Talk:Tribe of Benjamin

Who are the tribes today?
Who are the tribe of benjamin, today — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.12.116.71 (talk) 22:45, January 2, 2006 (UTC)

Coat of Arms Image
What is the notability and connection for the coat of arms image (currently labeled with "Portuguese sketch.")? This appears to be a self-created image out of the imagination of some author. It does not seem to have any biblical basis, nor any historical significance, it is in Portuguese rather than any language that could understandably be connected with this WP article, and I am not sure what information this contributes/adds to this article. It would seem reasonable to remove this image. — al-Shimoni  (talk) 01:39, 26 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Three weeks have passed and so far no response to the above. I went ahead and removed it. If you disagree, please respond to the above to discuss this before reädding it. Many thanks. — al-Shimoni  (talk) 04:24, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Banu-yaminu
Should this article mention the "banu-yaminu" (b'nei yaminu), who are mentioned in the Mari letters (ca. 1800-1750 BC) ? Or that the term is basically believed to mean "People of the South" ? Jheald (talk) 12:50, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, this reviews the development of academic thought on this, and concludes (seemingly quite reasonably) that for all the excitement there may have been initially about the similarity of the two names, they are in fact unlikely to be connected. Jheald (talk) 13:51, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Bible Links
A large proportion of this article's citations are bible verses using the bibleverse finder, which appears to be broken. I am unsure whether there is a replacement mechanism within Wikipedia, so I leave it to another to decide how to handle the issue, which may affect other articles. This article would probably benefit from more diverse citations as well; most of the articles I linked to/from it had many scholarly citations as well as those from religious texts. Dusen189 (talk) 22:00, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

