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Eighty miles (c. I 29km) south of modem Cairo is the town of Medinet- el-Faiyilin, where a 200-mile (322km) canal from the Nile has long transformed the desert waste into a lush garden paradise of fruit groves. To the local residents (the fellahin) and throughout Egypt, the ancient waterway is known as Bahr Yusuf (Joseph's Canal), and it is said to be named after Joseph the grand vizier.37

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(diagram Map omitted)

Genesis (41:39-43) tells how this Joseph was made Governor of Egypt:
And Pharaoh said unto Joseph. . . . Thou shalt be over my house and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou. . . and he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt;
A later Genesis entry, which is rarely quoted, has Joseph saying, 'God hath made me a father to Pharaoh' (Genesis 45:8). This is a particularly impressive statement and could not possibly have related to Joseph, son of Jacob, who was sold into slavery. But was there perhaps a grand vizier who fathered a pharaoh - a prestigious governor after whom a canal
 
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might have been named and who would have ridden in the king's second chariot, as related in Genesis (4l:43)? Indeed there was: a vizier who, contrary to normal custom, was embalmed like a pharaoh (precisely as described in the last verse of Genesis) and entombed in a fine sarcophagus in no less a place than the royal burial ground - the Valley of Kings at western Thebes (modem Luxor)."
The scribe writ of Thebes, the best
Egyptian tomb inscriptions usually relate, in one way or another, to the godhead under which the occupant was placed in life, using such deiform names as Ra, Amen and Ptah. In this case, the unusual tomb inscriptions of the grand vizier do not relate to any known god of Egypt; they reveal instead such names as Ya-ya and Yu-ya - phonetically, Iouiya, which is akin to Yaouai, a variant of Yahweh or Jehovah.38 From these inscriptions, the vizier has become personally known as Yuya, and this is of particular interest because his grandson, Pharaoh Akhenaten, later developed the 'One God' concept in Egypt.
Yuya (Yusut) was the principal minister for the eighteenth-dynasty Pharaoh Tut~osis IV (c.14l3-l405 BC) and for his son Amenhotep III (c.1405-l367 BC).39 His tomb was discovered in 1905, along with that of his wife Tuya (the Asenath), and the mummies ofYuya and Tuya are among the very best preserved in the Cairo Museum.40 It came as a great surprise to Egyptologists that anyone outside the immediate royal family should have been mummified and buried in the Valley of Kings. Clearly, this couple were of tremendous importance in their day; this becomes obvious from Yuya's funerary papyrus, which refers to him as 'The Holy Father of the Lord of the Two Lands' (it ntr n nb tawi), as does his royal funerary statuette.41 The style 'Lord of the Two Lands' was a pharaonic title relating to the kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt,42 and so it is plain that Yuya was not only the viceroy and primary state official, but was also the father of a pharaoh, just as related in Genesis (45:8). He even held some personal kingly status, as determined by his pharaonic designation, 'One trusted by the good god in the entire land'.43
Yuya's family was very influential, holding inherited land in the Egyptian delta, and he was a powerful military leader.44 Anen, the elder son of Yuya and Tuya, also rose to high office under Amenhotep III as Chancellor of Lower Egypt, High Priest of Heliopolis and Divine Father of the nation. But it was their younger son, Aye, who held the special distinction 'Father of the God'45 and became pharaoh in 1352 BC - as did other descendants of Yusuf- Yuya, including the now famous Tutankhamun (see Chart: The Egyptian Connection, pp.256-57).
Not only was Yuya of individual royal significance, but so too was his

