rob117

After reading recent literature by Dever, Mazar, Finkelstein, et. al., I am pretty sure that no serious scholar accepts the traditional connection of the "Amraphel, King of Shinar" of Genesis 14 with the historical Hammurabi of Babylon. Problem is, Wikipedia still uses very old sources, and as an editor on Wikipedia, I have to deal with people who insist that this opinion be included in articles about non-biblical subjects such as a mundane article on the region of Elam. This traditional interpretation also sometimes includes identifying the "Arioch, King of Elassar" of Genesis 14 with Hammurabi's near-contemporary Warad-Sin of Larsa.

I am 99% sure that this theory has been abandoned, because until today, the only place I could find the Amraphel/Hammurabi connection was from sources earlier than 1970, and the Arioch/Warad-Sin connection was from sources earlier than 1930, including (ugh) Easton's Bible Dictionary 1897.

The person I was arguing with then linked me to this Ancient Near East Discussion Forum for professors and students which, after a quick look at the guidelines, does not appear to be of fundamentalist persuasion. This caught me off-guard, because mainstream authors have been ignoring this connection for 35 years.

So I've got a few questions to anyone who can anwer:

1) Is there anything to the argument for reading the Semitic name Warad-Sin as "Eri-Aku" (supposedly its Sumerian transcription, connecting it with the biblical Arioch), or is this bogus?
2) How much credence is given to the Amraphel/Hammurabi connection?
3) Do you know of a source I could link to to convince this guy that this is not a widely accepted interpretation (keep in mind that the guy I'm arguing with calls Amihai Mazar a "minimalist").