Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Jim:
When will you stop spewing your nonsense on this board?

On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 6:57 AM, <JimStinehart AT aol.com> wrote:

>
> The Meaning of the Name "Bera", Ruler of Sodom
>
> 1.  The name of the ruler of Sodom is "Bera":  bet-resh-ayin/BR(.  Genesis
> 14: 2  The meaning of the name "Bera" has long been misunderstood.  As we
> will
> see, this name does not mean "in evil", but rather means essentially the
> opposite:  "Mr. Clean".
>
> Where do you get the silly idea that his name meant "in evil"? There are so
many different possibilities based on linguistics, not counting that cannot
be known thanks to our limited corpus of Hebrew language that has survived
to this day, that short of interviewing his parents, we cannot know what the
name meant. Or did you somehow manage to interview his parents? Was this
from the same seance where you learned about ancient climate?


> The people of Sodom are portrayed as being truly evil in chapters 18 and 19
> of Genesis, and they properly receive the ultimate divine punishment when
> Sodom
> is utterly destroyed.  Nevertheless Bera, the ruler of Sodom, is portrayed
> in
> chapter 14 of Genesis as being a good person who is the proper ruler of
> Sodom.  In chapter 14 of Genesis, Bera properly (though unsuccessfully)
> fights the

four invading rulers, who nefariously kidnap Abraham's nephew, Lot.


Nothing of the sort. The king who went out to fight against the invasion
fled, and fell (died). See verse 10.


>  Then
> after Abraham has rescued Lot and recovered Sodom's loot, Bera graciously
> offers
> Abraham a share of the recovered loot, which Abraham magnanimously
> declines.
> Genesis 14: 21-24


Was Bera one of the captives who was rescued? In other words, he was the
crown prince who assumed kingship upon the death of the previous, unnamed
king.

Secondly, there was nothing magnanimous in Abraham's rejection of the loot.
When we look at Abraham's words, he basically said in modern terms "Keep
away from me, I don't want to touch you nor yours with a ten foot pole."


>   The men of Sodom were fine people in chapter 14 of
> Genesis, but by the time we get to chapters 18 and 19 of Genesis,
> everything has
> dramatically changed for the worse.)
>
> This is ridiculous! People don't change from fine people to desperately
wicked in just a few short years. That takes generations.


> The proper linguistic analysis of "Bera"/BR-ayin is to view this name as
> being an archaic Bronze Age proper name.  As an archaic Bronze Age proper
> name,
> BR-ayin = BR + ayin.  This is a slight variant on the common pattern we so
> often see with Bronze Age proper names:  archaic 2-consonant root + ayin.
> Although common Hebrew words in fully-developed Biblical Hebrew almost
> always have a
> 3-consonant root, many archaic proper names from the Bronze Age have, by
> contrast, only an archaic 2-consonant root.  Here, the archaic root is BR,
> as a
> shortened form of the well-known ancient word and Hebrew root:  BRR.
>
> While a few consonants were sometimes dropped in derivative words, most
were not except in cases of consonantal doubling. Ayin is one of those that
is never dropped except in cases of consonantal doubling. Hence this
"analysis" violates what is known about Biblical Hebrew linguistics.


> As we will see in this post, for a man's name in the Bronze Age, the final
> ayin is a mere suffix (not part of the root), which in effect means "Mr."
> in
> that very limited context.


Since you obviously don't know Hebrew, what is your source for this?


> The real key here, however, is that in archaic Bronze Age proper names
> (unlike Iron Age common words), a final ayin is not part of the root.
>
> So now we have a clairvoyance beyond mere mortals which can see things
hidden from common men who need to rely on written records.


> 2.  Likewise, the archaic Bronze Age proper name "Arba", as the name of the
> Anakim giant in the Book of Joshua, is based on a 2-consonant archaic root:
> RB.
>
> A repeat of the same linguistic nonsense, not deserving a detailed
response.


> 3.  But I've saved the best for last.
>
> "…the best…"? It's merely a repeat of the previous.


> 4.  Returning now to Sodom/Beth Shan,


This is why I call your posts "spewing your nonsense": even after being
directed to professional archeologists whose work indicate that Beth Shean
at the time you believe Abraham lived was merely a garrison town with no
wealth of its own, you persist in your nonsense of equating it with Sodom.
Meanwhile, other professional archeologists have identified early bronze age
ruins to the south and east of the Dead Sea as those of Sodom, which agrees
with the text of Genesis as written, not as interpreted by you.

You must live in a parallel universe, a twilight zone with only tenuous
connection to reality.


> Jim Stinehart
> Evanston, Illinois


What are your qualifications? What are you hiding?

Karl W. Randolph.