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As I continue to learn new things about the language of scripture, I am fascinated by the high level of punning happening throughout these texts. As I was reading Pippy’s work on the Egyptian background to the Book of Revelation,[1]John Pippy, Egyptian Origin of the Book of Revelation, 2011. I came across this quote (see below) that really hit me. Then it got me thinking about Nephi. Right from the very beginning, Nephi tells us of his Egyptian roots when he says, ” I make a record in the alanguage of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians” (1 Nephi 1.2). Scholars have also found evidence that Nephi is punning with his own name.
The Magical Power of Word Play
Since words were a major category of images for the Egyptians, manipulating the sounds or the signs in a word was thought to affect the object it represented. The goal of such word play, or paronomasia, was far more than the creation of incantations with mysterious sounds. the very phrase ‘the god’s words,’ the most common term for their language, expressed the Egyptians’ belief that the divine was implicit in words. From Faulkner we read the following:
Word play was an important method of linking the earthly realm with the world of the gods. Egyptian puns seem heavy-handed, but they were not intended to amuse. They created an alternate focus which could deflect the power in a word. One example involves the euphemistic substitution of the phrase mi “come” for mut “death.” Most word play in the Book of the Dead either deflects enmity or gives power by a simple reworking of the name of a god or a place: ‘Hermopolis (Wenu) is opened (wenu)…’ The intent is normally to manipulate a name so as to demonstrate the deceased’s control over a person or a thing in the beyond. Stating a name, or merely threatening to do so, was often sufficient means for gaining power. A particularly common sort of word play occurs in addresses to the gods in the Book of the Dead. The deceased can sometimes get by the most fearsome of gatekeepers simply by saying : ‘I know you, I know your name.’ The name was more than ‘mere words’ – it was an image, a representation of the being or thing to which it was attached. To operate on the image was tantamount to operating on the thing itself. Word play can sometimes be employed in a euphemistic manner, effectively disarming a harmful or unpleasant thing by altering the meaning of its name. A good example of this usage occurs in Chapter 147 (speaking to Osiris): ‘the one purified by your own efflux (setjau) against (r) which the name of Rosetjau was made.’ By noting that the word Rosetjau sounds much like the phrase ‘against the efflux,’ the fluids issuing from Osiris’ body were thus made innocuous.[2]Raymond Faulkner, The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going forth by day, the complete papyrus of Ani, Chronicle Books, 1994, p. 147.
References
| ↑1 | John Pippy, Egyptian Origin of the Book of Revelation, 2011. |
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| ↑2 | Raymond Faulkner, The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going forth by day, the complete papyrus of Ani, Chronicle Books, 1994, p. 147. |