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T: Hello.
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Welcome to the sixth episode of series
three of the Tyndale House podcast.
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We're looking at names in the Old
Testament and in the ancient world.
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in our last episode,
we were looking at Genesis chapter 14,
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some of the names that are going on there.
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And we're going to follow on from that to
start with today, talking about Abram,
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who becomes Abraham.
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And so we're going to be talking about
the idea of, people having different names
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at different times or in different
contexts and changes of name and so on.
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So that's where we're going.
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I'm joined again by, Caleb Howard,
who heads up our Old Testament team,
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and James Bejon, who is,
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a researcher.
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Almost forgot what you were then James
J: So do I
T: But nevermind
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so James is a PhD
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candidate here in Cambridge
and also works on the Old Testament team.
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So it's very good to have you with us again.
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So we're talking about name changing.
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If you were going to have a different name,
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have you ever thought about what it would be?
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C: You first
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J: Well, the answer is no,
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I haven't thought about what it would be.
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I'll get a new name one day,
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according to revelation.
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I don't know what that will be either.
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T: You've never been tempted
to change your name?
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J: No
C: I have slightly.
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So my name is Caleb, as you know,
but that's my middle name.
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T: Oh really?
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C: And, so when I sign my name,
I sign my name J. Caleb Howard.
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Because legally, people always assume that
I go by John, which is my first name.
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But I don't, I go by Caleb,
and that's always been a bit of a nuisance
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when I'm sort of interacting
with people who expect my first name to be
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the given name that the name that I go by,
J: Oh so you would’ve changed it just to...
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C: I might have, I might have changed it
to Caleb John or something like that.
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something
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Or just go by John.
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I don't know. Some people have call me John. So.
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T: So you are kind of working with a changed
name in some way.
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I mean, Caleb is your name but you are
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C: Yeah.
T: Yeah, okay
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C: Well, my parents always call
me Caleb and, yeah.
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J: I would have been called Rachel
had I been a girl,
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but I would not change my name to that
C: Okay
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J: Just to...
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Just to state that.
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C: Yeah
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T: I quite fancy some Latin name I think.
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yeah I think that would, that has
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a certain gravitas to it,
but I don't know what it would be.
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Anyway, let's, let's get on with, with
today's subject rather than talking about,
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these things,
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The way that names
work in the Bible,
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we've already said in earlier
episodes, is different
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than we're familiar
with in the Western world.
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and the idea of people
having different names
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or multiple names
even is, is quite alien to us.
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so yeah, I mean you’re
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you're not really using multiple names.
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They're both your names.
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It's just you're using one
rather than the other.
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How different is it
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from Western ways of naming?
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How do our preconceptions of the way
that names work, kind of, fall down
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when we come to
some of these biblical texts?
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J: Well,
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a large part of the name in the Western
world is an identifier, isn't it?
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You want to be able to type it
in a database, get all
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James Bejon's records, etc. and
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that requires a lot of uniformity.
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It needs to be spelt the same way
consistently by everyone, etc.
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that's probably a very modern, well database is obviously a modern notion,
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but that whole thing's
probably a modern notion. In Scripture
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You see more in later books
and the New Testament
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people who are explicitly
referred to as having two names
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X, who was also called Y, that sort of thing.
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Judas, who was also known as...
You get that in Maccabees as well.
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You've also got multiple names
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when people move to a new society,
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Joseph gets a new name doesn’t he?
Daniel gets a new name.
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Sometimes you've got translated names
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Dorcas, who was called Tabitha.
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You know, Tabitha is sort of something
Aramaic for gazelle.
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Dorcas is Greek for [that].
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And that kind of thing even goes on
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today. We've got a lady, Devon, who works here.
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She's got a friend called Ayelet
that’s Hebrew for a deer or something.
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But when Ayelet talks to Arabic
speakers, she's generally known as Reem,
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which is just the sort of Arabic
equivalent for something like a
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antelope. So this kind of thing is odd
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to us at first blush,
but not to most people.
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T: Yeah, right.
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Okay, that's very helpful.
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C: There's an Assyrian queen
called Zakutu, which is the Akkadian
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word, the native word for ‘pure’ or ‘clean’.
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And she also has the Aramaic name Naqi’a,
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which is the Aramaic word
for ‘clean’ or ‘pure’.
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Yeah.
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It's possible that she's Aramean and
she marries the Assyrian king Sennacherib,
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that we know from the Bible it's his queen,
and she produces
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In fact, the
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the next king of Assyria,
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Esarhaddon.
