Re: Maria, Mariam and Marian
in reply to a message by Cleveland Kent Evans
I suspect that names like Maria or Mariam could have been in use among Hellenized Jews. I'm not sure how "Hellenized" the Jews were at the start of the common era... Did they speak Greek, use Greek names? Were biblical names like Andrew and Stephen nicknames, or merely translations of Aramaic names added by the gospel writers?