Las letras, las cosas y los textos El caso de la yod-kaf desde el protosinaítico al texto bíblico hebreo y griego

Abstract

From Proto-Sinaitic, the letters yod-kaf share the character of a hand, which, lexically, are introduced into Egyptian from Semitic coinciding in the syntagm kp (n) ḏr.t, equivalent to the Hebrew construct יָד כַּף, «palm of the hand», or antithetical pairs words: «left» (כָּף) and «right» (יָד). However, in Sinai, the hieroglyphic prototypes: the forearm  (D36 in Gardiner’s list) and the closed hand, with or without the fingers marked ( D46 and D46D ) or open ( D47), differ from the vertical hand with four open fingers in the incipient writing. Based on Egyptian iconographic motifs and biblical literary motifs, which debate between the denotation of the vital force that reaches the Beyond, from the Egyptian representation of the kȝ, which includes the hand ( D28), and destructive warlike, with the custom of mutilating the hand of defeated enemies, the emergence of safe areas, cliffs in the rocks or mines, for the socially condemned stands out. A quality shared by the place where letters were born in the past and the Biblical text.