On epigraphic Hebrew îù R and *îù RH, and on Biblical Asherah* (Pls IV-V) B. SASS Résumé : L’article rapproche îšr dans les bulles publiées par N. Avigad et *îšrh dans yhwh wîšrth à Khirbet el-Qom et à Kuntillet ìAjrud, dans le but d’étayer le sens de « temple » dans les deux cas. Cette alternative, jusqu’à présent défendue par une minorité de chercheurs, est présentée ici sur la base d’une comparaison avec les sources épigraphiques ouest-sémitiques, car il se peut que les tentatives majoritaires d’interpréter yhwh wîšrth principalement par le texte biblique aient biaisé l’enquête. Certes, l’article s’attache à expliquer l’absence de la signification « temple » pour l’Asherah biblique. Cependant, les découvertes archéologiques relatives à l’époque monarchique en Israël et en Juda attestent l’existence d’une déesse qui peut avoir été adorée en tant que parèdre de Yahweh, mais on pense qu’elle ne s’appelait pas îšrh. Si l’on accepte le raisonnement tenu dans cet article, l’îšrh de Yahweh à ìAjrud et Kh. el-Qom n’est pas à comprendre comme une parèdre divine, ni comme un objet cultuel ou un arbre sacré, mais comme l’un ou l’autre des temples de Yahweh, de même que îšr dans les noms propres des bulles de N. Avigad comporte une signification identique. Three persons bearing îšr-names are documented on unprovenanced Judahite bullae of the late Monarchic period – [îš]rḥy(?) ìśyhw, nryhw * An additional abbreviation used herein is WSS: N. Avigad and B. Sass, Corpus of West Semitic stamp seals. Jerusalem 1997. Trans 46, 2014 48 TRANSEUPHRATÈNE îšrḥy and nryhw [î]šryḥt (Pl. IV, 1-3).1 The second of these is attested on 14 bullae impressed with the same seal. And Hebrew *îšrh is mentioned four times in yhwh wîšrth at Khirbet el-Qom and Kuntillet ìAjrud.2 Documented much more often than these is Asherah – labelled variously in the Biblical text as a goddess, a symbol, a cult-object, or a tree – with idolatrous connotations. And it is chiefly according to Biblical Asherah that the epigraphic Hebrew attestations were explained in recent research. In contrast ‘temple’, the primary sense of Aramaic, Phoenician and Akkadian îšr/îšrt/Aširtu etc. seems to be missing from the Hebrew Bible. 1. Aim of the paper The paper seeks to present the understanding ‘temple’ of epigraphic Hebrew îšr and *îšrh as an alternative at least as plausible as their divinename interpretation. 2. Biblical ‫ ֲאשׁ ֵָרה‬in the paper The Biblical mentions of ‫שׁ ָרה‬ ֵ ‫ ֲא‬probably only encumber the understanding of their epigraphic Hebrew precursors: the Biblical texts are thought to have undergone heavy Deuteronomistic editing which, in order to cast her in a negative light, may have eliminated much of the primary meaning of îšrh, and practically eradicated masculine singular îšr except in the onomasticon.3 In other words, all Biblical meanings of Asherah – ‘cult object/symbol’, ‘tree’ and a goddess – are absent from the West Semitic texts of the early first millennium and may be derogatory Deuteronomistic innovations, designed to supplant the original sense. The paper thus nearly leaves out Biblical ‫שׁ ָרה‬ ֵ ‫ ֲא‬, attempting to understand epigraphic Hebrew îšr and *îšrh in comparison with the contemporary non-Hebrew epigraphic sources.4 Biblical Asherah is re-admitted in ‘Conclusions’.5 1. N. Avigad, Hebrew bullae from the time of Jeremiah, remnants of a burnt archive, Jerusalem 1986, nos. 34, 126 and 127 respectively; WSS 457, 579 and 580. 2. As the Kh. el-Qom and ìAjrud inscriptions have only î šrth with the pronominal suffix, an asterisk herein precedes the epigraphic Hebrew equivalent of the Biblical orthography ‫אשרה‬. ֵ ‫ֲא‬ 3. On îûr in the onomasticon, cf. infra, n. 59. The question of why the masculine plural ‫שׁ ִרים‬ was admitted in the Bible is beyond the scope of this article. 4. And, more briefly, according to the imagery of a goddess and her attributes in Monarchic Israel and Judah. 