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but yeah, it's interesting
that she has kind of the same semantic
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category in the two languages,
the local kind of Mesopotamian language,
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Akkadian, but also potentially her
native language, Aramaic.
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We don't know that for sure, but
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difficult to explain
why she has both these names otherwise.
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Yeah.
T: Yeah.
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So we may see some of that going on
possibly with,
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with some of the kings later on.
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We'll come to that a little bit later or
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J: Yeah
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T: there are some definitely they've,
they've got variations of names
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and so on.
But let's, let's start with Abraham.
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Well we'll come back to them later on. So
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in the chapter
we were looking at last time,
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chapter 14, he's called Abram as he is
for the first few chapters.
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And we’re so used to calling him Abraham
that we
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we often forget that he's Abram
until we get to the name change.
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And, I've often heard
people read the passage in church
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and they, they say, Abraham,
even though it's Abram at that point.
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And then we get to Genesis chapter 17
and he's getting on a little bit, 99.
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And, the Lord appears to him again.
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and he gets a new name. Do you want to read some of that for us, James?
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And then we'll, we'll talk about
what's going on.
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J: Yeah, sure.
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‘So when Abram was 99 years old,’
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we need to pause
for the numerical significance,
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don’t we? Abraham is...
C: Do we?
J: We do, we do
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Abraham is a man of tens, isn’t he? Adam
to Noah is ten generations.
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Noah to Abraham is ten.
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Abraham has the battle
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of five kings versus four kings.
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So he becomes a 10th king as he wins.
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He's now 99. He's going to be 100.
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So he's going to be ten squared
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When his son is born.
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So we need to pause.
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C: Phenomenal. Pause accomplished.
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Keep going.
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J: All right.
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‘So the Lord appeared to Abram and
he said to him, I am the Lord Almighty.
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Walk before me and be,
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[what should we say,
blind, blameless,] be perfect,
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and I will establish my covenant
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between me and between you.
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And I will multiply you greatly.’
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It's interesting here,
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there's a lot of repeating of
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the verb give isn’t there?
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I will give my covenant literally.
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And then he's going to make, Abram
a great nation, which is sort of the same,
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giving, just sort of the grace of God
as gift behind it all
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‘Abram fell on his face and God
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spoke to him, saying, “I am.
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Behold,
my covenant is with you, and you will be,
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[a great,
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well,] a father of many nations.”’
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And this phrase, ‘father of many nations’
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av hamon
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that seems to be
a play of what's going to come.
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So Abraham, has an insertion of an ‘H’
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and doesn't sound so different from av hamon
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‘you will not, no
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No longer will your name
be called [Abram] Abraham, but you'll...’
T: You’ve just
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J: Oh no sorry, I’ve done it, yeah
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‘...be called Abram
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but your name will be called Abraham for
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[father or] I will make you a father of,
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a great multitude of nations.’
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Let's say
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C: ‘I will give you’ There’s that ‘give’ word again.
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J: Yeah
C: Yeah, it's very interesting.
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So the difference between Avram (Abram)
and Avraham (Abraham): ham.
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And the point here is that the ‘H’ insertion
that James has just mentioned
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is that ‘H’ in ‘ham’. Avraham (Abraham). Right.
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the question is sort of
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what's the difference
between those two names?
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Avram (Abram) means ‘exalted father’
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or ‘father is exalted’. Av
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is the word for ‘father’, ram, ‘exalted’.
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And it's a pretty common
name in the ancient
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Near East and over a long period of time as well.
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It's not specific to this kind
of early second millennium period.
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It's throughout the second millennium
and first millennium as well.
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and it's worth knowing that the word
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father occurs alongside
a lot of other kinship terms in names.
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So you get mothers and sisters
and brothers and paternal
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and maternal uncles
and so on showing up in names.
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And what's interesting about them
is that in sentence names,
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so, names where you have more than one word
and they make up a sentence,
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father, alongside
some of these other kinship terms,
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do the same things in those sentences
that deities do
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So alongside ‘exalted father’
or ‘father is exalted’, you might have
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‘Haddu is exalted’, or ‘El is exalted’, or something
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like that in other names,
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which suggests, I think, that suggests that,
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in Abraham's world,
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people often regarded their dead ancestors
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as, in some sense, divine.
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And we know that that's true
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for some people at least, because,
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places of worship or veneration of the dead
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ancestors, has been, have been discovered and studied
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their particular rituals
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that people did, for the ancestors
where they, they celebrated meals or had
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meals in celebration of the ancestors,
and they made prayers to them and so on.
