1. Solomon’s by his half-brother Adonijah (see 1 Kings 1:5–10), and Joash’s by his grandmother Athaliah
(see 2 Kings 11:1–3).
2. See Hugh W. Nibley, An Approach to the Book of Mormon, 3rd ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and
FARMS, 1988), 300–301.
3. On this see Halpern, Constitution of the Monarchy, 61–109; Herman L. Jansen, “The Consecration in the
Eighth Chapter of Testamentum Levi,” in The Sacral Kingship, Contributions to the Central Theme of the
VIIIth International Congress for the History of Religions, Rome, April 1955 (Leiden: Brill, 1959), 361–62.
More recently see John H. Eaton, Kingship and the Psalms, 2nd ed. (Sheffield: JSOT, 1986), for a
comprehensive discussion of the issue. But this theory is not without its critics. See de Vaux, Ancient
Israel, 2:504–6; Kraus, Worship in Israel, 205–8. Mowinckel and Widengren themselves have been
discussed in J. de Fraine, “Mowinckel (Sigmund Olaf Plytt),” in Dictionnaire de la Bible, ed. Henri Cazelles
and Andr Feuillet (Paris: Letouzey, 1957), 5:1387–90; Arvid S. Kapelrud, God and His Friends in the Old
Testament (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1979), 53–78; Arvid S. Kapelrud, “Sigmund Mowinckel 1884–1965,”
Svensk Exegetisk rsbok 49 (1984): 66–73; John W. Jonsson, “Reflections on Geo Widengren’s
Phenomenological Method: Towards a Phenomenological Hermeneutic of the Old Testament,” Scriptura,
special issue S 2 (1986): 21–39.
4. Von Rad, “The Royal Ritual in Judah,” 229.
5. Ben-Barak, “The Mizpah Covenant,” 38.
6. See Arthur M. Hocart, “Initiation,” Folklore 35 (1924): 312; compare Bruce H. Porter and Stephen D.
Ricks, “Names in Antiquity: Old, New, and Hidden,” in By Study and Also by Faith: Essays in Honor of
Hugh W. Nibley, ed. John M. Lundquist and Stephen D. Ricks (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS,
1990), 1:501–22, and Truman G. Madsen, “‘Putting on the Names’: A Jewish-Christian Legacy,” in By
Study and Also by Faith, 1:458–81.
7. See de Vaux, Ancient Israel, 1:108.
8. Von Rad, “The Royal Ritual in Judah,” 229.
9. See Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods, 46–47; compare also John A. Wilson, The Culture of Ancient Egypt
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), 102.
0. See Widengren, “The Sacral Kingship of Iran,” in The Sacral Kingship/La regalità sacra (Leiden: Brill,
1959), 253–54. On the practice of assigning a new name at the time of the king’s enthronement, see
Ricks and Sroka, “King, Coronation, and Temple.” Of course, kings were not the only ones to receive new
names. Biblical history is full of examples of men (and in one case, a woman) who received new or
changed names, frequently in association with a transition (usually, though not invariably, of a spiritual
nature) in their lives. Thus Abram became Abraham (see Genesis 17:5), his wife Sarai became Sarah
(see Genesis 17:15), Jacob was renamed Israel (see Genesis 32:28), and Joseph became Zaphnath-
paaneah (see Genesis 41:45). In the New Testament, Jesus gave Simon the name Cephas (whose Greek
reflex is Peter—see John 1:42; Matthew 16:17–18), while Saul took on the Latin name Paul, indicative of
his role as missionary to the gentiles. The name Paul is first mentioned at Acts 13:9, at the beginning of
his first missionary labors among the gentiles. The receipt of a new name is promised to all the faithful in
Revelation: “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that
overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new
name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it” (Revelation 2:17).
1. See, for example, Ringgren, Israelite Religion, 225–27; Kraus, Worship in Israel, 181, 224; Halpern,
Constitution of the Monarchy, 128–29; von Rad, “The Royal Ritual in Judah,” 230–31; Eaton, Kingship and
the Psalms, 146–49; on divine election in ancient Babylonia, see René Labat, Le caractère religieux de la
royaut assyro-babylonienne (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1943), 53–69; on divine adoption in ancient Egypt, see
Wildung, Egyptian Saints, 1–3.