Joseph Jacobs argued that Berechiah lived in England toward the end of the 12th century. This was confirmed by Adolf Neubauer's discovery that, in the preface to his fables, Berechiah mentions the "turning of the wheels of fate to the island of the sea (England) for one to die and the other to live," a reference to the English massacres of 1190. There is evidence that he was the same person as the Benedictus le Puncteur mentioned in a late-twelfth century Oxford document who presented a gift to Richard I in 1194, as Berechiah means "blessed" ("benedictus") and ha-Nakdan means "the punctuator" ("le puncteur").