Talk:Amraphel

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I've always heard that Amraphel == Hammurabi. However, The Oxford Companion to the Bible states, in the article about Hammurapi, that "In the past, Hammurapi has been identified with Amraphel, king of Shinar (Gen.14), but current knowledge does not support this." Does anybody know more about this? I would hate for Wikipedia to perpetuate a commonly-believed but discredited notion. Josh Cherry 12:48, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

So far as I know, and I am quoting someone from an Ancient Near East message board, the Amraphel/Hammurabi connection belongs to "the dustbin of historical fancy." Lots of commonly-believed but now-discredited biblical interpretations arise from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the historical reliability of the Bible was taken for granted by almost all Western scholars. Amraphel and Hammurabi were identified because of similar-sounding names, but there is no reason to believe this is anything other than coincidence. Hammurabi never led an alliance of Babylonians, Elamites, and Hittites into Palestine as Genesis has Amraphel doing.--Rob117 04:27, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Rob117 is quite correct. However, it should be pointed out that Genesis 14:4-5 seems to be saying that Chedorlaomer, rather than Amraphel, was the leader of this imperial alliance. Either way, the existence of this coalition cannot be confirmed by archaeology or by history, and seems to be fictitious. See Abraham in History and Tradition. Erudil 16:57, 5 December 2006 (UTC)