Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Petr Tomasek <tomasek AT etf.cuni.cz>]

On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 05:38:18PM +0200, Yigal Levin wrote:
> Dear Ted,
> 
> In general, Wiki articles are not a good source of information. While most
> tend to be informative, they often have small mistakes or disinformation,
> which someone who is not knowledgeable will not notice. And since Wiki
> articles are anonymous, there is no way of knowing whether "unconventional"
> views are those of a reputable scholar or of whatever quack wrote of edited
> the article.
> 
> In this case, while the general idea of theophoric names is of course
> correct and well known, there are not a few errors in the details. For
> example, Samuel ("Shemuel") does NOT mean "heard by God". That would be
> Shama'el, with an Ayin, similar to "Yishma'el" - Ishmael. "Shemuel" means
> "his name is God", or as Samuel's mother says in 1 Sam. 1:20, "asked from

Hello Yigal,

where do you see a pronoun "his" in the word "samuel"?

> God" (although that etymology actually reminds us of Shaul - Saul, and
> actually invokes YHWH, not El).
> 
> There are other mistakes in the article, but I won't list them all.
> 
> Yigal Levin

-- 
Petr Tomasek <http://www.etf.cuni.cz/~tomasek>
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