Friday, September 11, 2009

Striking Against Uncritical Theories About Agrippa

I have had hour long conversations with the eminent Josephus scholar Steve Mason about the implausibility of both king Agrippas sharing the same praenomen. Mason is not Jewish and won't hear any of my objections that a Jewish family wouldn't have given a living father and son the same given name. Yes it is true that Sephardic Jews don't share the superstitions of Ashkenazi Jewry. There are examples of male family members sharing the same name but living fathers and sons sharing the same first name is relatively rare if non-existent (I have never encountered this in all of my travels).

In any event here is some research that suggests that Marcus Julius Agrippa's father might have been called 'Gaius.'


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