Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 26/06/2006 21:55, Yigal Levin wrote:
> ...
>
> Where I don't think that I agree with you is when your state that "they 
> assume that any name that is also reported in Tanakh therefore refers to a 
> Biblical individual is a de facto denial that names may have been reused by 
> ancient, Semitic peoples".
>
> Do you mean that anyone who thinks that "Abraham" was a real person 
> automatically denies that there may have been other, unrelated, people who 
> were also named "Abraham"? Why?
>
>   
Surely Karl's point is that some people pounce on any reference to (for 
example) a name which might be "Abraham", in any kind of ANE 
inscription, and jump to conclusions either that this is proof that the 
biblical Abraham existed (on the conservative side) or proof that the 
biblical Abraham story is a garbled tale about someone who lived 
somewhere else at a different time (on the liberal side) - without 
considering that this might have been a different individual of more or 
less the same name. Of course these alleged Benjaminites, from a very 
different place and time from the biblical Benjaminites, are an 
excellent example of this kind of reasoning.

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail:  peter AT qaya.org
Blog:    http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/