Books – Page 9 – Jimmy Akin

Hieroglyphs Without Mystery

When I was a boy I was fascinated by hieroglyphs. I was also frustrated by the fact I couldn’t read them. It was the 1970s, and the Tutankhamun treasures exhibit was all the rage (as was Steve Martin’s "King Tut" song). I remember looking intently at the colorful pictures of Tut’s treasures in my parents’ National Geographic magazine, but the meaning of the hieroglyphs never revealed itself to me.

A couple of years ago, I had some language-study downtime, was looking around for a language to study just for fun, and decided to work on Middle Egyptian and the hieroglyphs it is traditionally written in. I got a few books on the subject, started studying, but didn’t get too far before I got busy and had to set the study aside.

A cartouche. Want to
know what it says?
Put your cursor over it.

Some months later I was having lunch with a visiting priest, and he brought along a friend of his mother’s. I didn’t know the woman’s first name, but I noticed that she was wearing a golden medallion around her neck with a cartouche on it. I leaned forward, studied the cartouche, blinked when I realized what it said, and then leaned back and announced: "Your name is Mary!" She laughed, confirmed that it was so, and explained that some years before she had visited the pyramids and they had all these medallions with people’s names on them for sale. She seemed delighted by the fact I could read her name from the medallion–perhaps because this confirmed that the salesman hadn’t lied to her about what it said.

Recently I decided to pull the books off the shelf and get back to studying them. I know that Borders and Barnes & Noble have lots of glossy, full-color books on hieroglyphs, but many of these aren’t meant to be read but to sit on your coffee table to give bored visitors to your home something to do. They’re okay, but–just like my parents’ National Geographic–pretty pictures is about all you’ll get out of them. If you’d like to get some exposure actually reading hieroglyphs, let me make a recommendation.

The best book I’ve found as an introduction to the subject is Hieroglyphs Without Mystery by Karl-Theodor Zauzich. (Don’t worry; he’s German. This kind of name is apparently normal over there.) It is head and shoulders above the others on the subject. It’s also shorter and less expensive than many of them.

After an introductory section stressing the fact that you don’t have to be a genius to learn hieroglyphics (which is true), there come the two most important parts of the book. The first of these teaches you the sounds of the hieroglyphic alphabet and other major symbols, gives some common vocabulary items, and basic grammar rules. It is the only chapter of the book where you are expected to memorize anything.

This section makes the hieroglyphic writing system quite easy to understand. In fact, the whole book is written in a way that is much simpler and easier to read than the great majority of language books I’ve used. I was particularly impressed by how the section on grammar made the rules it covered easy and intuitive to understand. It presented them far more simply and naturally than most of the language books I’ve read.

I’ve read the same grammar rules presented multiple times, because Egyptian is a Semitic language, part of the same language family as Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic. Having studied several Semitic languages, I’ve gotten to the point where my knowledge of one feeds into the others (the same way that if you know one of the Romance languages you can guess grammar or the meaning of words in another). When I got to the vocabulary section in this book, I was a little surprised that there wasn’t that much vocabulary overlap there the other Semitic languages I’ve studied, but that’s not too odd since the others are Eastern (Asian) Semitic languages and are more closely related to each other than they are to Egyptian, which is a Western (African) Semitic language. Once I got to the grammar section, though, I was back on familiar ground. The grammar is very similar to that of the Eastern Semitic languages, so I’ve read the same things explained before. What I was taken with was how simple Herr Zauzich made it to understand the rules compared to the other books I’ve read.

The third section of the book is the most important one. It’s the longest and the one that really sets this book apart from the others on hieroglyphics. Basically, Zauzich shows you photographs of a bunch of Egyptian artifacts–boxes, alabaster chests, an alabaster cup, tomb inscriptions, etc.–and then takes you by the hand and walks you through the translation of what’s written on them. Many of these artifacts are from King Tut’s tomb, including the big, gold mummy coffin whose image you’ve undoubtedly seen before (’cause I’ve just put it next to this paragraph). It’s a real charge to actually be reading and understanding what’s written in these inscriptions, particularly as you start to figure them out before Zauzich explains them. You also learn to understand Egyptian names that you’ve heard all your life. For example, Tutankhamun = tut (image) + ankh (life, living) + Amun = "Living image of Amun."

You also pick up a good bit about Egyptian culture as you go along. For example, Zauzich points out that hieroglyphics are more complicated than they need to be (though still nowhere near as complex as Chinese or Japanese writing) since a perfectly good alphabet is part of the system. The alphabet was probably invented last and did not supplant the older, more complicated symbols for a religious reason: The Egyptians viewed writing as a gift of the god Thoth, so they couldn’t junk a bunch of their symbols without hacking off the god of writing. Thus hieroglyphics persisted until Egypt was converted to Christianity, at which point the hieroglyphics associated with the old religion were dropped and the Egyptians began to use a variant of the Greek alphabet we now know as the Coptic alphabet.

I was a little surprised that Zauzich didn’t explain the cultural reason behind one sign. The hieroglyph for the word "god" (netcher) looks like a flag on a flagpole. He notes that you need to understand the cultural background to get why this is the case, but he doesn’t go on to explain that the reason is that ancient Egyptian temples had such poles, and they came in the writing system to represent what you worshipped at a temple.

He does, however, explain one of my favorite hieroglyphs. It’s a little sparrow that Egyptians put at the end of a word as a kind of commentary when they considered a thing evil, bad, weak, or small. Egyptologists refer to it as "the evil bird." (Apparently the ancient Egyptians had a poor opinion of sparrows.)

The book could do a few things better. For example, it could better explain the pronunciation of words, but it’s still an excellent work that I’d recommend as an entry point for those interested to finally discover what all those beautiful Egyptian art inscriptions say.