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So the ancestors seem
to have had a place alongside
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deities in, let's say, Levantine religion,
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and also in
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Mesopotamia,
kind of around the Fertile Crescent,
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where they were venerated
and depended upon for,
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the, the well-being of the family.
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And if you look at the sorts of things
that are that are said about them, so
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they are paradigmatically
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related to deities in what they do,
that is to say they do the same things.
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They have the same the verbs associated with them,
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or adjectives or nouns that described in a similar way.
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So ‘father is exalted’. ‘Haddu is exalted.’
You might have
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‘father is good’, ‘Haddu is good’, and so on.
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Haddu is a deity, a divine name.
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So because these names are so similar,
and the kinship terms
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are doing the same things as deities,
it suggests that these
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kin, these ancestors are regarded
as, in some sense, divine.
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The question is sort of
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T: Even while they’re alive?
C: No.
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T: So—
C: not necessarily
T: But he has the name
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while he’s alive.
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C: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
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It doesn't necessarily refer to him.
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T: Yeah, oh I see
C:Yeah. ‘father is exalted’
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If you look at what the ancestors do,
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they often do things that help the birth
or help conception and so on.
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So it suggests that the dead ancestors are in view.
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Now, I should say
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what you're what you're seeing is an
inherent ambiguity about the name, right?
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Names are so terse that we don't, it's hard
to know sort of exactly what
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father is in view
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And it, to my mind, it's
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theoretically possible that such names
could be interpreted in all sorts of ways.
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It's possible
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that someone could have thought of father
as the living father.
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Difficult to know.
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I mean, you could you could have a sort
of, let's say, a kind of secular sense
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of this name referring to the living
father, let's say Abraham's father,
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as, as an exalted person.
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so, that's possible.
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but when we study
lots of names from this region
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and we see how the father, the mother,
the sister, the maternal uncle,
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and so on are all doing similar things
in the names as the deities.
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Sometimes those things kind of go
beyond the
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the role of the father and the kind of living father.
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So look, the relationship is, is somewhat tentative, but it does
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I think it's fair to say
that we have a kind of divine father.
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I say, a kind of divine father, because,
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when you look at the spelling of the word father
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in the names, particularly in cuneiform,
the cuneiform script,
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there's a there's a sign,
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a symbol that goes before words
that refer to deities,
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and it indicates
what kind of semantic class they're in.
00:13:47:15 - 00:13:50:08
They're called determinatives.
00:13:50:08 - 00:13:52:03
So personal names have their own
00:13:53:05 - 00:13:55:10
determinatives.
00:13:55:10 - 00:13:58:03
Objects made of
wood have their own determinative,
00:13:58:03 - 00:14:01:03
a wood determinative that indicates
that the thing is made of wood.
00:14:01:24 - 00:14:04:05
C: And deities...
J: Mr, is a kind of determinative, isn’t it?
00:14:04:05 - 00:14:05:12
C: Yeah. Well that's true. Yeah. That's right.
00:14:05:12 - 00:14:06:22
T: Yeah.
00:14:06:22 - 00:14:11:06
C: So there is a divine determinative,
a dingir sign so we have dingir in Sumerian.
00:14:12:02 - 00:14:16:01
and it indicates that what follows
it is a is a deity. Well the father
00:14:16:01 - 00:14:17:00
in these kinship terms
00:14:17:00 - 00:14:20:22
never have that divine determinative
in front of them, with rare exception.
00:14:21:08 - 00:14:25:16
So at the site that I'm mainly studying
right now, Alalakh, [it] never occurs
00:14:26:02 - 00:14:29:14
at other sites, just occurs sort of 1 or 2 times at that at most,
00:14:30:07 - 00:14:35:02
which again, kind of fits this notion
that the kin are in a sense divine,
00:14:35:02 - 00:14:38:11
but they're not quite at the same level
as the other deities if that makes sense.
00:14:38:15 - 00:14:38:23
T: Yeah.
00:14:38:23 - 00:14:41:16
C: So to bring it back to Abram, Abraham,
00:14:41:16 - 00:14:47:00
an argument could be made that Abram
in his sort of pre-Yahwistic background
00:14:47:00 - 00:14:51:03
Let's say, that’s before he became a worshiper of the Lord or something like that.
00:14:52:23 - 00:14:54:02
perhaps he participated
00:14:54:02 - 00:14:57:08
in that sort of thing and his name
participated, at least in that sort of,
00:14:57:21 - 00:15:01:09
worship and that sort of conception and that this shifted
00:15:01:17 - 00:15:05:14
when he's called from
Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan.
00:15:05:14 - 00:15:06:17
difficult to know.
00:15:06:17 - 00:15:07:06
Right.
