Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

James:

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 12:20 AM, James Christian
<jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>wrote:

> The one thing that would seem to lend to support to your view is lack of
> mention of Jericho in the Amarna letters.
>
> However, let's assume that your theory is true and a King of Judah would
> adopt an idolatrous name
>

You are making two assumptions here: 1) that Heba was an idolatrous name (my
understanding from this discussion is that if it were, it was from a
non-Semitic people and language) and 2) that the king knew it.

Even if both assumptions are correct, there were kings of Judah who were
idolaters and would have had no problem in adopting an idolatrous name.


> and grovel shamelessly to the Pharoah of Egypt.
>

We have only part of the correspondence. Further, that “groveling” could
have been for show, that away from the Egyptian spotlight, he may have acted
far differently.


> We would still expect there to be some kind of traceable connection between
> his pagan name and his Jewish name.
>

Not at all, if the pattern observed in the Egyptian kingly names were
followed by the Judah king. Among the Egyptian kings, the royal name was
often completely different from the given name.


> Any reasonable suggestions as to who this King could have been?
>

At this point in time, I have no answer, as I have not studied this material
in depth. At this time, all I know for certain is that there is a lot that
is unknown, and that the certain dates given by professional historians is a
fool’s paradise.

>
> James Christian
>
>
> Karl W. Randolph.