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April 6, 2006
New Translation of The Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor
My teacher and friend, Loren Fisher, has a website in which he tells us about various books that he has written. The one that he is currently featuring is his translation of the Egyptian, The Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor. This is part of a larger project to translate a number of ancient Egyptian stories. He says of The Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor,
In The Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor, a prince has just returned from a mission for the Pharaoh. Apparently he did not accomplish this mission with any great success, so the prince was frightened about his reception by the Pharaoh and the royal court. The chief mate of the ship gives the prince some advice and tries to cheer him up; he even tells him a story from his own experience. The chief mate survived a shipwreck and saved his life by finally speaking up in the presence of the ruler of a fantasy island. Thus he was able to return to his city where he could live, eventually die, and be buried in the land of his birth. Unfortunately the prince takes little comfort in the chief mate’s story. He does not get the point.
As Loren tells us, "Many know about the riches of ancient Egypt and of her great monuments, but not many realize that Egypt’s literature gives us our first stories for entertainment." More Egyptian stories will follow.
Take a look at his site and better yet read his books.
A small biographical note: Loren is best known for his work in Ugaritic studies and various relationships between Ugaritic literature and the Hebrew Bible. What is not so well known is that Loren held seminars in which he taught Coptic to James Robinson and many of Robinson's students. In this capacity, he is very important in the history of the study of the Nag Hammadi papyri. And for course, this puts him near the beginning of the scholarly tradition that is now working on and around the Gospel of Judas. That he has received little or no credit for this is one of the unfortunate facts of the scholarly world.
Posted by Duane Smith at April 6, 2006 9:42 PM | Read more on Archaeology |
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