this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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Biblical Studies
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Good find (though from a while back), bad article.
They shouldn't really be emphasizing 'Gideon' as much as they are here, as there's zero evidence for that name.
What was found was the name 'Jerubbaal' and the likely later revisionist renaming of that figure to be so oft repeated in a piece about a find normalizing the original name in that period is certainly a bit misleading to a lay audience.
Not everyone is familiar with things like 30% of the theomorphic names in Israelite graveyards being based on Baal. And propagating the likely later rewriting of history as if credibly historical is going to lead the audience to misunderstanding the find and its context.
It would probably have been better to refer to the Biblical figure as Jerubbaal throughout the article with only a single mention in the introduction of the figure to the 'Gideon' renaming.