Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Yitzhak:

On 11/12/07, Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com> wrote:
> On Nov 12, 2007 1:38 PM, K Randolph wrote:
>
> > I no where said that it is a common place name, rather that it is not
> > a unique name. A unique name means that it occurs once and once only.
> > If it is found only twice, it is still a rare name, but no longer
> > unique.
>
> Karl, you wrote:
> > First of all, "Dan" was not an unusual name in the ANE
>
> It was Jim Stinehart who then understood this to mean:
> >  I agree with the general  nature of Karl W. Randolph's comments that
> > "Dan" is a common name in the ancient  near east, and cannot be relied 
> > upon, in
> > isolation, for much of anything.
>
> So we have a sort of extremes between "not a unique name" (what you now 
> claim
> to have said a few days ago), to "not an unusual name" (what you
> really said a few
> days ago), and "a common name" (what Jim and perhaps others understood you 
> to
> have said).  I think Jim's (and Yigal's, whether it was based on Jim's
> statement, or
> yours), understanding is closer to what you originally said than what
> you attempt to
> represent it now.  But if you want to be picky, yes, Yigal didn't
> quote you exactly.
> Neither did you.
>
To give an example would be my first name: among those born in the
United States, "Karl" spelled with a "K" is not common, so I always
have to spell out my name when others are filling out forms, yet at
the same time it is not unusual so that people would think it strange.

Likewise the name "Dan", while not common, is not unusual in that we
should expect it to have been applied to only one unique person, tribe
or place.

I did not know that Jim had made that mischaracterization of what I wrote.

> > The specific references were not to the Dananoi, but to Dan which the
> > early Greeks called Danae (or something similar to that). This was a
> > bronze age reference.
>
> You are probably making a reference to the Sea Peoples group, who have
> been suggested as being related to the Danite "tribe" by some scholars.
>
> There is also a later Iron Age kingdom mentioned in inscriptions from Turkey
> that you seem to have confused with the first group.
>
The reference that I read was specifically of a bronze age kingdom
that fell before Mycenaean Greece. Now it is possible that the
reference that I read was wrong. After all, new findings sometimes
show that earlier understandings were wrong, and that book was written
four decades ago.

> The first was not a kingdom, and we have no knowledge that either was
> overthrown.
>
> Yitzhak Sapir

Karl W. Randolph.