[Avodah] Titles Before Names

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 01:25:58AM -0500, T613K at aol.com wrote:
: I can also think of a couple of examples to support what you say, that  the 
: title can precede the name in Tanach -- e.g., "Hamelech Dovid zaken ba  
: bayamim."  So scratch the "foreign influence" theory.

Appositives go either way. "My teacher, Mrs Cohen" or "Mrs Cohen, my
teacher". I am more and more inclined to believe that Tanakh doesn't
have titles in that sense of the word, and they really are complimentary
parallel descriptions.

If it were a title, would the "ha-" of "hamelekh" be grammatical?

In any case, I think that the shift in frequency from usually being
after the name to usually being before could still be a foreign influence.
Regardless of the reality of thinking of "hamelekh" as an appositive to
using "Rabbi"/"Rav", "Mar" or "Rabban" as titles.

We'll find out when we call the next king "XYZ hamelekh" or "Melekh
XYZ", bb"a.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Rescue me from the desire to win every
micha at aishdas.org        argument and to always be right.
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