Pharaoh's Daughter

Rabbi Dude says:

What was the name of Pharaoh's daughter? You know: the one who found Moses floating up the river. What was her name?

Ask any observant Jew and he'll tell you it was Bathya. Well, due to inaccuracies in pronunciation that have crept into the Hebrew language over time, a Jew from the Middle East would actually say "Batya," and a Jew from Europe would say "Basya." In fact, the original pronunciation would have been "Bathya."
"Would have been"? Yes, would have been. That would have been the pronunciation of her name... if in fact that had been her name.
But it wasn't. Actually, her name was Bithya.
What? Oh, yes. It may not be what you were always told,* by that was, in fact, her name. See Chronicles I 4:18.
Now, I'm willing to hold myself back from condemning everyone who names his daughter Bathya on the simple bases that:

• Most people, unfortunately, never learn Chronicles (nor any part of the Bible except the Tora itself and--sometimes--the portions used for weekly readings from the Prophets).
• Even those who do try to learn the Bible in its entirety are confronted by MANY names and dates to remember--most with no significance (I mean no major significance; don't start branding me a heretic for that...)--and most of which are never discussed in educated Jewish circles because of the relative ignorance of the Jewish world regarding them.
• Everyone seems to think that the name actually is Bathya. If every rabbi you ever had taught you that Noah's wife was named Shirley, would you ever think to question it? This is something that is known to everyone as being true, so why would anyone ever bother to verify it?

But the problem I find is that there are those out there who are so sure of what they have always known that they will not ever question the unshakable truth of their understanding. Such people are pure-bred ostriches; no question about that.
I had one particular experience in which I pointed out this discrepancy over the names to just such a person. He refused to accept it, demanding that I show him in the Bible itself. Well, for that I commend him; too often do I see too many people--even rabbis--accepting whatever anyone claiming to know anything says at face value without first checking out the facts for themselves. So, as requested, I showed him. But even that was not enough. He refused to accept it. He just could not tolerate that something he'd always known to be true (even something so minor as the exact pronunciation of a long-dead woman's name) had been taken out from under him.
So what did he do? He pulled a book--a story book intended for children--off the shelves and showed me that the author of that book (being of European descent) had recorded her name as Basya. He then explained to me that he knew the author of that book to be a "slam genius" and that he couldn't possibly have written "Basya" if in fact the name had been "Bithya."
Now, I see one of two possibilities: either the author of that book is incorrect and the Bible is correct, or the author of that book is correct and the Bible is incorrect. Given the two choices, I would tend to opt for the former.
But why, then, would he have written "Basya"? It would seem to me a fair guess that, since that's what everyone says, and since that's what he's always known to be true, he simply wrote it in as he knew it without bothering to look it up. Even slam geniuses take some things for granted, I suppose....
But the one who showed me the story book and insisted that that constituted conclusive proof, even against the Bible itself? Well, when a person wants to believe something, he'll latch on to any argument available to prove himself correct, no matter how weak and no matter how illogical.

Then again, don't we all do that?


*The word for daughter in Hebrew is "bath," and "Yah" is one of God's names. However, letters in Hebrew represent consonants only, and vowels often change with conjugation, declension, and agglutination. So, while the first person singular possessive is formed by adding "i" to the end of a word, "my daughter" in Hebrew would actually be "biti," not "bati." The way vowels change within words and their effects upon meaning is a very precise--but not difficult--topic which, unfortunately, not enough Jews study anymore, and it would seem obvious that the confusion over the name of Pharoah's daughter arises from combining "bat" and "Yah" and rendering "Batya" without seeing the need to alter vowels.