ABSTRACT
Proverbs 22:17-24:22 has for seventy years been the parade example of Egyptian influence on Israelite wisdom literature. The Egyptian work is not only replete with semitisms; its author also sometimes misunderstood his Hebrew source. A similar view was expressed in 1957 by the distinguished Egyptologist Etienne Drioton, who drew attention to some peculiar linguistic usages in the Egyptian text, and drew the conclusion that it reads like a word-for-word translation from a Hebrew or Aramaic original. Kevin, in 1931, put forward a theory diametrically opposed to that of Erman: it was the author of Amenemope who was familiar with and dependent on the Hebrew work. The Egyptian work is not only replete with semitisms; its author also sometimes misunderstood his Hebrew source. Amenemope became an established classical text enjoying great popularity in ancient Egypt and continued to be copied and used for many centuries.