5. Special thanks are due to T. Römer, who read the manuscript and enlightened me on a number of Biblical questions. It is also he who provided nearly all the references to Biblical studies cited. He not necessarily shares the views expressed herein. B. SASS 49 3. Earlier research N. Avigad, in the discussion of his Bullae 126 and 127,6 pointed out that Biblical Asher, the son of Jacob and Zilpah, is presented as a full brother of Gad and that the meanings of their names were considered akin. He observed further that ‘many commentators’ thought the name derived from a male counterpart of Asherah, and he summed up by considering the component îšr as likely theophorous, ‘a remnant of a forgotten divinity’.7 Similarly, Tigay labelled îšr in Avigad’s bullae ‘a pagan theophoric element’.8 In WSS,9 I too preferred to understand the name-element ʾšr on the bullae as a male counterpart of Asherah.10 I have had second thoughts since. We turn to *îšrh. The first to make out yhwh wîšrth in epigraphic Hebrew – at Khirbet el-Qom – was our jubilarian,11 who understood ʾšrth simultaneously as ‘his sacred tree’ and ‘his sacred place’.12 In the multitude of the discussions of Kuntillet ìAjrud, not reiterated here,13 *îšrh, recurring three times in the formula lyhwh … wlîšrth, has come to be regarded variously as a cult object or symbol, often wooden, a tree, or a divine name (following the Bible; none of these has a parallel in West Semitic inscriptions of the first millennium) or, less frequently, as a term for ‘(holy) place, sanctuary, temple’. In the preliminary publication Z. Meshel opted for ‘cella or symbol’.14 And unless I missed an earlier reference, the first to suggest for ìAjrud a goddess Asherah, Yahweh’s consort, was M. Gilula in 1979.15 6. Op. cit. (n. 1), pp. 86-87. 7. In view of the bullae under discussion Avigad (ibid., p. 86) sided with the theophorous understanding of the first element in ‫שׂ ְר ֵאל‬ ַ ‫( ֲא‬1Chr 4 16). 8. J.H. Tigay, You shall have no other gods, Israelite religion in the light of Hebrew inscriptions, HSS 31, Atlanta 1986, p. 65. 9. WSS, p. 486. 10. Not Aššur or Iššar-Ištar, whose alphabetic orthography might have been identical (see n. 25), and certainly not Osiris, whose alphabetic transcription differs. See further R. Zadok, The preHellenistic Israelite anthroponymy and prosopography, OLA 28, Leuven 1988, pp. 102-103, n. 18, overlooked in WSS. 11. A. Lemaire, ‘Les inscriptions de Khirbet el-Qôm et l’ashéra de YHWH’, RB 84, 1977, pp. 595-608. 12. Ibid., p. 607. 13. A summary can be found in pp. 130-132 in S. Ahituv, E. Eshel and Z. Meshel, ‘The inscriptions’, Chapter 5 in Z. Meshel, Kuntillet ìAjrud (Ḥorvat Teman), An Iron Age II religious site on the Judah–Sinai border, Jerusalem 2012, pp. 73-142. 14. Z. Meshel, Kuntillet ìAjrud, A religious centre from the time of the Judaean monarchy on the border of Sinai, Israel Museum Catalogue 175, Jerusalem 1978, p. [17]. He was advised by F.M. Cross, A. Lemaire and P.K. McCarter - see Ahituv et al., loc. cit. (n. 13), p. 73. 15. M. Gilula, ‘To Yahweh Shomron and his Asherah’, Shnaton 3, 1979, pp. 134-136 (Hebrew). Trans 46, 2014 50 TRANSEUPHRATÈNE 4. Semitic î šr and *îšrh/îšrt: ‘temple’ or Deity? Temple. Semitic îṯr, ‘step, footprint, to walk, tread’,16 may by extension signify ‘place’, hence ‘holy place, sanctuary, temple’ and ‘resting place, tomb’,17 besides meanings such as ‘trace, mark’.18 In the cuneiform, Arabian and Arabic alphabets this orthography was retained,19 whereas in the West Semitic alphabets of the first millennium B.C., having no {ṯ}, it became îšr. In Aramaic it changed to îtr in the mid-first millennium.20 In Akkadian, too, Aširtu means ‘temple’ (and ‘pedestal’),21 both stemming from ‘place’. W.F. Albright observed the essentials of this already some 90 years ago:22 ‘The etymology of the name [Ašir-AširatAšerah] is quite certain. … [T]he original meaning of the word is “place”, whence “sanctuary”, precisely like maqôm, Arabic maqâm, “sanctuary”’. Deity. At the same time a Semitic goddess Aṯirat-/Aširat- (or similar) is amply documented at Ugarit, as aṯrt,23 and elsewhere in the Near East in the second millennium.24 The etymology of her name, too, derives from Semitic îṯr. But in alphabetic inscriptions of the early-first-millennium Levant all the occurrences of îšr and its feminine counterpart whose name originated in Semitic ‘footprint’,25 either denote ‘temple’, or else – at 16. E.g. L. Kogan, ‘Lexicon of the Old Aramaic inscriptions and the historical unity of Aramaic’, in id. et al. eds, Memoriae Igor M. Diakonoff, Babel und Bibel 2, Winona Lake 2005, pp. 529530; E. Lipiński, ‘Athirat’, Encyclopedia of religion2, Detroit 2005, vol. 1, pp. 589–590. 17. Latter e.g. KAI 225. îṯr etc. also denote various other places, such as Sam’alian ‘territory’ J. Tropper, Die Inschriften von Zincirli, Abhandlungen zur Literatur Alt-Syrien-Palästinas 6, Münster 1993, p. 95. 18. KAI 202. 