepts and figures derived from the didactic treatises of Egypt", with
Amenemope often cited as the foremost example. Even in his first brief publication of excerpts from
Amenemope in 1922, Budge noted its obvious resemblance to the biblical wisdom books. He amplified these comments in his 1923 and 1924 publications, observing that the religiously based morality of
Amenemope "closely resembles" the precepts of the Hebrew Bible, and adducing specific parallels between
Amenemope and texts in
Proverbs,
Psalms, and
Deuteronomy. Others soon followed his lead.
Erman's position The most notable of these was
Adolf Erman, "the Dean of all Egyptologists", who in 1924 published an extensive list of correspondences between the texts of
Amenemope and the biblical
Book of Proverbs, with the bulk of them concentrated in Proverbs 22:17–23:11. It was Erman who used
Amenemope to emend a difficult reading in the text of Proverbs 22:20, where the Hebrew word
shilshom ("three days ago") appeared to be a copyist's error that could be meaningfully translated only with difficulty. Erman pointed out that substituting the similar word
sheloshim ("thirty") not only made good sense in context, but yielded the following close parallel between the two texts, with the now-restored "thirty sayings" in Proverbs 22:20 corresponding exactly to the thirty numbered chapters in
Amenemope:
(Proverbs 22:20): "Have I not written for you thirty sayings of counsel and knowledge?" (ESV)
(Amenemope, ch. 30, line 539): "Look to these thirty chapters; they inform, they educate." Erman also argued that this correspondence demonstrated that the Hebrew text had been influenced by the Egyptian instead of the other way around, since the Egyptian text of
Amenemope explicitly enumerates thirty chapters whereas the Hebrew text of Proverbs does not have such clear-cut divisions, and would therefore be more likely to lose the original meaning during copying. Since Erman's time there has been a near consensus among scholars that there exists a literary connection between the two works, although the direction of influence remains contentious even today. The majority has concluded that Proverbs 22:17–23:10 was dependent on
Amenemope; a minority is split between viewing the Hebrew text as the original inspiration for
Amenemope and viewing both works as dependent on a now lost
Semitic source.
The majority position A major factor in determining the direction of influence is the date at which
Amenemope was composed. At one time the mid-1st millennium BC was put forward as a likely date for the composition of
Amenemope, which gave some support to the argument for the priority of
Proverbs. However,
Jaroslav Černý, whose authority on New Kingdom paleography was so great that his conclusions were considered "unquestionable", dated the fragmentary
Amenemope text on the
Cairo 1840 ostracon to the late 21st dynasty. Since a 21st-dynasty date inevitably makes
Amenemope chronologically prior to the earliest possible date for
Proverbs, this would definitively establish the priority of
Amenemope over
Proverbs and make influence in the other direction impossible. Other evidence for Egyptian priority includes: • the close literary relationship between
Amenemope and earlier Ancient Egyptian works such as the
Instruction of Kagemni and the
Instruction of Ptahhotep (both dated to at least the
12th dynasty) and the
Instruction of Ani (dated to the late 18th or early 19th dynasty); • the demonstrably native Egyptian character of the genre, themes, and vocabulary of
Amenemope; • the discovery of the editorial and structural mechanisms by which the Egyptian original was adapted by the biblical author. By the 1960s there was a virtual consensus among scholars in support of the priority of
Amenemope and its influence on
Proverbs. For example,
John A. Wilson declared in the mid-20th century: "[W]e believe that there is a direct connection between these two pieces of wisdom literature, and that Amen-em-Opet was the ancestor text. The secondary nature of the Hebrew seems established." Many study Bibles and commentaries followed suit, including the
Jerusalem Bible, introductions to the
Old Testament by Pfeiffer and Eissfeldt, and others. The translators of the Catholic
New American Bible, reflecting and extending this agreement, even went so far as to emend the obscure Hebrew text of Proverbs 22:19 (traditionally translated as "I have made known to you this day, even to you") to read "I make known to you the words of Amen-em-Ope."
The minority response R. N. Whybray, who at one point supported the majority position, changed sides during the 1990s and cast doubt on the relationship between
Amenemope and
Proverbs, while still acknowledging certain affinities. He argued, in part, that only some of the topics in the Egyptian text can be found in Proverbs 22:17–24:22 and that their sequence differs. J. A. Emerton and Nili Shupak have subsequently argued strongly against Whybray's conclusions. John Ruffle takes a more conservative approach: "The connection so casually assumed is often very superficial, rarely more than similarity of subject matter, often quite differently treated and does not survive detailed examination. I believe it can merit no more definite verdict than 'not proven' and that it certainly does not exist to the extent that is often assumed", and "The parallels that I have drawn between [the
huehuetlatolli of the
Aztecs], (recorded by
Bernardino de Sahagún in the 1500s) and ancient Near Eastern wisdom are in no way exhaustive, but the fact that they can be produced so easily underlines what should be obvious anyway, that such precepts and images are universally acceptable and hence that similar passages may occur in Proverbs and Amenemope simply by coincidence."
Comparison of texts A number of passages in the
Instruction of Amenemope have been compared with the Book of Proverbs, including:
(Proverbs 22:17–18):
"Incline thine ear, and hear the words of the wise, And apply thine heart to my doctrine; For it is pleasant if thou keep them in thy belly, that they may be established together upon thy lips" (Amenemope, ch. 1): "Give thine ear, and hear what I say, And apply thine heart to apprehend; It is good for thee to place them in thine heart, let them rest in the casket of thy belly; That they may act as a peg upon thy tongue"
(Proverbs 23:12):
"Apply thine heart unto instruction and thine ears to the words of knowledge" (Amenemope, ch. 1): "Give thine ears, hear the words that are said, give thine heart to interpret them." ==See also==