No source
Maybe this article should reflect that not a single historical source exist for the existence of said "tribe of Benjamin"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.168.151.164 (talk) 18:03, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Needs a comma in the first sentence
The first sentence of this article reads, "According to the Torah, the Tribe of Benjamin (Hebrew: שבט בִּנְיָמִין, Modern Shevat Binyamin, Tiberian Shevaṭ Binyāmîn) was one of the twelve Tribes of Israel descended from Benjamin, the youngest son of the patriarch Jacob and his wife Rachel." There needs to be a comma between the phrase "twelve Tribes of Israel" and the word "descended." The way it is currently written, the opening paragraph states that there were twelve Tribes of Israel descended from Benjamin, not Jacob. It should read "...the Tribe of Benjamin...was one of the twelve Tribes of Israel, descended from Benjamin, the youngest son of the patriarch Jacob..."71.165.111.250 (talk) 18:25, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Amendment made - BobKilcoyne (talk) 05:15, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Conforming to WP:LEAD
I'm about to edit this article to conform to WP:LEAD. Roughly speaking, the lead section is supposed to be a mini-article, summarizing the article's main points. Right now, the article tells the biblical narrative (mostly) about Benjamin, and then the body of the article talks (mostly) about different things. I think the simplest way to bring the article in line with WP:LEAD is to take most of the lead and put it into a biblical narrative section, and then fill in the lead with the most important details of the article. Alephb (talk) 00:47, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Etymology
The short (and unsourced) etymology bit is slightly (and no doubt unintentionally) misleading. The gloss "son of my right hand" is given for the name as it appears in the Samaritan Pentateuch, but that gloss in fact applies to the name in general, and not simply to its use in the Samaritan Pentateuch. On top of that, there are two etymologies given for the name. In terms of the folk etymology given in Genesis, it means "son of my right hand," as the name given to the infant Benjamin by his father Jacob. In geographical terms, the name can be read as "son of the south," and those the Benjamites would be "sons of the south," reflecting, from a northern Israelite perspective, their position as the southern edge of the northern kingdom. I'll take the etymological information and spin it off into its own section, with clearer explanation and sources cited. Alephb (talk) 01:05, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Most would agree that geographical names are usually either toponyms or eponyms. Since the territories described in the Hebrew Bible are clearly named after their respective tribes, the sons of Jacob, logic would have it that they cannot be names derived from a topographical feature, but are rather eponyms, i.e. names formed after a person, in this case, one of the sons of Jacob who is called Israel. If that is the case, then Benjamin would mean, according to Jacob's interpretation, "the son of my right hand."Davidbena (talk) 04:00, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * That is not at all logical, and in any case what are needed are reliable sources. Jytdog (talk) 04:04, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * We are prohibited from WP:OR. It is well-known to all that the Land of Israel is named after the Patriarch Israel (יעקב אבינו), and that the land of Judah is named after the progenitor of the tribe, just as Zebulon in Galilee is named after the progenitor of the tribe; the territories Efraim and Menashe after Joseph's two sons, the land of Issachar after the progenitor of the tribe, etc., etc., just as the land of Benjamin is named after the progenitor of the Tribe. Wikipedia policy states that what is obvious needs no proof or citation.Davidbena (talk) 04:19, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Everything you have written here is WP:OR. I have no more to say to you on this until you present reliable sources; this is a complete waste of time. Jytdog (talk) 04:24, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * On the contrary, my friend. Have you never read, You don't need to cite that the sky is blue?Davidbena (talk) 04:26, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * You appear to be saying the Bible is a reliable source for history. It isn't. And if you disagree, go to RSN where you will be shot down with fire.Jytdog (talk) 04:28, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Welcome back. Well, as for the Bible, I know personally people who trace their family lineage to the Tribe of Benjamin, and they and their ancestors have historical connections to the country bequeathed to them by Joshua.Davidbena (talk) 04:31, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Nothing to do with reliable sources in Wikipedia. Nothing. Jytdog (talk) 04:35, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It's well outside of WP:SKYBLUE to assume that genealogical data in Genesis are obviously reliable. SkyBlue, of course, is for non-controversial facts, or "patently obvious" as SkyBlue puts it. Like the sky being blue, for instance. Surely by now I would imagine that you are at least somewhat familiar with how controversial Genesis is, given your many edits to Bible-related pages. Alephb (talk) 06:18, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The idea that any editor would believe that a geneaology can be reliably traced that far back is concerning. Doug Weller  talk 10:30, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I have personally seen documents brought out of Yemen where Jews trace their lineage to Judah, Benjamin and Levi. Scholars have written books on this subject matter, if you're truly interested in seeing them. To assume that these records can no longer exist today is even more concerning, in my humble opinion. It is no secret, however, that people who profess to be the most scientific-minded are sometimes the world's greatest skeptics.Davidbena (talk) 15:04, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I think everyone here probably knows there are some genuine records that have lasted three to four thousand years. That's not really the issue. The issue is that Genesis clearly isn't what the Wikipedia community means when it says "SKYBLUE." Alephb (talk) 19:14, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Alephb, shalom! I see no real reason to get side-tracked here. We're not talking about Genesis, nor about people who trace their lineage to one tribe or another. We're simply talking about the territorial boundary of the tribe of Benjamin. All sources must be reliable, and we're not allowed here to interject our own bias. As for the other issues you've mentioned, perhaps in a private message we can discuss these issues in greater length. For example, recently I've seen ample scientific/archaeological evidence that supports the universal flood during the generation of Noah, using the traditional Hebrew dates of calculation. Again, this is not the place for discussing these issues, as it is not a "chat" forum. Be well.Davidbena (talk) 21:00, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
 * And I did not say records didn't exist. I meant that they cannot be assumed to be reliable. Things happen. A child is adopted but the adoption is never revealed, or a child's father is not the father of record. For instance, I can trace the Weller name back for 3 centuries or so, but I have reason to think that at some point one of my Weller-named ancestors wasn't actually the descendant of a Weller, so I can't actually trace my ancestry back as far as I thought I could. By the way, I hope that the most scientific minded people are also skeptics, without skepticism there would be no science. Doug Weller  talk 08:14, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Doug, your thoughts are well-taken, and this may indeed be the case for more recent genealogies and pedigrees. The Jews of Yemen, according to ethnologist Jacob Sapir, had, until very recently, family pedigrees, which were collected and destroyed by a fellow-Jew whose son was refused marriage with a local family because they possessed no family records. Among these Yemenite Jewish families, some have still noted their family origins, such as the Saleh family being descended from Oded, whose lineage is from Judah's line through Peretz, and the Sabari family of Rehovot (here, in Israel) who possesses a written record that they trace their line of descent to Bella, the son of Benjamin, the son of Jacob the Patriarch. My own Rabbi traces his line of descent to Merari, the son of Levi, the son of Jacob the Patriarch. I have actually seen a genealogical record from the Patriarch Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, that goes down in successive generations, until it was broken-off in Yemen in the 1500s! Today, the original manuscript is at the Westminster College Library in Cambridge, England. So, whether we believe the veracity of these historical records or not, they do exist. If I were to, let's say, cast doubt on their veracity, it would amount to my word against this long-standing oral tradition. In my most humble opinion, for someone to say, "but I have reason to think that at some point one of my Weller-named ancestors wasn't actually the descendant of a Weller," here he would be interjecting his own personal bias, which, against a long-standing oral tradition, is the weaker point of view. Whatever cannot be supported by documented evidence is in the realm of "theory" and/or speculation. IMHO. Be well. All said and done, this is still a regression from the real issues at hand in this article. Davidbena (talk) 13:04, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Shalom. I have zero interest in discussing the universal flood in a private message. I suppose we can consider this conversation more or less finished for now, then.Alephb (talk) 21:04, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

