Bonus 31 - Tale of Two Brothers Papyrus

Sheet from the Tale of Two Brothers,
Papyrus D'Orbiney. From Egypt.
End of the 19th Dynasty (1185 BC)
Public Domain
Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum

Tale of Two Brothers Papyrus (Papyrus D’Orbiney, Papyrus Brit. Mus. 10183) 1.  is an Egyptian style folk tale that became popular in the New Kingdom period (1550-1070 BC) during the reign of Seti II (1200 to 1194 BC).2.  The text is preserved on the D’Orbiney Papyrus 3.   and was acquired by the British Museum in 1857. 4.

Using human characters the story is told with fantastic details. Two brothers, Anpu, also called Anubis and Bata, grow up in a typical Egyptian household, but when Anubis’ wife tries to seduce Bata, he responds by claiming that Bata had seduced her, which turned the brothers against each other. Anubis is convinced of his brother’s disloyalty from his wife and Bata is forced to leave the family. However, later Anubis learns of his wife scheme and kills his wife and the two brothers are reconciled. The story continues with the gods providing a wife for Bata followed by more disloyalty. Bata take on a variety of different forms the last of which being a persea tree. While Beta’s wife is cutting down the tree, she is impregnated by a splinter fling into her mouth and eventually Bata is reborn as the king of Egypt. He appoints Anubis his brother as his heir. 5.

Susan Tower Hollis states that the story may “contain reflexes of an actual historical situation.” 6.   The relationship between Beta and his brother’s wife is often mentioned as a similar story to Joseph and Potiphar’s wife (Gen 39:1–20). 7.  Some have seen similarities to the story of Moses and his brother Aaron (Exod 6:16-20), along with the death of the servant (Exod 2:12) and reflected in the Tale of Two Brothers. Brad C. Sparks claims that some 90 Egyptian papyri 8.   demonstrate similar parallels to the Exodus story, including the Ipuwer Papyrus, El Arish Stele (305–31 BC), 9.  Speos Artemidos Inscription (Queen Hatshepsut and Seti I, 1490–1460 BC), 10.  Tempest Stela (ca. 1550 BC), 11.  and Demotic Chronicle (ca. 1550 BC). 12.   While any one of these stories may not prove the Egyptians were aware of the Exodus events, the collective body of known literature with striking parallels to various elements of the biblical story implies that the event of the Exodus may still have been part of the Egyptian living memory in either the 15th or 13th cent. BC.

Footnotes

• 1. P. D’Orbiney, P. Brit. Mus. 10183. Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: The New Kingdom, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (Berkeley, Calf.: University of California Press, 2006), 203.; Charles E. Moldenke, ed., Papyrus D’Orbiney (British Museum): The Hieroglyphic Transcription (Watchung, N.J.: Elsinore, 1900).
• 2. Jacobus Van Dijk, “The Amarna Period and the Later New Kingdom,” in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Edited by Ian Shaw (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2000), 303.
• 3. Charles E. Moldenke, ed., Papyrus D’Orbiney (British Museum): The Hieroglyphic Transcription (Watchung, N.J.: Elsinore, 1900).
• 4. Lewis Spence, An Introduction to Mythology (Cosimo, Inc. 2004, ISBN 1-59605-056-X), 247.
• 5. Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: The New Kingdom, 2nd ed., vol. 2, 3 vols. (Berkeley, Calf.: University of California Press, 2006), 203-211; William Kelly Simpson, ed., The Literature of Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, Stelae, Autobiographies, and Poetry, trans. Robert K. Ritner, Vincent A. Tobin, and Edward Wente, Jr. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003), 80-90; Susan T. Hollis, The Ancient Egyptian “Tale of Two Brothers”: A Mythological, Religious, Literary, and Historico-Political Study, Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture (London, U.K.: Bannerstone, 2008).
• 6. Hollis, The Ancient Egyptian “Tale of Two Brothers”, 110.
• 7. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: The New Kingdom, 203.
• 8. Brad C. Sparks, “Egyptian Text Parallels to the Exodus: The Egyptology Literature,” in Out of Egypt: Israel’s Exodus Between Text and Memory, History and Imagination Conference, ed. Thomas E. Levy (presented at the Qualcomm Institute, University of California, San Diego, 2013).
• 9. Barbara J. Sivertsen, The Parting of the Sea: How Volcanoes, Earthquakes, and Plagues Shaped the Story of Exodus (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011), 125–29.
• 10. Hans Goedicke, “Hatshepsut’s Temple Inscription at Speo Artemidos,” Biblical Archaeology Review 7, no. 5 (1981): 42; Hershel Shanks, “The Exodus and the Crossing of the Red Sea, According to Hans Goedicke,” Biblical Archaeology Review 7, no. 5 (1981): 42–50; Alan H. Gardiner, “Davies’s Copy of the Great Speos Artemidos Inscription,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 32 (1946): 43–56; Sivertsen, The Parting of the Sea, 8–9..
• 11. Ellen N. Davis, “A Storm in Egypt during the Reign of Ahmose,” in Thera and the Aegean World III, ed. David A. Hardy and A. C. Renfrew, vol. 3, Proceedings of the Third International Congress, Santorini, Greece, 3–9 September 1989 (London, U.K.: The Thera Foundation, 1990), 3:232–35; Donald B. Redford, “Textual Sources for the Hyksos Period,” in The Hyksos: New Historical and Archaeological Perspectives, ed. Eliezer D. Oren (Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Museum, 1997), 16; Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt, 150–51; Kenneth A. Kitchen, “Ancient Egyptian Chronology for Aegeanists,” Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry 2, no. 2 (2002): 11; Nadine Moeller and Robert K. Ritner, “The Ahmose ‘Tempest Stela’, Thera and Comparative Chronology,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 73, no. 1 (April 1, 2014): 2.
• 12. Papyrus CPJ 520. Jan Assmann, The Mind of Egypt: History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003), 406. The dates of these documents would indicate an early date (1445 BC) for the Exodus, although some texts are even earlier than this.

For Further Study

• Brad C. Sparks, “Egyptian Text Parallels to the Exodus: The Egyptology Literature,” in Out of Egypt: Israel’s Exodus Between Text and Memory, History and Imagination Conference, ed. Thomas E. Levy. Presented at the Qualcomm Institute, University of California, San Diego, 2013.
• Ehrlich, Carl S. From an Antique Land: An Introduction to Ancient Near Eastern Literature. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009.
• Hollis, Susan T. The Ancient Egyptian “Tale of Two Brothers”: A Mythological, Religious, Literary, and Historico-Political Study. Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture. London, U.K.: Bannerstone, 2008.
• Lichtheim, Miriam. Ancient Egyptian Literature: The New Kingdom. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. 3 vols. Berkeley, Calf.: University of California Press, 2006.
• Moldenke, Charles E., ed. Papyrus D’Orbiney (British Museum): The Hieroglyphic Transcription. Watchung, N.J.: Elsinore, 1900.
• Van Dijk, Jacobus. “The Amarna Period and the Later New Kingdom,” in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Edited by Ian Shaw. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2000.