=7. Egyptian Discoveries which Bear on the Bible.= (1) _Texts Bearing on the Story of Joseph._--A number of texts from the Middle Kingdom and other periods present features similar to parts of the story of Joseph and afford somewhat faint parallels to certain conceptions of the Hebrew Prophets. These are translated in Part II, p. 300, ff., and p. 418, ff. The name of Joseph’s wife, Asenath (in Egyptian _As-Neit_, “favorite of the goddess Neith”), occurs from the eighteenth dynasty onward. Such names as Potiphar, the master of Joseph (Gen. 39:1), and Potiphera, Joseph’s father-in-law (Gen. 41:45), in Egyptian _Pedefre_, “he whom the god Re gives,” as well as the name given to Joseph, Zaphenath-paneah (Gen. 41:45), in Egyptian _De-pnute-ef-‘onkh_, “the god speaks and he lives,” are common in Egypt from the beginning of the twenty-second dynasty, 945 B. C. (2) _The Invasion of Egypt by the Hyksos._--This took many Semites to Egypt. The very name Hyksos is held by Breasted to mean “ruler of countries.” It was probably a title by which these kings called themselves, for they evidently ruled a considerable portion of western Asia, as well as Egypt. “Ruler of countries” is just the Semitic-Babylonian and Assyrian _shar-matâti_, a title which Mesopotamian kings gave to themselves through much of their history. It had been employed by the Sumerians before them, being the familiar Sumerian _lugal kurkurra_, “king of countries.” If the Hyksos were Amorites, kinsmen of theirs had ruled in Babylonia long before their invasion of Egypt, and that these may have been Amorites is indicated by the name Jacob-her, which was borne by one of their kings. This is an Egyptian form of the Babylonian _Yagub-ilu_, or _Jacob-el_, an Amorite name found on business documents in Babylonia three or four hundred years earlier. In the time of Thothmes III this name was, Thothmes tells us, borne by a Palestinian city, to which it had apparently been given by some Amorite from Babylonia. Whether the Hyksos were Amorites or not, a number of Semitic names were given to places in Lower Egypt at the time of their occupation. Such was the name Magdol, or Migdol. The Egyptian name of Tanis was Zar, which Brugsch claims as Semitic. Thakut, an old name of Pithom, is the same as the Semitic Succoth, “booths.”