00:15:07:06 - 00:15:09:22
This is speculation.
00:15:09:22 - 00:15:11:15
But that's one possibility.
00:15:11:15 - 00:15:14:01
T: I've heard some preachers say
00:15:14:01 - 00:15:17:09
that, I've probably said it myself,
that it's a bit rough
00:15:17:09 - 00:15:20:13
for Abraham to be called ‘exalted father’
when he has no children.
00:15:20:13 - 00:15:24:07
But actually, all that you're saying
suggests that the father is
00:15:24:24 - 00:15:27:00
that his name is not referring to him.
00:15:27:00 - 00:15:29:21
It's not an expectation
that he'll be an exalted father,
00:15:29:21 - 00:15:34:11
but but that his father is exalted, or there is an exalted
00:15:34:11 - 00:15:37:11
father that his name reflects.
00:15:37:11 - 00:15:38:09
C: Yeah.
00:15:38:09 - 00:15:39:24
T: Am I understanding that correctly?
C: Yeah. A bit.
00:15:39:24 - 00:15:41:02
Yeah, yeah. That's right.
00:15:41:02 - 00:15:45:05
So we've talked in previous episodes
about the fact that names aren't just
00:15:45:14 - 00:15:47:17
they don't just get their meaning
from their etymologies.
00:15:47:17 - 00:15:48:12
T: Sure.
C: Right.
00:15:48:12 - 00:15:51:23
They get their meaning
from sound similarities to things
00:15:51:23 - 00:15:56:03
that are going on with words
in the context of texts
00:15:56:14 - 00:15:59:03
I mentioned Samuel in previous episodes.
00:16:00:16 - 00:16:01:16
Or just I mean, that
00:16:01:16 - 00:16:05:13
there may be ancient conceptions
of relatedness between words
00:16:05:13 - 00:16:08:18
that we don't necessarily perceive
as correct or as right,
00:16:08:18 - 00:16:12:11
and maybe they're not philological
or linguistically correct,
00:16:13:04 - 00:16:16:10
but in the in the name bearer’s
minds or on the name bestower’s minds,
00:16:17:03 - 00:16:18:18
the connections
they were making were real.
00:16:18:18 - 00:16:24:00
And that that is, for all intents
and purposes, real, a valid connection.
00:16:24:00 - 00:16:26:04
it's unfair and inappropriate,
00:16:26:04 - 00:16:29:04
I would say, of us to say
that such connections are not real.
00:16:29:23 - 00:16:33:22
And I think what's going on,
I think James agrees, with Abraham.
00:16:34:11 - 00:16:37:11
(we discussed this beforehand,
so I know he does)
00:16:37:13 - 00:16:39:10
is that an ‘H’ is being inserted
00:16:39:10 - 00:16:42:10
That's something that happens
in other Semitic languages.
00:16:42:16 - 00:16:45:07
It happens in Aramaic, for example,
00:16:45:07 - 00:16:48:21
where words from one language
like Hebrew say
00:16:49:09 - 00:16:53:22
appear also in Aramaic cognate words,
but an ‘H’ is added to them
00:16:54:07 - 00:16:57:07
in the middle, and that's a bit like what
we have here with Abraham.
00:16:57:22 - 00:17:00:22
But there's this sound play with av hamon
00:17:01:01 - 00:17:04:21
in the previous, in verse four, which establishes the relationship
00:17:04:21 - 00:17:08:07
between Abraham's new name
and his role as an exalted father,
00:17:08:16 - 00:17:11:07
so there's a, there's a kind of playing with words
00:17:11:07 - 00:17:14:08
at several levels going on,
and that matters.
00:17:14:12 - 00:17:17:05
It's worth sort of
we should access all of those levels
00:17:17:05 - 00:17:19:00
if we want to understand
what's going on in the text.
00:17:19:00 - 00:17:22:13
Yeah, and ‘hamon’ is a known name
element, isn't it?
00:17:22:13 - 00:17:25:13
We've got the geographical name,
Ba’al-hamon
00:17:25:24 - 00:17:30:14
which it probably meant something
like ‘Lord of armies’ could of meant?
00:17:30:14 - 00:17:34:01
‘hamon’ can be like a multitude,
so might not have been that dissimilar
00:17:34:01 - 00:17:38:06
to the sense of Adonai tzava’ot, ‘Lord of hosts’, that kind of thing.
00:17:38:06 - 00:17:41:02
So it's a known naming concept.
