Some believers in Abrahamic religions have sought to derive their native languages from Classical Hebrew. For example, Herbert W. Armstrong (1892–1986), a proponent of British Israelism, claimed that the word 'British' comes from Hebrew בְּרִית (, meaning ") and אּישׁ (, meaning 'man'), as supposed proof that the British people are the 'covenant people' of God. Pre-modern scholars of the Hebrew Bible, debating the language spoken by Adam and Eve, often relied on belief in the literal truth of Genesis and of the accuracy of the names transcribed therein. On the other hand, the sixteenth-century Renaissance scholars Johannes Goropius Becanus (1519–1572) and Simon Stevin (1548–1620) argued that the Adamic language had been a dialect of their own native language, Dutch.