19. The restored occurrence with the meaning ‘temple’ at Ugarit, KTU 1.114, 14–15 yṯb il pt┌ḥ┐ aṯ[rth], il yṯb bmrzḥh, ‘Let îEl sit in the do[or of his sh]rine; let îEl sit in his symposium’ (most recently F.M. Cross, ‘The Phoenician ostracon from Acco, the Ekron inscription and ‫’אשרתה‬, ErIs 29, 2009, p. 21*), was read differently by D. Pardee (edited by T.J. Lewis), Ritual and cult at Ugarit, Writings from the Ancient World 10, Atlanta 2002, p. 169: yṯb il k┌r┐ a┌šk┐[rh], il yṯb bmrzḥh, ‘îIlu takes a seat and calls together his drinking [group], îIlu takes his seat in his drinking club.’ The traces of the relevant letter may fit a {š}, but not a {ṯ} (Pardee, ibid.). And besides, the parallelism aškr-mrzḥ is undeniable. 20. See J. Hoftijzer and K. Jongeling, Dictionary of the North-West Semitic inscriptions, HdO 1 21, Leiden 1998, pp. 125-128 (îšr4), p. 129 (îšrh1). 21. CAD A2, pp. 436-439. 22. W.F. Albright, ‘The evolution of the West-Semitic divinity ìAn-ìAnat-ìAttâ’, AJSL 41.2, 1925, pp. 99-100. 23. Numerous studies address the goddess aṯrt at Ugarit, e.g. S.J. Park, ‘Short notes on the etymology of Asherah’, UF 42, 2010 [2012], pp. 527-533. 24. E.g. N. Wyatt ‘Asherah’, in K. van der Toorn et al. eds, Dictionary of deities and demons in the Bible, DDD, Leiden 1999, pp. 99-101. 25. Not Aššur nor Issar-Ištar (n. 10). On the Aramaic spelling îšr of Neo-Assyrian Issar-Ištar, goddess of Nineveh and of Arbaîil, e.g. in the Assur ostracon, see F.M. Fales, ‘New light on Assyro- B. SASS 51 Khirbet el-Qom, ìAjrud and Tel Miqne – it is not stated explicitly whether ‘temple’ or a divine name was intended. Only in southern Arabia is a goddess îṯrt(n) documented for certain in the first millennium.26 4.1. The West Semitic inscriptions mentioning îšr/*îšrh/îšrt Our present interest is in the occurrences of îšr etc. as ‘temple’, or purported DN in the West Semitic inscriptions of the first millennium. These occurrences, eight in all, are the following. Phoenician – îš ìl îšrt, ‘overseer of the shrine(s)’ in the Acco ostracon.27 – lìštrt bîšrt îl ḥmn, ‘for Astarte in the temple of El Ḥamon’ at Maìṣub.28 – îšr qdš, ‘holy “place”’ in the Phoenician gold lamella from Pyrgi.29 Aramaic – gš wìmh ìm îšrthm, ‘Gush and its people with their temples’ at Sfire 1 B 11.30 – drḥt(?) îtrtî, ‘the wall(?) (and) the terrain(?)’,31 or rather ‘the tree of the (holy) place’,32 in the Lydian-Phoenician bilingual from Sardis of the Aramaic interference: The Assur ostracon’, in id. and G.F. Grassi, CAMSEMUD 2007, Proceedings of the 13th Italian meeting of Afro-Asiatic linguistics held in Udine, May 21st-24th, 2007, History of the Ancient Near East Monograph 10, Padua 2010, p. 192 and n. 15; E. Lipiński, Studies in Aramaic inscriptions and onomastics III, Maìlānā, OLA 200, Leuven 2010, pp. 105-107. 26. F. Bron, ‘Notes sur le culte d’Athirat en Arabie du sud préislamique’, in C. Amphoux et al. eds, Études sémitiques et samaritaines offertes à Jean Margain, Histoire du texte biblique 4, Lausanne 1998, pp. 75-79; Wyatt, loc. cit. (n. 24), p. 101; A. Avanzini, ‘Inscriptions from museums in the region of Dhamār: Qatabanians in Baynūn and the goddess Athirat (îṯrtn)’, in F. Briquel-Chatonnet et al. eds. Entre Carthage et l’Arabie heureuse, Mélanges offerts à François Bron, Orient et Méditerranée 4, Paris 2013, pp. 32-34. The ostensible documentation of a deity îšyrî on a Tayma stele was corrected to îšymî when a second stele has subsequently come to light - in F.M. Cross, ‘A new Aramaic stele from Tayma’, CBQ 48, 1986, p. 393; M. Maraqten, ‘The Aramaic pantheon of Taymāî’, Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 7, 1996, p. 26. The advice of F. Bron and C. Robin on Arabian questions is gratefully acknowledged. 27. M. Dothan, ‘A Phoenician inscription from ìAkko’, IEJ 35.2–3, 1985, p. 86; Cross, loc. cit. (n. 19), pp. 20*-21*; E. Lipiński, ‘Wares ordered from Ben-Ḥarash at Acco’, ErIs 29, 2009, p. 107*. 28. KAI 19. 29. KAI 277. 30. Cross, loc. cit. (n. 19), p. 21*. 31. KAI 260, 2–3. 32. E. Lipiński, Studies in Aramaic inscriptions and onomastics I, OLA 1, Leuven 1975, pp. 155, 157; A. Lemaire, ‘Philologie et épigraphie hébraïques et araméennes’, EPHE IVe section, Livret 7 (1990-92), 1995, p. 26; id., III, Inscriptions de Lydie, 1. Sardes - Une bilingue lydo-araméenne, 2000, http://www.achemenet.com/pdf/arameens/lydie01.pdf (accessed 3 January 2014); D. Schwiderski, Die alt- und reichsaramäischen Inschriften / The Old and Imperial Aramaic inscriptions 2, Texte und Bibliographie, Fontes et Subsidia ad Bibliam Pertinentes 2, Berlin 2004, p. 294. Trans 46, 2014 52 TRANSEUPHRATÈNE Persian period – with evolved orthography. Philistian – lîšrt is written in ink on a sherd from Ekron. It was interpreted as ‘for (the goddess) Aširat’,33 or ‘for the temple’.34 An associated sherd inscribed lmqm, ‘for the (holy) place’,35 reinforces the same understanding of lîšrt.36 Epigraphic Hebrew – The îšr-names in Avigad’s bullae. – lyhwh […] wîlšrth at Khirbet el-Qom and ìAjrud. When juxtaposed with our understanding of the Bible, the interpretation of epigraphic îšrth as ‘his Asherah’, Yahweh’s consort, is by far the more thrilling.37 Nevertheless, the understanding of both îšr and *îšrh in epigraphic Hebrew as ‘temple’ has a lot to recommend it. We begin with the pros and cons of the former interpretation. 