Biblical Archaeology Review

Nevertheless we must note that the name ‘Abdiel (‘Aper-El) appears as a toponym in a letter dating from the Ramesside period (Papyrus Anastasi VIII). The text mentions an expedition of grain and the death of a certain Any, son of the sailor Pay, and of his children. These people are said to be “of/from ‘Aper-El of the great statue of Ramses beloved of Amun, sun of princes.” These events happened under the 19th Dynasty. Their geographical frame was the Eastern Delta, and therefore the toponym ‘Abdiel (‘Aper-El) was probably located in that part of Egypt.

We have evidence of this kind of research, for example, with the novel Joseph and Asenath, written by an Egyptian Jew. See Alain Zivie, La Prison de Joseph: L’Egypte des pharaons et le monde de la Bible (Paris: Bayard, 2004), where I approach this kind of question. This has never been published in English, but a new modified, enriched, and updated version is now ready to be published in French under the title L’Egypte et la Bible, where I also evoke the question of ‘Abdiel (‘Aper-El).

Joseph Mélèze Modrzejewski, a specialist of the Judaism and the Jews in Egypt in the Greco-Roman period, presents ‘Aper-El as a “proto-Joseph,” avoiding the impossible confusion and identification, but seeing nevertheless a link between the two characters; see Joseph Mélèze Modrzejewski, The Jews of Egypt: From Ramesses II to the Emperor Hadrian (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1997).

Bernard Mathieu suggested with some good arguments that the children educated in the kap would have been children born on the same day as the future sovereign; see “L’énigme du recrutement des ‘enfants du kap’ dans l’Egypte pharaonique: une solution?” Göttinger Miszellen 177 (2000), pp. 41–48. If it is the case, ‘Abdiel (‘Aper-El) would have been born on the same day as Amenhotep III. Nevertheless, although intriguing, this approach of the question of the “children of the palace” still needs to be confirmed.