00:17:41:02 - 00:17:44:11
I mean, just to give
some biblical parallels, Caleb’s
00:17:44:11 - 00:17:48:11
sort of bringing a wealth of cuneiform knowledge to
00:17:48:11 - 00:17:52:01
to all this, but its consistent
with what we see in Scripture, isn't it?
00:17:52:01 - 00:17:57:03
You can think of quite a few names
where ‘Av’ and ‘El’ interchange.
00:17:57:03 - 00:17:59:12
So just as we've got a,
00:17:59:12 - 00:18:01:20
Avishua (Abishua) we've got an Elishua
00:18:01:20 - 00:18:04:01
Just as we've got an Avimelech (Abimelech),
00:18:04:01 - 00:18:05:06
we got an Elimelech.
00:18:05:06 - 00:18:09:23
So you can see sort of ‘Av’ and ‘El’ doing
similar things and some of those
00:18:10:14 - 00:18:13:22
I wouldn't doubt for a second
that Elimelech was a statement that ‘God is
00:18:14:05 - 00:18:16:18
King’, ‘God is in charge’.
Something like that.
00:18:16:18 - 00:18:19:12
Avimelech (Abimelech) seems to me, in the case of Gideon’s
00:18:19:12 - 00:18:24:15
son was a name that Gideon’s son gave himself talking about
00:18:24:23 - 00:18:28:23
‘my father is king’
because he used that to claim the throne.
00:18:28:23 - 00:18:32:21
There are sort of syntactic arguments
behind it but I think as a good argument
00:18:33:01 - 00:18:33:18
you can say that,
00:18:34:22 - 00:18:37:24
Gideon’s son gave himself that name.
00:18:38:08 - 00:18:40:13
Yeah, we'll get to throne names later.
00:18:40:13 - 00:18:43:13
T: Yeah, yeah. Okay
00:18:44:06 - 00:18:49:07
J: But yeah, either way, Abraham's name, however,
we exactly parse it,
00:18:49:07 - 00:18:53:02
it changes from possibly a sentence type
00:18:53:06 - 00:18:58:04
name, a statement about a divine father
to something that is
00:18:58:04 - 00:19:01:22
going to describe much more closely
what Abraham is going to be
00:19:01:22 - 00:19:02:15
and become.
00:19:02:15 - 00:19:06:14
He's going to be a father of many nations
and of great multitudes.
00:19:06:14 - 00:19:10:04
And that, of course, is the whole context of the passage, isn't it?
00:19:10:23 - 00:19:13:23
And I suppose that the sense that
00:19:14:22 - 00:19:18:02
Abraham's new name,
with the ‘H’ inserted does
00:19:18:02 - 00:19:23:09
reflect what's going to happen to him, and
and the Lord's promise to him.
00:19:23:09 - 00:19:29:05
I suppose that's a driver for people
to see Abram as an i—
00:19:29:05 - 00:19:32:05
kind of an ironic, unfortunate
00:19:32:08 - 00:19:35:00
name, referring to himself
that has never been fulfilled.
00:19:35:00 - 00:19:38:11
So I can understand
why people would make that that connection
00:19:38:21 - 00:19:42:17
because of what happens to that
revised or new name.
00:19:42:17 - 00:19:44:00
J: Yeah, yeah
00:19:44:00 - 00:19:47:16
And so we're seeing a kind of accrual
of names aren’t we?
00:19:47:16 - 00:19:50:16
just as God accrues
names as the narrative goes on.
00:19:50:16 - 00:19:52:20
So do various characters.
00:19:52:20 - 00:19:53:24
T: Yeah. Okay.
00:19:56:15 - 00:19:58:10
I know that,
00:19:58:10 - 00:20:01:10
Sarah going to Sarai (sic)
is a little tricky.
00:20:02:03 - 00:20:05:17
do you just want to step by that,
or do you want to say anything about it?
00:20:06:09 - 00:20:08:17
C: I don't like saying things if I don't feel sure about them.
00:20:08:17 - 00:20:11:24
So I have some ideas, but they're probably wrong.
00:20:12:02 - 00:20:14:19
T: Well, we'll come back to that
in a future episode
00:20:14:19 - 00:20:15:16
C: Okay, yeah.
00:20:15:16 - 00:20:18:16
T: There will be a second series of,
00:20:18:23 - 00:20:21:23
looking at names in the Bible
in the ancient world,
00:20:21:23 - 00:20:22:08
Caleb.
00:20:22:08 - 00:20:25:13
So just if you can get your ideas
clear by the next series,
00:20:25:13 - 00:20:28:13
C: people can't get enough of it.
00:20:29:16 - 00:20:32:06
T: Shall we talk about Benjamin
00:20:32:06 - 00:20:35:06
briefly? because we've talked about
Jacob's other sons.
