When we hear the biblical story, we should remember that what we are hearing is, first and foremost, a story. Its purpose is to teach, and the teaching is communicated through the words themselves. Any attempt on our part to historicize the text is problematic because it impairs our ability to actually hear the story in the way it was intended to be heard - as a story. When we make the biblical narrative secondary to anything - history, geography, civilization, culture, even religion - our chances of hearing it and learning from it are diminished. Because, instead of submitting to the scriptural text, we make the text submit to what we already know, or what we think we already know. And doing that hinders our ability to hear, it makes understanding practically impossible. How are we going to actually do what scripture teaches if we can’t understand it? And how are we to understand it if we’re not really hearing what it wants to say?
Examples of Scripture that demonstrate functionality of words and names are given from Matthew 4, Matthew 23, Luke 24 and Joshua 7.