spin wrote:Beit frequently meant "temple" in early literature. Bethaven meant "house of idols". Think of these place names with theophoric: Bethanat, Bethdagon, Bethel, Bethbaalpeor, Bethshemesh... "House of the Beloved" fits in well, given the "beloved" as a reference to a deity, just as "baal" is (meaning "lord").
I'm not sure what you're suggesting. To the best of my knowledge 'beit' simply means 'house-of', e.g., beit din, beit midrash, beit knesset. The house of a deity would indeed be a temple. Is there a compelling reason to read dwd a the name of some god?
All your examples of terms using בית are post biblical, so they are of little use.
Dwd דוד is not in itself a name, just as Baal בעל is not a name, but a title. The former is a term of endearment, while the latter is a sign of status.
The problem we face is that in the bible when we come across—written as one word—beit + name it is usually a name that refers to a deity, as seen in the list I gave in my previous post. The combination indicates a town named for the temple to that deity.
Just a quick post to apologize for not acknowledging your response sooner. Clearly I need to do some research on the various instances of beit-*******.
Diogenes the Cynic wrote:I just gave you a rendering - "City of David." It's not so much a question of translation, but whether it's a family name or a place name. Is it BYTDWD or BYT.DWD? It could be either, and the lack of a divider usually means a place name. If we did not know of a King David from the Bible, BYTDWD would be taken at least initially as a probable place name. We don't wonder is there was a "House of Bread" dynasty or a "House of El" dynasty.
I think that absence of the word divider does suggest that bytdwd is a place-name, not the House/Dynasty of David. Furthermore the Tel Dan inscription's context rather demands that it be a place. But what sort of place? Everyone seems to assume that by place, we must be thinking of a town: Beit-Lehem, Beit-El. But we do have another paradigm from texts discovered archaeologically: Bit-Humria.
Bit-Humria doesn't refer to a city or a dynasty and we don't imagine for an instant that Humria is a god, and Bit-Humria his temple; we assume without much demur that it refers to the Kingdom of Israel. And since we know of an Omri from bible and Mesha Stele, it effectively means the Omrid State or somesuch. George Athas believes that "BytDwd" must refer to the city of Jerusalem, but by analogy with Bit-Humria, Beit-David could just as easily refer to the state of Judah - the Davidic State. (Not that there need be much difference between city and realm: the State of David may have been not much more than the City-state of David, and the terms used more or less interchangeably). "Byt-Dawid" the kindom in line 9 of the stele would then directly parallel "Israel" the kingdom of line 8, which strikes me as a neat parallel.
That would make both Omri and David the eponymous founders of those states - at least in the understanding of the people using the names.
I've noticed only now that Israel Finkelstein's book “The Forgotten Kingdom; The Archaeology and History of Northern Israel” is free available on SBL. Here is the link (pdf)
Diogenes the Cynic wrote:I just gave you a rendering - "City of David." It's not so much a question of translation, but whether it's a family name or a place name. Is it BYTDWD or BYT.DWD? It could be either, and the lack of a divider usually means a place name. If we did not know of a King David from the Bible, BYTDWD would be taken at least initially as a probable place name. We don't wonder is there was a "House of Bread" dynasty or a "House of El" dynasty.
I think that absence of the word divider does suggest that bytdwd is a place-name, not the House/Dynasty of David. Furthermore the Tel Dan inscription's context rather demands that it be a place. But what sort of place? Everyone seems to assume that by place, we must be thinking of a town: Beit-Lehem, Beit-El. But we do have another paradigm from texts discovered archaeologically: Bit-Humria.
Bit-Humria doesn't refer to a city or a dynasty and we don't imagine for an instant that Humria is a god, and Bit-Humria his temple; we assume without much demur that it refers to the Kingdom of Israel. And since we know of an Omri from bible and Mesha Stele, it effectively means the Omrid State or somesuch. George Athas believes that "BytDwd" must refer to the city of Jerusalem, but by analogy with Bit-Humria, Beit-David could just as easily refer to the state of Judah - the Davidic State. (Not that there need be much difference between city and realm: the State of David may have been not much more than the City-state of David, and the terms used more or less interchangeably). "Byt-Dawid" the kindom in line 9 of the stele would then directly parallel "Israel" the kingdom of line 8, which strikes me as a neat parallel.
That would make both Omri and David the eponymous founders of those states - at least in the understanding of the people using the names.
Omitting the - in "Btdwd", this seems very reasonable. But those with Bible in hand, and hell-bent upon establishing a 'historical' David won't be inclined to give it much credence.
Sheshbazzar wrote:But those with Bible in hand, and hell-bent upon establishing a 'historical' David won't be inclined to give it much credence.
Oh lord, if we were to worry about them, where would that get us? Having said that, I can't discount an historical David - a Hebronite chieftain, warlord, gun for hire (in good Habiru tradition), who makes good. This David gave his name to the southern polity, which was ruled (for a time?) by his dynasty (like Omri up north), but which was later known as Judah, the name of another, older, mythological eponym. It seems eminently possible to me, once one divests it of the biblical glamour and the many later literary strata and anachronistic embellishments.