4.2. West Semitic *îšrh/îšrt and îšr – divine names? – A goddess Asherah in Monarchic-period imagery. Indirectly in favour of ‘his Asherah’, Yahweh’s consort, speak the many pictorial finds in the archaeology of Monarchic Israel and Judah – in seals, terracotta figurines etc.,38 showing either an anthropomorphic goddess (Pl. IV, 4) or her attributes – a star, lion, ibex, dove or plant (Pl. IV, 1, 4, 5).39 Such a repre33. S. Gitin, ‘Seventh century B.C.E. cultic elements at Ekron’, in A. Biran and J. Aviram eds, Biblical archaeology today 1990, Jerusalem 1993, pp. 250-251; S. Gitin et al., ‘A royal dedicatory inscription from Ekron’, IEJ 47.1–2, 1997, p. 13. 34. A. Lemaire, ‘Histoire et épigraphie hébraïques et araméennes’, EPHE IVe section, Livret 11 (1995-96), 1997, p. 24; Cross, loc. cit. (n. 19), p. 21*. 35. Gitin, loc. cit. (n. 33), p. 250; S. Gitin, ‘Israelite and Philistine cult and the archaeological record in Iron Age II: The “smoking gun” phenomenon’, in W.G. Dever and S. Gitin eds, Symbiosis, symbolism and the power of the past: Canaan, ancient Israel and their neighbors from the Late Bronze Age through Roman Palaestina, Winona Lake 2003, pp. 289-290. 36. Two separate articles, one by Lemaire, the other by Cross, loc. cit. (n. 34). 37. Or upsetting, depending on one’s viewpoint. 38. O. Keel and C. Uehlinger, Gods, goddesses and images of God in ancient Israel, Minneapolis 1998, pp. 210-248. 39. These attributes do belong to a goddess, but occasionally a male deity displays them (Pl. IV, 6 herein) - U. Winter, Frau und Göttin, Exegetische und ikonographische Studien zum weiblichen Gottesbild im alten Israel und in dessen Umwelt, OBO 53, Fribourg-Göttingen 1983, pp. 264-272; T. Ornan, ‘“Let Baìal be enthroned’: The date, identification, and function of a bronze statue from Hazor”, JNES 70, 2011, pp. 264-272. On a related subject - inferred pictorial representations of anthropomorphic Yahweh and of his attributes - see for instance Keel-Uehlinger, op. cit. (n. 38), pp. 272–277, 306–311; T. Ornan, ‘Member in the entourage of Yahweh: A uraeus seal from the Western Wall Plaza excavations, Jerusalem’, ìAtiqot 72, 2012, pp. 15*-20*; T. Ornan et al., “‘The Lord will roar from Zion” (Amos 1:2): The lion as a divine attribute on a Jerusalem seal and other B. SASS 53 sentation is also found at ìAjrud itself: two ibexes flanking a tree, the ensemble placed above a lion, are painted on ìAjrud pithos A (Pl. V, 7).40 – No goddess Asherah in Monarchic-period imagery. There is no link from the said images to epigraphic Hebrew yhwh wîšrth: In none of these finds is the goddess identified by an inscription as Asherah, and nowhere is she labelled Yahweh’s consort.41 See also Appendix I at the end of this section on purported divine couples in Monarchic period imagery and the doubt surrounding them. – Biblical Asherah equals an actually worshipped goddess. At this stage we return briefly to Biblical ‫ ֲאשׁ ֵָרה‬. A hint in favour of the worship of a goddess Asherah in ancient Israel and Judah may according to some be found in the sense of ‘idol’ given Asherah in the Bible, besides that of a cult-object, tree, etc. Rather than conjuring her up, the reasoning could go, the Deuteronomists will have taken an existing deity, modifying it to their needs, more or less as they did with Baal. – Biblical Asherah not an actually worshipped goddess, hence not Yahweh’s consort. The absence of Aramaic and Phoenician first-millennium references to a goddess Asherah and homonymous paraphernalia casts doubt on the attempts to understand epigraphic Hebrew yhwh wîšrth at Kh. el-Qom and ìAjrud in the Biblical sense(s). The only solid evidence regarding îšr/îšrt is the meaning ‘temple’ in the contemporary West Semitic inscriptions. Judging by her absence from the just-mentioned texts, Asherah’s cult of old may indeed have ebbed in the early first millennium and been replaced by that of Astarte.42 Moreover, if she had been Yahweh’s consort, why does Asherah not figure in personal names – Hebrew and also other West Semitic ones?43 In fact there are numerous Phoenician names composed with ìštrt,44 and none apparently with a DN ʾšrt as noted (in addition, numerous names, Phoenician and Hebrew, are composed with just-mentioned Baal). Hebrew glyptic finds from the Western Wall Plaza excavations’, ìAtiqot 72, 2012, pp. 5*-8*. 