A Request for Someone With Walid Khalidi's Book
The following paragraph is in the territory section:


 * Modern Israeli scholars have identified most of the towns mentioned in the Book of Joshua and that belong to the lot of Benjamin. Only those towns and villages on the northern-most and southern-most territorial boundary lines, or purlieu, are named in the land allocation, although, in actuality, all unnamed towns and villages in between these boundaries would still belong to the tribe of Benjamin. The Babylonian Talmud names three of these cities, all of which were formerly enclosed by a wall, and belonged to the tribe of Benjamin: Lydda (Lod), Ono (Kfar 'Ana = كفر ئنا - wherein is now built Or Yehudah), and Gei Ha-ḥarashim. Presumably, the westward boundary of the tribe of Benjamin would have stretched as far as the Mediterranean Sea. Marking what is now one of the southern-most butts and bounds of Benjamin's territory is "the spring of the waters of Nephtoah" (Josh. 18:15), a place identified as Kefar Lifta (كفر لفتا), and situated on the left-hand side of the road as one enters Jerusalem. It is now an abandoned Arab village. The word Lifta is merely a corruption of the Hebrew name Nephtoah, and where a natural spring by that name still abounds.

What I'm interested to know, if anyone has a copy of Khalidi's book handy, is whether the contents of pages 300-3003 are being used just to source the last sentence, the whole paragraph, or something in between. If someone can tell me, I'd like to revise the footnoting for the paragraph to make the situation more clear for readers. Second -- for someone who is more familiar than myself with Walid Khalidi and/or the Institute for Palestine Studies -- is this book a reliable source on ancient Benjamin, or is it just a source on Israeli-Palestinian conflict which happens to include some old lore on Benjamin, but isn't necessarily reliable on ancient history? Thanks to anyone who pitches in on this. Alephb (talk) 04:46, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Khalidi's book only mentions Lifta as the biblical Nephtoah; not the other details of the paragraph. The other details of Benjamin's boundary are taken from the Babylonian Talmud (Baba Bathra 51a; Gittin 7a), where it says explicitly that ALL of the towns and villages named as the boundaries of the tribes are merely "frontier villages," meaning, those villages which lie on the purlieu of the overall territory.---Davidbena (talk) 13:09, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Khalidi writes (on p. 300) that "Lifta is believed to have been established on the site of Mey Neftoach ( Mey Nephtoach), a source of water near Jerusalem. (Joshua 15:9, 18:15). The site retained this name during the Roman period and was called Nephtho during the Byzantine era." As Davidbena mention: nothing about Benjamin at all in Khalidis book. Huldra (talk) 23:36, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks to you both. This is helpful. Alephb (talk) 06:19, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Benjaminite or Benjamite?
Both are in article. Benjamite is a redirect to this article. Which would you guys prefer? Editor2020 (talk) 23:10, 19 February 2019 (UTC)