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July 15, 2011
Rollston on ‘Priests’ or ‘Priest’ in the Mariam (Miriam) Ossuary
Christopher Rollston has another interesting post on the Mariam (Miriam) ossuary inscription in which he argues for reading the final few words khn mm’zyh mbyt ‘mry, “priest of (from) Ma’aziah from Beth ‘Imri, rather than khnm m’zyh mbyt ‘mry, “priests of Ma’aziah from Beth ‘Imri.” (By the way, it is an m rather and a d before m’zyh and byt. Earlier I perpetuated an error in reading but not one from Rollston.) I have no problem with his re-division of the text and he does move a few words closer to my question. What or where is Beth ‘Imri? Maybe with his next post he can move a few words more and give me an answer.
I’m not sure why Rollston or anyone else reads ‘mry as ‘Imri rather than ‘Omri. It is true that in 1 Chronicles 9:4 we have an עָמְרִי בֶּן-אִמְרִי, generally rendered, “Omri, the son of Imri from Judah.” Like ‘mry in the inscription the name rendered Omri begins with an ‘ayin while the name rendered Imri begins with an aleph. This is not a small difference. I’m not accusing Rollston of being foolish, I doubt that this is the reason for rendering ‘mry as ‘Imri but I would like to know the reason. Is the byt ‘mry of the inscription somehow to be identifiable with the עָמְרִי of Chronicles 9:4 or even 7:8? I see no reason to think so. I think this looks more like a place name. But where was it?
Posted by Duane Smith at July 15, 2011 2:44 PM | Read more on Archaeology |
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