40. T. Ornan, ‘The drawings from Kuntillet ìAjrud reconsidered’, Chapter 2 in S. Ahituv et al., By Yahweh of Teman and his Ashera, The inscriptions and drawings from Kuntillet ʿAjrud, Jerusalem, in press (Hebrew). 41. The understanding by certain authors, no one of them an art-historian - first Gilula, loc. cit. (n. 15), p. 136 - of the two Bes figures painted on the other side of ìAjrud pithos A as Yahweh and his consort Asherah is untenable, and so are all the other attempts to link the ìAjrud pithos drawings to the pithos inscriptions - see for instance Ornan, ibid., with nn. 45-48. 42. H. Spieckermann, Juda unter Assur in der Sargonidenzeit, FRLANT 129, Göttingen 1982, p. 212; Cross, op. cit. (n. 19), p. 22*. 43. Lemaire, loc. cit. (n. 11), n. 37. 44. F.L. Benz, Personal names in the Phoenician and Punic inscriptions, StP 8, Rome 1972, pp. 385, 386-387; WSS, p. 525; Cross, loc. cit. (n. 19), p. 22*. Trans 46, 2014 54 TRANSEUPHRATÈNE – Other Biblical goddesses identical with Asherah? Similarly, Biblical allusions to a Yahwistic(?) goddess name her, or them, differently: ‘Queen of Heaven’ (Jer 44 15-19 etc.) on the one hand, and derogatory ‘Image of Jealousy’ (Ez 8 1–6) and ‘Woman in the Ephah’ (Zach 5 5-11) on the other, not Asherah.45 The identification of these three figures too with a goddess Asherah, deduced by several authors,46 remains hypothetical; there is no extra-Biblical evidence for this identification, nor for the existence of a goddess Asherah on the whole. – îšr and *îšrh in epigraphic Hebrew – divine names? Concerning the theophorous îšr on Avigad’s bullae, let us first survey analogous *îšrh. It may be debated whether Biblical ‘Asherah’ can refer to a goddess actually worshiped in Monarchic Israel and Judah. I think it cannot. Indeed Asherah’s notoriety as it has come down to us is due to later Biblical polemics; in the West Semitic sources of the early first millennium she is not attested. Correspondingly îšrt, or similar, does not figure in West Semitic personal names of the early first millennium. Is it conceivable, then, that an elusive god Asher, mentioned practically nowhere, was productive in Hebrew personal names on Avigad’s bullae while Asherah was not?47 I doubt it.48 – îšrth DN with pronominal suffix? See next section. The absence of a goddess Asherah from the West Semitic texts and onomasticon provides yet another clue for not understanding *îšrh and îšr in epigraphic Hebrew as divine names. The alternative ‘temple’ is suggested in the next section. On the other hand, the imagery mentioned above does attest to the adoration of goddesses, or of a goddess, in Israel and Judah.49 45. Understandably, the Biblical text designates neither as Yahweh’s consort explicitly. 46. E.g. C. Uehlinger, ‘Die Frau im Efa (Sach 5,5-11), Eine Programmvision von der Abschiebung der Göttin’, BiKi 49, 1994, pp. 93-103, and T. Römer, ‘La création des hommes et leur multiplication. Lecture comparée d’Athra-Hasis, de Gilgamesh XI et de Genèse 1; 6-9’, Sem. 55, 2013, pp. 150-151, but doubted by D. Edelman, ‘Proving Yahweh killed his wife (Zechariah 5:5-11)’, Biblical Interpretation 11.3-4, 2003, pp. 335-344. All the same the identification of one or more of these figures as Yahweh’s consort is not impossible - see end of ‘Conclusions’. 47. îšr in N. Avigad’s bullae is probably the masculine form, not a defective orthography of îašērā - see ‘4.3. West Semitic *îšrh/îšrt and îšr – ‘temple’?’ below. 48. As ‘divinised temple’ îšr and îšrh/îšrt play only a modest role in the onomasticon as is to be expected; as divine names they would probably have been common components in personal names. 