The Name of the Red Sea

Abstract

THE name Red Sea is a translation of 'Epvupa& OdXac-oa, which is used in the Greek Bible for the Hebrew yam sufph, that is, Bulrushy Sea. The Greeks used the name Erythrean Sea, not only of the Gulf between Arabia and Egypt, but also of the Arabian Sea between Arabia and India, including the Persian Gulf. At the time of the Exodus (c. 1200 i. c.) the Red Sea extended farther north, the Bitter Lakes and the Crocodile Lake north of them were then connected with the Gulf of Suez. When the Suez Canal was dug in 1867, beds of rock-salt and strata with recent shells and corals were laid open. The bed of the Red Sea is becoming shallower by the gradual rise of the land. We know that at the time of King Jehoshaphat of Judah (c. 850 B. c.) the Gulf of 'Akabah stretched up to Ezion-geber, some twenty miles north of 'Akabah. Similarly the Persian Gulf at the time of Sennacherib (c. 700 B. c.) extended so far north that the four rivers Euphrates, Tigris, Kerkha, and Karl-n, emptied separately into the Gulf.1 Professor Haupt thinks that the ancestors of the Jews (OLZ 12, 163)2 crossed the Red Sea at the small peninsula,