00:20:36:03 - 00:20:41:15
so, Benjamin is born in
Genesis chapter 35,
00:20:42:13 - 00:20:46:18
and Rachel goes into labour
in verse 16.
00:20:47:14 - 00:20:49:21
And, she had hard labour
00:20:49:21 - 00:20:53:11
and, she gives birth to a son and then dies and,
00:20:55:05 - 00:20:57:04
as she's dying, as her soul was departing.
00:20:57:04 - 00:20:59:03
She calls him Ben-Oni.
00:20:59:03 - 00:21:02:00
but his father calls him Ben-yamin.
00:21:02:14 - 00:21:03:23
What's going on there?
00:21:05:18 - 00:21:06:11
J: Should I kick off?
00:21:06:11 - 00:21:07:10
C: Yeah
00:21:07:10 - 00:21:12:16
So, I think what we've got here
is another example of
00:21:13:19 - 00:21:17:14
kind of the way in which a name
can have multiple interpretations.
00:21:17:14 - 00:21:21:05
So one of the most common name types
in ancient
00:21:21:08 - 00:21:25:16
names has to do with, the birth event,
if you like.
00:21:25:16 - 00:21:29:13
So when people were born,
people could be named after the month
00:21:29:18 - 00:21:33:02
when they were born
or the time of day when they were born.
00:21:33:02 - 00:21:37:06
I mean, Dawn might have started off
like that as a name I don't know,
00:21:37:07 - 00:21:41:08
it's kind of lost that significance,
but it still has that significance
00:21:41:08 - 00:21:45:21
in many places in Africa, in many Arabic communities.
00:21:47:02 - 00:21:50:01
and this seems to be a
00:21:50:01 - 00:21:54:23
name first and foremost, as Rachel names
her son Ben-Oni
00:21:54:23 - 00:21:57:23
to do with the pain of childbirth.
00:21:58:01 - 00:22:01:11
so Jabez is, a similar example,
00:22:01:11 - 00:22:03:20
which would mean something
like ‘he hurt me’.
00:22:03:20 - 00:22:07:04
It's probably a, kind of metathesised
00:22:07:07 - 00:22:10:05
form of the root that we see in the curse.
00:22:10:05 - 00:22:12:23
That's to do with, when Eve will
00:22:12:23 - 00:22:16:07
have pain in childbirth itzavon or etzev.
00:22:16:07 - 00:22:20:07
I think is probably
a slightly transposed form of that.
00:22:20:07 - 00:22:25:11
So I think that that's the name
that Rachel is giving her son
00:22:25:15 - 00:22:28:16
like ‘a son of sorrow’, ‘a son of
00:22:29:13 - 00:22:32:21
affliction’ and my sense
00:22:32:21 - 00:22:35:09
is that,
00:22:35:09 - 00:22:38:22
now Isaac is going to give Benjamin.
00:22:39:00 - 00:22:42:00
Sorry. Jacob is going to give Benjamin,
00:22:42:15 - 00:22:46:01
a different interpretation of this word ‘on’.
00:22:46:01 - 00:22:49:21
So ‘on’ can refer to, sorrow, etc.
00:22:49:21 - 00:22:54:02
it can also refer to kind of strength
and power.
00:22:54:02 - 00:22:54:20
And so in,
00:22:56:01 - 00:22:57:24
Jacob's blessing his sons
00:22:57:24 - 00:23:00:24
Reuben, he refers to as
00:23:01:13 - 00:23:06:06
reshit, I think, oni
so ‘the first fruits of my strength’
00:23:06:06 - 00:23:09:06
and it seems to have to do there, with
00:23:10:00 - 00:23:11:24
yeah, with power, with inheritance.
00:23:11:24 - 00:23:15:03
You know, Reuben is there the firstborn and
00:23:16:03 - 00:23:19:03
I'm thinking that,
00:23:19:08 - 00:23:21:17
the name Benjamin is
00:23:21:17 - 00:23:25:03
‘a son of a right hand’ has kind of,
00:23:25:19 - 00:23:29:12
is a different interpretation of Ben-Oni
00:23:29:12 - 00:23:32:01
and a more positive interpretation.
00:23:32:24 - 00:23:36:09
you were thinking about this
to do with a favourite weren’t you, Caleb?
00:23:36:09 - 00:23:38:11
Do you want to...?
T: Just before you come in
00:23:38:11 - 00:23:40:16
So just to clarify.