49 The absence, or near-absence, of personal names in epigraphic Hebrew commemorating any female deity seems to conflict with the hypothesis of a Hebrew goddess documented in the imagery. At the moment I have no solution to propose, though it may be relevant to note that this absence, or near-absence, characterises most of Israel’s neighbours too - with the exception of the Phoenicians. B. SASS 55 Appendix I. Yahweh and his consort depicted together in pre-Exilic imagery? C. Uehlinger suggested to link to the concept of ‘Yahweh and his consort, the goddess Asherah’, a duo of facing deities on an unprovenanced Assyrianizing stamp seal of probable north Syrian or Urartian manufacture (Pl. V, 8) to which a Hebrew, yhyhw [bn] šlm, had had his name added.50 As Assyrian, the winged figures would have been considered minor deities; not necessarily so in northern Syria and Urartu.51 C. Uehlinger conjectured that yhyhw bought this particular gemstone still uninscribed because to him it may have depicted Yahweh and his consort Asherah.52 Obviously, C. Uehlinger’s suggestion is impossible to verify, especially as both figures could after all be male.53 At least as speculative is the suggestion to identify Yahweh and his consort Asherah in a terracotta group acquired on the market (Pl. V, 9).54 One hopes that the alleged Judahite provenance and dating ca. 700 B.C. are right, but even then it remains unknown whether the figures depicted are deities or mortals, and whether one of them is male and the other indeed female. Yet perhaps a Transjordanian provenance and Early Bronze Age dating cannot be ruled out – compare a terracotta from Zeraqon (Pl. V, 10).55 And should the understanding of yhwh wîšrth as ‘Yahweh and his temple’ be preferred as proposed herein, the above seal and terracotta group turn out to be irrelevant to our subject anyway. In principle they can still depict Yahweh and a consort who is not *îšrh, though the probability of this in the objects under discussion is not very high, as noted. 50. C. Uehlinger, ‘Northwest Semitic inscribed seals, iconography and Syro–Palestinian religions of Iron Age II: Some afterthoughts and conclusions’, in B. Sass and C. Uehlinger eds, Studies in the iconography of Northwest Semitic inscribed seals, OBO 125, Fribourg-Göttingen 1993, pp. 275276; Keel-Uehlinger, op. cit. (n. 38), p. 340. My thanks to T. Römer who in July 2011, during our discussion of Hebrew îšrth, reminded me of this seal and of C. Uehlinger’s proposal. 51. T. Ornan, ‘The Mesopotamian influence on West Semitic inscribed seals: A preference for the depiction of mortals’, in Sass-Uehlinger, ibid., pp. 52-73, n. 11. 52. The right-hand figure is described as ‘apparently female’ in B. Sass, ‘The pre-exilic Hebrew seals: Iconism vs. aniconism’, in Sass-Uehlinger, ibid., p. 236 and n. 100. Nowadays I doubt it. 53. Ornan, loc. cit. (n. 51). 54. J. Jeremias, ‘Thron oder Wagen? Eine außergewöhnliche Terrakotte aus der späten Eisenzeit in Juda’, in W. Zwickel ed., Biblische Welten, Festschrift für Martin Metzger zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, OBO 123, Fribourg-Göttingen 1993, pp. 41-59; C. Uehlinger, ‘Du culte des images à son interdit, Témoins et étapes d’une rupture’, MoBi 110, 1998, p. 59. 55. F. al-Ajlouny et al., ‘Spatial distribution of the Early Bronze clay figurative pieces from Khirbet ez-Zeraqōn and its religious aspects’, Ancient Near Eastern Studies 48, 2011, p. 114. Trans 46, 2014 56 TRANSEUPHRATÈNE 4.3. West Semitic *îšrh/îšrt and îšr – ‘temple’? In the Phoenician and Aramaic inscriptions the occurrences of îšr etc. clearly refer to ‘holy place, temple’, and to various other ‘places’ and ‘traces’, never to a deity, cult-object, symbol or tree. Also worthy of note are the masculine and feminine forms side by side in Phoenician – îšr and îšrt. Aramaic has both forms too, but it is the feminine îšrt and probably later îtrtî that designate ‘temple’; masculine îšr/îtr is hitherto attested only as ‘place’ generally. In less-known Philistian the feminine form alone is documented so far. On these foundations the meaning ‘temple’ of epigraphic Hebrew îšr and *îšrh seems preferable.56 The masculine form is documented in îšrḥy and îšryḥt,57 the feminine in *îšrh (îšrth) at Khirbet el-Qom and ìAjrud, with the following results: – Hebrew îšr-names. The names îšrḥy and îšryḥt on N. Avigad’s bullae may constitute a rare presence of ‘(divinised) temple’ in the Hebrew onomasticon (no îšr-names in the other WS onomastica as far as I know58), denoting ‘The temple lives’ and ‘The temple will terrify/shatter’ respectively59 (for Ancient Near Eastern parallels to ‘temple’ in personal names see end of this section). The predicate in îšrḥy is probably masculine, in îšryḥt certainly so (the feminine would have been -tḥt).60 This may 56. Here I follow F.M. Cross, loc. cit. (n. 19), pp. 23*-24*: ‘… I am inclined to believe that we best translate the expression ‫“ ליהוה ולאשרתה‬by Yahweh and his shrine”, the meaning “shrine” being the primary meaning in most West Semitic dialects as well as in Akkadian. … [I]t is quite possible that the earlier meaning(s) of the term ‫ אשרה‬in Hebrew [as “holy place, temple”] have fallen out of usage; in other words, that the use of the term narrowed in late Hebrew to designate primarily the (wooden) cult symbol found repeatedly in the polemical clichés of Deuteronomy, the Deuteronomistic History, and the proto-apocalyptic passages of Isaiah’. Similar views on yhwh wîšrth were expressed before, first by A. Lemaire, loc. cit. (n. 11), p. 607. 