One of the worst and most embarrassing things a journalist can do is misspell a person’s name. Those who passed down and wrote down the oral traditions that became the Bible seem to have had a similar attentiveness to names.
That’s the theory of Mitka R. Golub of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In the Summer 2020 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Golub argues that biblical editors were less likely to alter personal names than events with theological importance.
And that makes personal names a good area to look at when determining the historical accuracy of the Bible.