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wife Tuya. Genesis (41:45) tells us that Tuya (Touiou) held the dis- tinction of 'Asenath' (iw s-n-t) - a style which derives from an eighteenth-dynasty Egyptian dialect and means 'She belongs to the goddess Neith'.46 Tuya was the daughter of a priest of Heliopolis and, according to the Corpus of Hieroglyphic Inscriptions at the Brooklyn Museum, she was the designated 'King's Ornament' (kheret nesw). By way of her mother, she is reckoned to have perhaps been a grand- daughter ofTuthmosis III,47 founder of the Great White Brotherhood of the Therapeutate, while through her father she was descended from Igrath (daughter of Esau and Mahalath), the mother of Queen Sobeknefru who established the Dragon Court as a royal institution in Egypt.
We are, therefore, into the realm of the original covenant of kingship made with Isaac. His son Esau may have sold his birthright to his younger twin brother Jacob-Israel (whose descendants became kings of Judah), but now we discover that, through Tuya and Yuya, descendants of Esau did indeed become pharaohs of Egypt. These particular pharaohs have become known as the' Amarna Kings' : they were Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, Tutankhamun and Aye, who ruled consecu- tively c.1367-1348 BC.
From the eighteenth-dynasty campaigns of Akhenaten's great-great- grandfather, Tuthmosis III (c.1490-1436 BC), Palestine was under Egyptian rule and it remained so into the era of the Amarna Kings. The American Egyptologist James Henry Breasted referred to Tuthmosis III as the 'Napoleon of Egypt',48 and the empire (from Syria to Western Asia) established by him and his son Amenhotep II was certainly in- dicative of the kingly domain promised to the descendants of Isaac: 'from the river of Egypt, unto the river Euphrates' (Genesis 15:18). If the covenant were to be taken literally, it would appear that the selling of the birthright by Esau to Jacob had no effect whatever; it was not until after the Amarna period that the lines from Esau and Jacob were united through marriage, subsequently descending to the Davidic kings of Judah.
 
 
 
 

 

Page 46

" The Old Testament's best-known giant is, of course, Goliath of Gath, the Philistine warrior who challenged the shepherd-boy David. We are told that Goliath's height was 'six cubits and a span' (1 Samuel 17:4)- that is six forearms (of 20 inches/50cm) and a spread hand (of 9 inches/22.5cm). So Goliath was 10 feet 9 inches (3.27m) tall. By any standard of reckoning, this is immense. Even allowing for a 25 per cent exaggeration in order to enhance David's predicament, we are still left with an 8-foot man. However, there are such warriors in our modern age: the post-war German wrestler Kurt Zehe, for example, was 8 feet 4 inches tall, while the Rotterdam colossus of the ring, Rhinehardt, stood at 9 feet 6 inches.12 Many of today's American basketball players might be regarded as giants, but they are plainly not hideous ogres in accordance with the image conjured by the word 'giant' in mythology and romantic literature.
In spite of Goliath's physique, and the enormity of his sword, young David slew him, prior to any legitimate combat, with a well-aimed sling-shot to the forehead. But in later times, when threatened by Goliath's equally large family members, 'David waxed faint', leaving their destruction to his servants (2 Samuel 21:15-22). Elhanan of Bethlehem managed to slay the brother of Goliath, 'whose spear-staff was like a weaver's beam'. David's nephew Jonathan then slew a son of Goliath who had' on every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes'. Othe] sons of Goliath, namely Ishi-benob and Saph, were also killed by David's men Abishai and Sibbechai, but in no event are we told how th« victories were won.  

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 "Even though inscriptions from before the time of Manetho were dis-covered in later times, these were in the form of ancient hieroglyphs (picture-symbols) and it was not until 1822 that the hieroglyphic code was broken by the French Egyptologist Jean Francois Champollion. This decipherment was achieved by way of the now famous Rosetta Stone,2 found near Alexandria in 1799 by Lieutenant Bouchard of the Napoleonic expedition into Egypt. The black basalt stone from about 196 BC carries the same content in three different scripts: Egyptian

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hieroglyphs, Egyptian demotic (everyday cursive writing) and scribal Greek. Through comparative analysis of these scripts (with the Greek language being readily familiar), the hieroglyphic code was revealed; it was then cross-referenced with pharaonic cartouches (ornamental oval- shaped inscriptions denoting royal names)3 of the Egyptian kings.
Once the hieroglyphs were understood, the content of other ancient records could be decoded. Among them are some which give kingly lists to compare with the records of Manetho. They include the Palermo Stone,4 a black diorite slab which details the last pre-dynastic kings before 3100 BC, followed by the pharaohs through to the fifth-dynasty Neferirkare in about 2490 BC.5 Also now translated are the Royal List of Karnak (Thebes),6 the Royal List of Abydos,7 the Abydos King List,S the Royal List of Saqqara9 and the Royal Canon of Turin, a papyrus from about 1200 BC."
The scribe states in all honesty the number of letters in the following alphabets

St Mark A.D. 33 Chapter 14
Page 1068

33	"And when the sixth hour was come, there was a darkness over the whole land unto the ninth hour
34	And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eloi , Eloi, lama Sabachthani? Which is being interpreted, My God My God why hast thou forsaken me?