57. A fragment of a monumental Hebrew inscription with just îšr and a word divider preserved was uncovered at Samaria (S. Ahituv, Echoes from the past, Hebrew and cognate inscriptions from the Biblical period, Jerusalem 2008, p. 257). Like most of his predecessors S. Ahituv was for the relative pronoun. A more tempting possibility, alas unverifiable, would have been a restored ʾšr [yhwh], ‘the temple of Yahweh’ in Samaria. For a somewhat different conclusion see J.H. Tigay, op. cit. (n. 8), p. 36, with earlier bibliography. 58. See n. 10 on the orthography and n. 48 on the understandable rarity of personal names with the theophorous element ‘temple’. 59. I have not addressed Biblical ‫שׁר‬ ֵ ‫ ָא‬, the son of Jacob. See Avigad very briefly in ‘3. Earlier research’ above, and J.-D. Macchi, Israël et ses tribus selon Genèse 49, OBO 171, Fribourg-Göttingen ַ ‫( ֲא‬see N. Avigad in n. 7 1999, p. 170. Various explanations have been offered for ‫ אשר‬in Biblical ‫שׂ ְר ֵאל‬ herein) as well as ‫שׂ ְר ֵאלָה‬ ַ ‫( ֲא‬1Chr 25 2) and ‫שׂ ִרי ֵאל‬ ְ ‫( ַא‬Josh 17 2 etc.), not mentioned by Avigad. R. Zadok, op. cit. (n. 10), p. 29, cited a few suggestions made in the past and yet to him the component ‫ אשר‬remained unexplained. Could it be a rare Biblical vestige of the same element as in the bullae? 60. îšryḥt has a parallel, likewise imperfect, in the biblical hypocoristic ‫יַחַת‬, e.g. in 1Chr 4 2 – Avigad, op. cit. (n. 1), p. 87; Zadok, op. cit. (n. 10), p. 131. With the same predicate, though in the perfect, is the contemporary Aramaean name Ab-ḫa-ta-a, ‘The father has smitten’, in a Neo-Assyrian B. SASS 57 moreover rule out an understanding of îšr in îšrḥy as a defective feminine orthography of îašērā. – How would Hebrew îšrh-names look like? One could speculate further that in epigraphic Hebrew names with this element in second place, so far unattested, the feminine form might be employed, ideally (for modern research) marking the gender with a mater lectionis he – e.g. *ìbdîšrh, ‘Servant of the temple’.61 – îšrt in Philistia. A. Lemaire and F.M. Cross, cited in ‘4.1. The West Semitic inscriptions mentioning îšr/*îšrh/îšrt’ above, linked lîšrt with lmqm at Tel Miqne, understanding both as ‘for the (holy) place’. The absence from the Bible of ‫ ֲאשׁ ֵָרה‬with the meaning ‘temple’ is probably no hindrance to such an understanding of the epigraphic Hebrew equivalents – see ‘Conclusions’. And to the pronominal suffix in yhwh wîšrth: attached to a divine name it would be atypical, and E. Lipiński and F.M. Cross advised against relaxing grammar rules with a view of proclaiming *îšrh a goddess, consort of Yahweh.62 In fact P. Xella, in his brilliant 1995 study,63 by emphadocument – R. Zadok, On West Semites in Babylonia during the Chaldean and Achaemenian periods, An onomastic study, Tel Aviv 1978, pp. 52, 352, 425; id., ‘The onomastics of the Chaldean, Aramean, and Arabian tribes in Babylonia during the first millennium, in A. Berlejung and M.P. Streck eds, Arameans, Chaldeans, and Arabs in Babylonia and Palestine in the first millennium B.C., Leipziger Altorientalische Studien 3, Wiesbaden 2013, p. 301. Alternatively, Ab-ḫa-ta-a may be explicable as Arabian - Zadok, ibid. 61. On inscribed seals this marking of feminine gender in personal names is extremely rare – just two instances – Ammonite ìlyh and Hebrew ḥnh (WSS, p. 471) known from before the flood of new seals and bullae published in the last 15-20 years. 