Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>]

Jim Stinehart asked: "Am I not right to see )BYMLK as connoting  n-o-r-t-h?"

No, Jim, you're not right. )BYMLK is a very common name which would be at 
home pretty much anywhere in the ancient Near East.


Jim also wrote:  ")BYMLK is a classic name for the ruler of Ssur/Tyre, where 
Molech was that city-state's guardian god."

If by "Molech", what you mean is the title "King", then OK. But this could be 
a designation for a deity anywhere. Yahweh is called "King"! There are entire 
narratives and Psalms devoted to the kingship of Yahweh, and he arguably 
comes from the S-O-U-T-H (Hab 3). So your insistence on a strictly northern 
provenance for MLK is just silly. If you mean "Molech" as a specific name for 
a deity, then you probably need to look at Transjordan, which is decidedly 
E-A-S-T. But there again, one wonders whether the Ammonite deity is simply 
known by a title, "King", rather by a personal name. In either case, you're 
conclusion is wrong.


Jim also wrote: "But the name )BYMLK makes no secular historical sense at all 
in a southwest Canaan geographical context, does it? "

Jim, you must have a different brand of logic to the rest of us, because this 
just does not sound at all logical. I urge you, please go and do some proper 
research where your goal is not to fish for evidence to stock your 
pre-conceived conclusion, but rather simply to learn.

Given your evasiveness to a previous question, am I correct in concluding 
that no matter what anyone will say, you will not change your view on a 
northern location for the patriarchal narratives? If you can read between the 
lines, I'm giving you a second chance to redeem yourself here. Otherwise, 
I'll deem it safe to assume that no one can sway you with any type of 
evidence away from your view. In that case, I'll have little choice but to 
keep closing down your threads because you're not engaging with evidence - 
and that is a prime requirement of interacting on B-Hebrew. And may I remind 
you about the possibility of pursuing a blog.

So over to you...


Regards,

GEORGE ATHAS
Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
www.moore.edu.au