 
Page 608

"MY God my God why hast thou forsaken me why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring ?"
 
That acounting scribe, noted the nine words.

Page 541

Hebraic (he bra' ik) [late L. Hebraicus, Gr. Hebraikos], a. Pertaimng to the Hebrews, their mode of thought, or language. Hebraically, adv. Hebraism (he' bra izm), n. The thought or religion of the Hebrews; a Hebrew characteristic; a Hebrew idiom or expression. Hebraist, n. One learned in the Hebrew language and literature; one who conforms or adheres to Jewish ideas or religious observances. Hebraistic, -al (he bra is' tik, -al), a. Hebraistically, adv. hebraize, v.t. To convert into a Hebrew idiom; to give a Hebrew character to. v.i. To become Hebrew; to act according to Hebrew manners or fashions.
Hebrew (he' broo) [F. hebreu, L. Hebraeus, Gr. Hebraios, Aram. ebrai, Heb. 'ibri, prob. one from the other side, an immigrant], n. A Jew, an Israelite; the language of the ancient Jews and of the State of Israel; (colloq.) unintelligible talk, gibberish. a. Pertaining to the Jews. Hebrew- wise, adv. In an Opposite sense (from the fact that Hebrew is read from right to left).
Hebridean (he brid' e in) [Hebrides, erron. for L. Hebudes (Pliny), Hebudae., Gr. Heboudai, a. 0f or pertaining to the Hebrides, islands off the west coast of Scotland.
Hecate (hek' a te) [Gr. Hekate], n. (Gr. Myth. mysterious goddess holding sway in earth, heaven, and the under-world, and represented as triforn hag, a witch. Hecataean (hek a te' in), a."
 
"...hectometre (hek to me ter) n A French measure of length containing 100 metres or 109.3633 yds."
 

THE STORY of Hans Castorp, which we would here set forth, not on his own account, for in him the reader will make acquaintance with a simple-minded though pleasing young man, but for the sake of the story itself, which seems to us highly worth telling- though it must needs be borne in mind, in Hans Castorp's behalf, that it is his story, and not every story happens to everybody- this story, we say, belongs to the long ago; is already, so to speak, covered with historic mould, and unquestionably to be presented in the tense best suited to a narrative out of the depth of the past.
That should be no drawback to a story, but rather the reverse. Since histories must be in the past, then the more past the better, it would seem, for them in their character as histories, and for him, the teller of them, rounding wizard of times gone by. With this story, moreover, it stands as it does to-day with human beings, not least among them writers of tales: it is far older than its years; its age may not be measured by length of days, nor the weight of time on its head reckoned by the rising or setting of suns. In a word, the degree of its antiquity has noways to do with the pas- sage of time - in which statement the author intentionally touches upon the strange and questionable double nature of that riddling element.
But we would not wilfully obscure a plain matter. The exag-gerated pastness of our narrative is due to its taking place before the epoch when a certain crisis shattered its way through life and consciousness and left a deep chasm behind. It takes place - or. rather, deliberately to avoid the present tense. it took place, and had taken place - in the long ago, in the old days, the days of the world before the Great War, in the beginning of which so much began that has scarcely yet left off beginning. Yes, it took place before that; yet not so long before. Is not the pastness of the past the profounder, the completer, the more legendary, the more Im- meoiately before the present it falls? More than that, our story has, of its own nature, something of the legend about it now and again
 Page xii We shall tell it at length, thoroughly, in detail-for when did a narrative seem too long or too short by reason of the actual time or space it took up? We do not fear being called meticulous, in-clinng as we do to the view that only the exhaustive can be truly . interesting.
, Not all in a minute, then, will the narrator be finished with the story of our Hans. The seven days of a week will not suffice, no, nor seven months either. Best not too soon make too plain how much mortal time must pass over his head while he sits spun round in his spell. Heaven forbid it should be seven years!
And now we begin.