Doctor X

Amlodhi:

Check your Inbox more often.

--J.D.

Amlodhi

Sorry Doc, I'm bad about not thinking to check that. Guess I should pin a note to my shirt.

However, I have now responded to your message.

Amlodhi

spin

Try this for size:

2 Sam 23:8 mentions one Jashebbashebeth
1 Chr 11:11 parallels this name with Jashobeam
and the LXX version of the latter: Iesebaal

Obviously the 2 Sam is a corruption of a -bosheth substitution for Baal as evinced with Ishbaal and demonstrated by the Greek of 1 Chr. However, the Hebrew of 1 Chr has substituted `M, people, for Baal.

You simply can't have kings of Israel or Judah being called either Jerubbaal and Rahabbaal or Jerubbosheth and Rahabbosheth, can you? "Baal will contend", "Baal will enlarge"? No, a scribe has to find something better than those. 1 Chr 11:11 shows the way out (though given the example of Gideon being Jerubbaal, Jdg 8:35, I'm happier with that being the underlying form of Jeroboam than for the other which has no precedent).


spin

spin

On Baal names in Saul's family:

The problem is that I date the redaction of Sam/Kings to the Hasmonaean era, not only because of the Joasiah/John Hyrcanus parallel, but also the fact that David is given priestly powers in Sam/Kgs (eg girding himself in a linen ephod! 2 Sam 6:14, and making offerings, 6:17ff), as are his sons (KHNYM, 2 Sam 8:18), while this information is not in Chronicles. Now it is only the Hasmonaeans who claim to be both kings and priests.

The redaction of Sam/Kgs is late and used sources one of which was also used by Chr. The difference in our case is that Chr preserves the original more faithfully.

A promiscuous change like that found in Sam/Kgs being needed should imply that if Sam/Kgs were from the Judahite days the Baal references should simply have been eliminated completely and the source used by Chr would no longer have existed, but this is not the case. We have to explain the Chr manifestation of Baal in another way and that is a late change (and a late redaction) in Sam/Kgs during the Hasmonean period.

[Edited to add:] can you imagine a priesthood allowing a priestly David to get by in the hundreds of years of theocracy during the Persian and Greek periods? The ephod and sacrifices were clearly priestly prerogatives. We've seen that there were no qualms in changing uncomfortable texts. Why let a priestly David get by? It didn't: it's a Hasmonaean construct for obvious ideological reasons.


spin

Celsus

I haven't been able to find the reference. Someone (Tigay?) mentioned that there was a high number of Yahwistic and Baal(-istic? ) names in Israel, but only Yahwist ones in Judah. It's ok though, a quick look through Zevit's tome pointed out a possibility of a theophoric name in Judah involve the Egyptian god Ptah, and further references to Baal names (presumably what I read was outdated).

Joel