1. The Onomasticon with and without yahu Names

The chapter examines the evolution of Hebrew onomastics, with special focus on the use of Yahwistic names (names containing the divine element Yhwh) in the Bible. Apparently early biblical texts, like the books of the Torah, Joshua, Judges, and Samuel, contain very few Yahwistic names, in contrast to monarchic and post-exilic periods, where such names are prominent. Th absence of Yahwistic names in Genesis–Samuel suggests that they reliably reflect pre-monarchic naming traditions in which yahu names had yet to become common. One may thus hypothesise three stages in yahu naming practices: pre-monarchic rarity; widespread use of names ending in the long form -yahu during the Divided Monarchy; and ascendancy of names ending in the short form -yah in post-exilic times.

Scholars debate the significance of these patterns, with some suggesting that the Torah and other pre-monarchic texts preserve naming conventions from before 900 BCE. This challenges certain versions of the dating of Pentateuchal sources in the framework of the Documentary Hypothesis, which propose later dating for certain sources, and, to a lesser extent, the dominant dichotomous theory concerning BH linguistic periodisation. Despite the lack of direct extrabiblical Hebrew evidence from the pre-monarchic period, the absence of Yahwistic names in biblical texts depicting pre-monarchic times finds indirect confirmation in contemporary Mesopotamian and other ancient Near Eastern writings, supporting the idea that the Hebrew naming traditions found in Genesis–Samuel, which differ from those of the later monarchic and post-exilic periods, are authentically representative of pre-monarchic times.