The Splintered Divine: A Study of Ištar, Baal, and Yahweh Divine Names and Divine Multiplicity in the Ancient Near East

481 Pages·2015·2.93 MB·English

by  Spencer L. Allen

SpencerL.Allen
TheSplinteredDivine
Studies in Ancient
Near Eastern Records
General Editor:
Gonzalo Rubio
Editors:
Nicole Brisch, Petra Goedegebuure, Markus Hilgert,
Amélie Kuhrt, Peter Machinist, Piotr Michalowski,
Cécile Michel, Beate Pongratz-Leisten, D. T. Potts,
Kim Ryholt
Volume 5
Spencer L. Allen
The Splintered
Divine
A Study of Ištar, Baal, and Yahweh Divine Names
and Divine Multiplicity in the Ancient Near East
DE GRUYTER
ISBN978-1-61451-293-6
e-ISBN(PDF)978-1-61451-236-3
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ISSN2161-4415
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In Memoriam
Grover “Buddy” Dyer
Whose teaching led me to a career in
Biblical and ancient Near Eastern Studies.

Preface
Each of the following should be addressed at least once in the main body of
The Splintered Divine, but I think it would be to everyone’s benefit if I spell
out the different writing conventions that I adopted for this book here at the
beginning. For my dissertation readers who have an electric manuscript
available to them, I could place an explanation at the first occurrence of a
conventioninoneormorechaptersandletthemuseafindfunctiontolocate
thatexplanationeasily.However,nowthatyouarereadingaphysicalcopyof
this book, such functions are not available. So, the following are my
clarifications:
First, because the book’s subtitle refers to itself as A Study of Ištar, Baal,
and Yahweh Divine Names, I should explain how I identify divine names or
portions of them. Throughout this book I use the phrases “first name,” “last
name,”and“fullname”torefertoportionsofadivinenamesothatIcanzero-
in on a specific deity. “First name” refers to the individual deity’s personal
name, which is typically the first name in European naming traditions, and
these are the names that most people think of when they think about Near
Easterndeities.WerefertothenamesMardukandAssurasthefirst(andonly)
names of these two deities, and like Marduk and Assur, most Near Eastern
deitiesonlyhaveafirstname.ThenameIštarisafirstname,butasIargueit
isonethatiscommonlysharedbymanydifferentgoddesses.Becausethisfirst
namewassharedbyseveralentities,thedifferentoneshadtobedistinguished
through the addition of “last names,” which is typically the family name in
European naming traditions. Most of the last names explored in this study
are usually considered geographic epithets by modern scholars. As may be
expected at this point,a “full name” is the combinationof a first name and a
lastnamethatmarksaspecificdeity.Admittedly,thephraseologybehind“first
name” and “last name” is inexactly applied to ancient Near Eastern deities,
just as any metaphor or analogy is inexact. However, these phrases are used
here because they efficiently relate the distinctions between an individual
deity’s personal name and its geographic name.1 For example, the divine full
1 MichaelHundleywiselyshortenedmy“firstname”and“lastname”phraseologyinhisbook
Gods in Dwellings to “forename” and “surname,” respectively (Michael B. Hundley, Gods in
Dwellings:TemplesandDivinePresenceintheAncientNearEast,ed.AmélieKuhrt,SBLWAW
Supplement Series 3 [Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013], 268). I have retained the
wordierfirstandlastnamephraseologyfortworeasons:tocorrespondwiththeusageinmy
dissertation and other earlier publications, and because I only learned of Hundley’s usage
afterthismanuscriptwascompleted.
viii Preface
namesIštar-of-NinevehandIštar-of-ArbelasharethecommonfirstnameIštar,
whereas Baal-of-Ṣidon and Astarte-of-Ṣidon share the common last name
(of-)Ṣidon. Occasionally, I use the term “nickname” to indicate a first name
that is not actually a divine personal name. Usually this is in reference to the
name Baal as a substitute for the personal divine name Hadad. I also use the
phrase “divine name formula” to refer to a first name that has been followed
by an epithet that is more than just a geographic identifier, e.g., Ištar//Lady-
of-Nineveh.
Second,althoughitmaybeobviousatthispoint,Iusedashestoindicate
thataparticularfirstname(ornickname)andlastnamerepresentafullname,
such as Ištar-of-Nineveh. Similarly, two parallel lines (//) are used to indicate
thatadivinenameandanepithetareactingtogetherasadivinenameformula
andretainingtheforceofafullname.Usuallytheepithetfollowingtheparallel
lines consists of more than one word or a simple geographic name, such as
