by Rev. Clinton Chisholm

Seasoned scholars know that making sense of names in a foreign language requires great linguistic care otherwise one’s ignorance is easily exposed to the specialist in languages.Dr. Tafari writes “In an insightful paper Africa And Palestine In Antiquity, noted Kemetic scholar Professor Charles Finch argues that Abraham’s connection with the Egyptian sun god Ra is not coincidental, since in Egyptian, Abraham’s name (Ibraim) breaks down into Ib = wisdom, ra = Ra, and im = light (”the wisdom of Ra’s light”).”

This kind of reasoning is popular but problematic. Professor Finch’s alleged argument is worthy of note only if Abraham’s Hebrew name is really Ibraim and is the same in Egyptian.The name Abraham is the new name given to the patriarch in Genesis 17.5 and in that text the meaning of the new name is given as ‘father of many nations’.The English Abraham is correct—Ibraim is incorrect—and is a letter for letter rendition (transliteration) of the Hebrew. So any play on the incorrect Ibraim is already suspect. - Continue Reading In This Blog, Tidbits by Rev. Dr. Clinton Chisholm

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