00:23:40:16 - 00:23:43:16
So Ben-yamin, son of my right hand,
00:23:43:19 - 00:23:47:23
is the right hand is picking up
the strength possibility for ‘On’?
00:23:47:23 - 00:23:50:23
Is that what you saying?
J: I think so, yeah.
00:23:51:04 - 00:23:54:23
but it could also pick up the idea of favourite?
00:23:54:23 - 00:23:58:14
C: Well, I mean, my thought,
is that ‘yamin’
00:23:59:18 - 00:24:02:22
‘Right,’ ‘right hand’ could be taken in the sense of,
00:24:03:17 - 00:24:07:12
well, not unlike, you get in Psalm 2
‘sit at my right hand
00:24:07:12 - 00:24:10:12
while I make your enemies,
a footstool for your feet’
00:24:10:14 - 00:24:13:16
the sense of pre-eminence or favour.
00:24:15:11 - 00:24:18:05
and I say that because Jacob
00:24:18:05 - 00:24:21:05
clearly has favourites among his children.
00:24:21:08 - 00:24:22:18
he has Joseph as a favourite.
00:24:22:18 - 00:24:25:10
And then Joseph appears
to have died to him.
00:24:25:10 - 00:24:28:18
And the way he treats Benjamin
after that is, is somewhat similar.
00:24:30:07 - 00:24:33:01
and this causes problems in the family,
of course, and becomes a theme in the rest
00:24:33:01 - 00:24:37:19
of the story, at least in sort
of the background of what's happening.
00:24:37:19 - 00:24:41:15
So I'm wondering if ‘yamin’ can be
taken here in the sense of,
00:24:43:07 - 00:24:46:01
well, ‘son of the right hand’, meaning ‘favourite son’
00:24:46:01 - 00:24:49:13
or ‘favoured son’ or ‘pre-eminent son’
or something like that.
00:24:50:06 - 00:24:51:23
We were discussing the possibility,
whether it
00:24:51:23 - 00:24:54:23
whether it might have inheritance
implications.
00:24:55:03 - 00:24:57:01
it's difficult to know
00:24:57:01 - 00:25:00:01
whether that whether it would but
00:25:00:08 - 00:25:05:00
to my mind, the notion of favourite fits
very well with Jacob's character as a
00:25:05:00 - 00:25:08:23
as a father who was a pretty bad father
in a lot of ways.
00:25:09:10 - 00:25:12:08
And one of them,
he has favourites among his children.
00:25:12:08 - 00:25:16:03
J: The one seated at the right hand
inherits in some sense, don't they? So
00:25:16:15 - 00:25:19:10
there seems to be a link there
00:25:19:10 - 00:25:21:11
there's also just a kind of
00:25:21:11 - 00:25:25:16
this double sense of kind of, well,
life and death
00:25:25:16 - 00:25:31:04
in terms of Rachel's death and life
coming from it and strength and sorrow.
00:25:31:05 - 00:25:31:24
There's just a sort of,
00:25:33:05 - 00:25:34:22
this mixture of notions
00:25:34:22 - 00:25:38:13
seem almost to plague Benjamin's tribe.
00:25:39:01 - 00:25:42:03
You know, kind of, you think of Hannah's
00:25:43:01 - 00:25:45:19
travail, where she's misunderstood.
00:25:45:19 - 00:25:51:11
Kind of Saul's ambiguous background
and the kind of mix of weeping
00:25:51:12 - 00:25:55:08
and death and hope and failure
that's connected.
00:25:55:17 - 00:25:58:10
There seems to be this kind of mix of,
yeah,
00:25:58:10 - 00:26:01:13
hope and tragedy
that that works through Benjamin's
00:26:02:17 - 00:26:05:03
almost whole story as a tribe, you know.
00:26:05:03 - 00:26:06:02
T: Yeah, interesting.
00:26:06:02 - 00:26:08:21
C: Worth just saying that that Benjamin is attested
00:26:08:21 - 00:26:12:02
in the early second millennium
as a personal name for a person.
00:26:13:00 - 00:26:15:03
we have it in a list of an administrative
00:26:15:03 - 00:26:18:03
list from Mari,
00:26:18:05 - 00:26:21:05
a city on the middle Euphrates
from the 18th century BC.
00:26:22:11 - 00:26:25:13
And it also is attested
as the name of a,
00:26:26:15 - 00:26:29:11
tribal confederacy, a kind of federation
00:26:29:11 - 00:26:32:15
of tribes, underneath the category,
00:26:32:15 - 00:26:33:05
Ben-yamin.