Lady-of-Nineveh in Ištar//Lady-of-Nineveh. With reference to the cuneiform
evidence, these parallel lines indicate that the first name is preceded by a
divine determinative, but the epithet is not. If an epithet is preceded by a
divinedeterminative,thenthisisusedtodifferentiatetheepithetfromthefirst
name,whichmeansthatwearediscussingtwodistinctdivineentities.Aswill
beclear,thisslants-and-dashpunctuationbecomesnecessarywhenalonglist
ofdivinenamesandepithetsappeartogetherbecauseitmakesthedistinctive-
ness of divine entities more readily recognizable. Consider, for example, the
followinglistofdivinenamesderivedfromSAA22vi6–20:
Assur, Anu, Antu, Enlil, Mullissu, Ea, Damkina, Sîn, Ningal, Šamaš, Aya, Adad, Šala,
Marduk, Zarpānītu, Nabû, Tašmētu, Ninurta, Gula, Uraš, Bēlet-ekalli, Zababa, Bau,
Nergal,Laṣ,Madānu,Ningirsu,Ḫumḫummu,Išum,Erra,Nusku,Ištar//Lady-of-Nineveh,
Ištar//Lady-of-Arbela,Adad-of-Kurbail,Hadad-of-Aleppo,Palil,andtheSebittu.
Inthislistof37divinenames,wecanquicklyandclearlyseethatIštar//Lady-
of-Nineveh is contrasted with Ištar//Lady-of-Arbela and the other 35 deities
without considering the possibility that Lady-of-Nineveh and Lady-of-Arbela
are listed independently of the first name Ištar. In contrast to this slants-and-
dash punctuation, I have placed quotation marks around geographic epithets
andavoidadashtoconnectthefirstnamefromtheepithetwhentheyarenot
actuallyfunctioningasalastname.Forexample,thephrase“GodofIsrael”is
anepithetofYahwehinPsalm68:36,butitisneitherYahweh’slastnamenor
partofhisdivinenameformulainthatverse.
Third, throughout this book, I tend to write out a Mesopotamian deity’s
name according by its Neo-Assyrian spelling because most of the cuneiform
textsthatwereinvolvedinthisstudybelongtotheNeo-Assyrianperiod.Thus,
Preface ix
I write the Akkadian name Anu instead of the Sumerian An/AN or the Old
Babylonian Anum. Similarly, the Neo-Assyrian first name Mullissu is used
instead of the Sumerian Ninlil, and I regularly refer to the Mesopotamian
moon-god as Sîn instead of Nanna/NANNA, the sun-god as Šamaš instead of
Utu/UTU, and Ištar instead of Inanna/INANNA, although I will occasionally
writetheAkkadianandSumeriantogether,e.g.,Nanna/Sîn.However,Iusethe
Sumerian firstname Enlil instead ofthe Neo-Assyrian Illil becausethe former
is often used in Neo-Assyrian scholarship and “Illil” looks and sounds silly
whenrepeatedthree-timesfast.
Fourth, the people at De Gruyter have graciously decided to print a few
pageswithcoloredink(IwouldliketothankRubioGonzaloandJohnWhitley
fordefendingthisidea).Ibelievethatthisquicklyandmeaningfullysimplifies
many of the tables and lists in the book in a way that variations of black ink
withitalicsandunderliningcouldneverdo.Inthesetablesandlists,thechief
deities Aššur, Marduk, and Nabû and their consorts appear in a bold black;
membersofTriad1(i.e.,Anu,Enlil,andEa)andtheirconsortsappearinbold
blue; members of Triad 2 (i.e., Sîn, Šamaš, and Adad) and their consorts
appear in bold red; warrior (or other male) gods appear in bold green;
goddessesappearinboldpink;otherdeities,includingdeifiedobjectsappear
in bold yellow; and celestial objects (e.g., planets/stars) appear in bold
orange. Also, within these tables, if a deity’s consort is placed immediately
afterthedeity,notonlyishernamewritteninthesamecolor,buthernameis
indentedtoindicatethatherpositioninthelistisdependentuponhisstatus.
Fifth, regarding composite god lists that have been compiled from
embedded god lists (EGLs, which list three or more divine names), the divine
name Marduk usually precedes the divine name Nabû. However, there are
many instances in which Nabû precedes Marduk in EGLs or when the two
deities are invokedas a pair in ablessing. When I create acomposite god list
frommultipletexts,asIdothroughoutchapter3.3andtheappendix,thetext
orlinenumbersareitalicizedifthenameNabûimmediatelyprecedesMarduk.
For example, SAA 13 126:4 indicates that the divine name Nabû precedes
Marduk in that tablet and line, whereas SAA 2 6:17–18 indicates that Marduk
precedesNabû.Also, wheneverIcreatea compositegodlist,Iprovide afoot-
note with the texts used to compile that list. On occasion, when discussing a
divine name that has been partially or wholly reconstructed in a text used to
create the composite, I place the tablet in square brackets to indicate that it
represents a lacuna. For example, in the following list of tablets that contain
EGLs, much of SAA 18 74, 197, and 200 are reconstructed, whereas the other
tablets are largely extant: SAA 18 24, 68, 70, 73, [74], 124, 192, 193, 194, 195,
[197],199,[200],201,202,and204.