It’ll also give you a feel for what it’s like for Daniel Jackson to go romping all over the galaxy reading tomb walls. And you’ll never watch the movie Stargate the same way again.

Mr. Spock’s Favorite Subject

A reader writes:

I have two questions.

1. What is the role of logical reasoning in Apologetics?

2. Can you please suggest an introductory book on logical reasoning?

Hrm. Question #1 is kind of general. In fact, it sounds like a homework question. You wouldn’t be taking a course in apologetics at your parish or something, would you? I’m normally hesitant to directly answer homework questions, but since I don’t know that this is one, I’ll take a crack at it. Here goes:

Logical reasoning is just another way of saying "good reasoning," the alternative being bad or illogical reasoning. (This doesn’t mean that reasoning based on emotion is bad; reason that draws on our emotions also can be good, as Mr. Spock eventually learned.)

Logic is important to every field of study, apologetics included. In fact, since apologetics deals with defending a position against contrary claims and arguments, the role of logic is perhaps brought into sharper focus in apologetics.

Basically, there are two kinds of logic, known as informal logic and symbolic logic. The former involves the analysis of ordinary language arguments, the latter recasts arguments in a "mathematical" form for purposes of analyzing their structure more closely. Both have a role to play in apologetics. Informal logic is useful in the kind of ordinary, conversational apologetics that most in the field are engaged in. Symbolic logic is useful for the higher-end, technical apologetics that is possible (e.g., among philosophers).

Though logic is important to apologetics, but it has limits. There still must be room for grace and free will. Thus Vatican I infallibly rejected the proposition that "the assent to Christian faith is not free, but is necessarily produced by arguments of human reason; or that the grace of God is necessary only for living faith which works by charity" (Dei filius canon 3:5). Logic can only take one so far, but ultimately it has to be free will enabled by God’s grace that allows one to embrace the Christian faith.

Regarding question #2, I’m only going to recommend stuff dealing with informal logic. If you’re just starting out, you don’t want to try to self-teach symbolic logic. It’s too complicated for that. Here are some resources:

Back when I was a philosophy undergrad, I first took a logic course that used an edition of Irving Copi’s Introduction to Logic. It’s very good, which is why it’s been in print for so long and been through so many editions (currently in its 11th). But it is a college textbook, so it is way expensive. It also may be more technical than what you’re looking for, so here are some more resources that look like good possibilities.
A Rulebook for Arguments by Anthony Weston.
Thinking from A to Z by Nigel Warburton.
An Introduction to Reasoning by Allan Janik, et al.
Informal Logic: A Handbook for Critical Argument by Douglas Walton.

Mr. Spock's Favorite Subject

A reader writes:

I have two questions.

1. What is the role of logical reasoning in Apologetics?

2. Can you please suggest an introductory book on logical reasoning?

Back when I was a philosophy undergrad, I first took a logic course that used an edition of Irving Copi’s Introduction to Logic. It’s very good, which is why it’s been in print for so long and been through so many editions (currently in its 11th). But it is a college textbook, so it is way expensive. It also may be more technical than what you’re looking for, so here are some more resources that look like good possibilities.
A Rulebook for Arguments by Anthony Weston.
Thinking from A to Z by Nigel Warburton.
An Introduction to Reasoning by Allan Janik, et al.
Informal Logic: A Handbook for Critical Argument by Douglas Walton.

The Greek New Testament

A reader from Australia writes:

I am studying Latin and am interested in studying Greek also. I though you would be the one to ask for a recommendation of a good, Catholic Greek Bible. Are there any differences (e.g. Catholic/non-Catholic) in the many Greek editions of Scripture? Also, I think I remember you recommending the book on Biblical Greek by William Mounce. Is that right? Have you any other recommendations for a beginner?

The differences between Catholic and Protestant Bibles in the original languages are essentially confined to the Old Testament. There is not a dispute over the Greek text of the New Testament between the two groups. Both Catholic scholars and Protestant scholars (which is to say, leaving aside Catholic Douay-Rheims Onlyists and Protestant King James Onlyists) face the same set of options in determining the best readings for particular passages, and the discussion is not polarized along confessional lines.

For your purposes–learning to read in the Greek New Testament–more or less any edition will do. I wouldn’t even turn you away from one of the Textus Receptus editions for basic learning to read purposes (though these editions are not as accurate as contemporary ones done after the advent of New Testament textual scholarship). The standard version that most scholars, Catholic and Protestant, work from is the United Bible Societies/Nestle-Aland text.

Here is an inexpensive, leather-bound edition put out by the American Bible Society.

As far as textbooks to learn from, yes, I recommend Mounce’s Basics of Biblical Greek. It is the best text currently on the market, bar none. (At least until I get around to finishing mine, which is going to be some time, especially with Secret Project #1 filling up my schedule in the interim.) You also need the workbook that goes with it. If you want to get Mounce’s own lectures on tape or CD to self-study with, you can order them from his website.

Two dictionaries that I recommend are:

I also recommend Mounce’s Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament, which is an excellent dictionary that parses each word found in the New Testament to help you figure out troublesome word forms.
And I highly recommend A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament by George Abbott-Smith, which is an excellent older dictionary that gives references to word usage in extra-NT sources and tries to supply the Hebrew equivalent of NT Greek terms.

For those not ready to take the plunge into learning Greek, but who would like to get a little exposure to it (enough to use Greek NT-related study tools, such as the dictionaries I just recommended), I recommend Mounce’s Greek for the Rest of Us.

Hope these do for now. I’m working on a permalink page for this site in which I’ll give a bunch more language resource recommendations. I also have a couple of articles on the subject coming out in the July-August and September issues of This Rock.

Good luck in your studies! New Testament Greek is an easy and rewarding language to learn!