00:26:33:05 - 00:26:35:19
And it would have corresponded to Ben-simal
00:26:35:19 - 00:26:39:01
which is ‘son of the left hand’, possibly referring
00:26:39:02 - 00:26:43:07
to Ben-yamin being the South, let's say,
and Ben-simal being the North.
00:26:44:18 - 00:26:46:22
I raise that not
just because of the historical interest,
00:26:46:22 - 00:26:51:04
but because this is an example
of how the Bible pretty regularly takes,
00:26:52:13 - 00:26:55:13
things that we can access
in historical records like that
00:26:56:03 - 00:26:58:09
and weaves them
into this brilliant narrative.
00:26:58:09 - 00:27:00:16
It's amazing,
00:27:00:16 - 00:27:04:24
just the level of sophistication
that we find in the, in the Hebrew Bible.
00:27:04:24 - 00:27:08:04
It's unparalleled, in my opinion, in the Near East.
00:27:09:14 - 00:27:12:09
maybe a matter of taste of mine,
but it's remarkable.
00:27:12:09 - 00:27:13:14
It's remarkable.
00:27:13:14 - 00:27:14:24
And here's an example of that.
00:27:14:24 - 00:27:17:24
A text is sort of capitalizing
on the meaning of the name,
00:27:18:07 - 00:27:21:17
in this case etymologically,
but it has significance in relation
00:27:21:17 - 00:27:25:00
to Ben-Oni being taken potentially in two senses.
00:27:25:09 - 00:27:29:09
It's a really sophisticated form
of philology or interpretation of
00:27:29:10 - 00:27:30:14
the use of language.
00:27:31:22 - 00:27:32:23
J: Yeah, yeah.
00:27:32:23 - 00:27:36:00
And the narrative also has got some interesting,
00:27:37:22 - 00:27:39:23
what’s the word? Implications to it as well
00:27:39:23 - 00:27:42:23
insofar as, where are we? verse...
C: 18?
00:27:43:13 - 00:27:45:04
J: No, I'm just thinking earlier.
00:27:45:04 - 00:27:47:06
Where is it talking about kings
coming forth?
00:27:47:06 - 00:27:47:14
Oh sorry.
00:27:47:14 - 00:27:51:23
Verse 11 so we've just had God speaking
00:27:52:08 - 00:27:57:11
about himself again as El Shaddai,
and the command to be fruitful and multiply.
00:27:57:11 - 00:28:00:11
So there’s a lot of continuation with Abraham
00:28:00:16 - 00:28:03:14
and then kings will come forth from you
00:28:03:14 - 00:28:07:16
it seems interesting to me
that you've got a promise of kings.
00:28:08:02 - 00:28:12:02
You've then got Benjamin born, from whom
the first king, Saul,
00:28:12:02 - 00:28:16:13
is going to come,
and he's born en route to Bethlehem.
00:28:16:13 - 00:28:18:14
That's sort of,
00:28:18:14 - 00:28:19:07
C: Ephrath
00:28:19:07 - 00:28:21:09
J: Yeah. It's so
00:28:21:09 - 00:28:24:06
And it gives you the gloss in verse
19, doesn’t it?
00:28:24:06 - 00:28:28:19
And so it seems significant
that from Benjamin, you know,
00:28:28:23 - 00:28:33:03
Saul is going to be born and en route,
00:28:33:03 - 00:28:37:13
if you like, of the kingship
shifting to Bethlehem with David.
00:28:37:13 - 00:28:41:18
And so there seems to be kind of,
just a little microcosm
00:28:41:18 - 00:28:44:05
of what's to come
00:28:44:05 - 00:28:45:07
T: That’s fascinating, yeah.
00:28:46:10 - 00:28:47:15
Shall we draw stumps there?
00:28:47:15 - 00:28:47:21
Yeah.
00:28:47:21 - 00:28:50:19
To use a good cricketing metaphor,
which you will appreciate, Caleb
00:28:50:19 - 00:28:53:09
C: I have no idea what you're talking.
00:28:53:09 - 00:28:56:19
T: Okay, well, we'll stop there
and then we'll we'll pick this up again
00:28:56:19 - 00:29:00:01
in a in a seventh episode of series,
00:29:00:01 - 00:29:03:17
one of, names in the ancient world
and in the Bible.
00:29:03:17 - 00:29:06:03
So thank you very much for joining us.
00:29:06:03 - 00:29:08:00
come back again soon.
00:29:08:00 - 00:29:10:23
We're going to carry on our conversation
now, but you can wait for a little while
00:29:10:23 - 00:29:13:18
before you hear the next episode
talking about throne names.
00:29:13:18 - 00:29:14:10
Thanks very much.