Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

Thanks to Todd and Baruch for their indications of female theophoric names.

Stig's opinion was that it is questionable that there are any theophoric
women names in the OT. What do you think with regard to the names that Todd
and Baruch uncovered?

And Niels Peter wrote:

>Then the next question must be: What about theophoric names of women in
>inscriptions from Palestine in the Iron Age?

This is getting a little ahead of me, but yes that's basically what
interests me, any examples of anything, given Chronicles' late writing and
probable relatively late writing of Kings, that can pin a yahwistic name
for a woman to the first temple era? 

The best I can find are the papyri from Elephantine circa 420 BCE, which
seem to contain theophoric names only with a yahwistic or an elohistic
component, notwithstanding the presence of female deity names, Anath-Yahu
and Anath-Bethel (perhaps the same deity) and a possible son of Yahweh,
'Ashim-Bethel. This last, when read in conjunction with Amos 8:14 might
suggest that the Yahwistic people of Elephantine had connections with
Samaria. This is by no means clear, but when Yedoniah sought help from both
Jerusalem and Samaria, it was Samaria that supplied the help and there
seems to have only been silence from Jerusalem.


Ian