In today’s Washington Post On Faith section — a prominent feature of WaPo’s website — you’ll be heartened to know that the mainstream media is helping to educate us all about the roots of our next President’s name. To wit:
Barack Obama shares with past American presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, Zachary Taylor, and Benjamin Harrison, the distinction of a notable biblical namesake.
More after the fold.
As the articlepoints out, "vilifying Barack Obama's name has become a favorite blood sport in the 2008 presidential campaign."
The author, however, notes, and as Obama himself has said, Barack means "blessed" — Baruch in Hebrew. But what Obama — and now the public — should know: Obama has a revered biblical namesake — Baruch Ben Neriah — who happens to be linked, both in religious commentary and by recent archeology, to a black Ethiopian, another biblical hero.
This information is going to mean a lot to a huge bloc of Christian and Jewish voters.
It’s time to turn the drumbeat of attempts to vilify Obama’s name on its head: Will those who try to raise the specter of Saddam "Hussein" vis-à-vis Obama be prepared to also link the candidate with Pope Benedict, honorable dignitaries, and Obama’s venerated biblical namesake, Baruch Ben Neriah?
The article’s author also manages to reach a singular authority on religious archeology who gives us the money quote:
I asked Dr. Wright, who is director of Judaic studies at the University of Arizona and president of the J.F. Albright Institute of Archeological Research, about these developments concerning Obama's name. "The way some pundits are using name associations is beyond simply naive; it is truly shameful," Dr. Wright said. "As names, both Barack and Hussein have noble pedigrees, and this fact should be used to promote understanding and not to provoke political or religious enmity."
So what’s in a name? For Obama, volumes.
Pssst!! Pass it on.