Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

James:

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 6:31 PM, James Christian
<jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>wrote:

> The problem is that the letters were written by the King himself. Surely,
> he would use his own name in correspondence.


Even there, did ancient practice mirror modern customs? Or did he adopt the
practice of using a throne name for his official correspondence, while his
given name was recorded in the Bible?

>
> James Christian
>
>>
>> There are so many unanswered questions that I admit that I am not certain
of what happened. And while I think the EA letters give some light on other
aspects of the divided kingdom era, they also raise almost as many questions
as they answer. The Bible gives a very abbreviated summary of the era, often
barely mentioning a king before saying that he died and was replaced. As a
result, there is very much we don’t know about that era, enough that the
kings may have been vassal kings to an Egyptian overlordship, but just not
mentioned because the authors of Kings and Chronicles considered it to be
irrelevant to their messages.

Karl W. Randolph.