Editing David Koresh (section)

==Name change==
Vernon Howell filed a petition in California State Superior Court in [[Pomona, California|Pomona]] on May 15, 1990, to [[legal name change|legally change his name]] "for publicity and business purposes" to David Koresh. On August 28, 1990, Judge Robert Martinez granted the petition.<ref>Clifford L. Linedecker, ''Massacre at Waco, Texas'', St. Martin's Press, 1993, page 94. {{ISBN|0-312-95226-0}}.</ref>

His first name, David, symbolized a lineage directly to the biblical [[King David]], from whom the new messiah would descend. Koresh (כּוֹרֶשׁ, Koresh) is the Biblical name of [[Cyrus the Great]], a [[List of monarchs of Iran|Persian king]] who is named a messiah for freeing Jews during the [[Babylonian captivity]]. By taking the name of David Koresh, he was "professing himself to be the spiritual descendant of King David although he had no DNA to connect him with the peoples of the Mediterranean much less King David, a messianic figure carrying out a divinely commissioned errand."<ref>Bromley and Silver, p.57</ref>