62. ‘In some quarters, the Akkadian noun aširtu, Phoenician îšrt, used also in the Philistine city of Ekron, Aramaic îtrt, and Hebrew îašērāh, all meaning “holy place”, were confused with the name of the goddess Athirat. This confusion provoked a considerable secondary literature, inspired by the Hebrew epigraphic mention of “Yahweh and his asherah”, the latter being regarded as the consort of Yahweh. Engaging often in speculations of a recondite kind, this approach displays a remarkable neglect of ancient written sources and of rules of Hebrew grammar, while no evidence is offered that, for instance, female pillar figurines in clay are statuettes of a goddess Asherah’ – Lipiński, loc. cit. (n. 16), p. 590. The same view was held by Cross – loc. cit. (n. 19), p. 23*: ‘The attempts of many scholars – especially of those without special competence in Semitic linguistics – to take ‫[ אשרתה‬at ìAjrud] as a reference to Yahweh’s consort, the Canaanite goddess Asherah, have always labored under the burden of supposing that in this expression the normative syntax that forbids attaching a pronominal suffix to a proper noun does not operate’. Wyatt – loc. cit. (n. 24), p. 99, on the other hand, emphasized the penchant among the ancients for double entendre and wordplay when it comes to divine names: ‘We may be sure that all possible wordplays were entertained by the ancients, however, in exploring her [Asherah’s] theology, so that ruling an etymology out of account on philological grounds does not rule out possible mythological and theological developments, or cult-titles …’. 63. P. Xella, ‘Le dieu et “sa” déesse: l’utilisation des suffixes pronominaux avec des théonymes d’Ebla à Ugarit et à Kuntillet ìAjrud’, UF 27, 1995, pp. 599-610. Trans 46, 2014 58 TRANSEUPHRATÈNE sizing the exceptionality of a pronominal suffix attached to a West Semitic proper noun, unwittingly gave precedence to the other possibilities.64 Even if the proposed proper noun suffix is still admitted as a possibility, it is not the only one, and the sense ‘temple’ remains an equally valid alternative. But it should be added that the evidence P. Xella cited was doubly wanting: not only had he no other documentation for a first-millennium West Semitic goddess îšrh/îšrt, he had no first-millennium comparisons for the pronominal suffix attached to an indisputable DN either, just a lone second-millennium parallel 400 years older than ìAjrud,65 and one that is problematic besides: Ugaritic lìnth in KTU 1.43, partly restored, supposedly ‘for his ìAnat’, is far from being unequivocal, and as a matter of fact it has had a multitude of different interpretations in the course of time. D. Pardee, with some hesitation, proposed an alternative ‘for ìAnat’, with the he understood as a locative – directive morpheme,66 at the same time calling attention to the uniqueness and difficulty of this orthography, hence its inadequacy for illuminating îšrth at ìAjrud.67 In sum, it is so much simpler to rationalize îšrth with its pronominal suffix as ‘his temple’ than as ‘his (consort the goddess) Asherah’. *îšrh/îšrt as ‘temple’ is documented reasonably well in the West Semitic inscriptions of the early first millennium, whereas the goddess goes unmentioned. Let me end this section with the divine connotations of temple structures. There are across the Ancient Near East in the early first millennium numerous examples in texts and in personal names for the deification of temple cities, temples and parts thereof:68 64. A variant on the ‘goddess’ hypothesis for îšrth, doing away with the pronominal suffix, was presented by A. Angerstorfer, ‘Ašerah als “consort of Jahwe” oder Aširtah?’ BN 17, 1982, pp. 7-16. He conjectured that the he in îšrth at ìAjrud and Khirbet el-Qom is a mater lectionis for a frozen case ending – ‘Yahweh … and Aširta’. This notion was perhaps too rarefied to attract a large following, though it was picked up occasionally, see for instance J. Tropper, ‘Der Gottesname *Yahwa’, VT 51, 2001, pp. 81-106; N. Na’aman, Review of S. Ahituv, Haketav vehamiḵtav, Handbook of ancient inscriptions from the land of Israel and the kingdoms beyond from the period of the First Commonwealth, Jerusalem 2005 (Hebrew), Zion 72, 2007, p. 229 (Hebrew). 65. P. Xella’s only other Levantine examples come from third-millennium Ebla. 66. D. Pardee, Review of M. Dietrich and O. Loretz, ‘Jahwe und seine Aschera’, Anthropomorphes Kultbild in Mesopotamien, Ugarit und Israel, Das biblische Bilderverbot, UBL 9, Münster 1995, JAOS 115.2, 1995, p. 301; id., Les textes rituels, Ras Shamra-Ougarit 12, Paris 2000, pp. 247248; id., op. cit. (n. 19), pp. 108-109, n. 95. All references from D. Pardee. 67. ‘Unfortunately, what we have before us is a prime example of obscurum per obscurius. In this case the enigmatic term îšrth, known from several Hebrew inscriptions, where the suffix is generally if not universally interpreted as pronominal (“his îšrh” …), is interpreted [by Dietrich and Loretz] in the light of the form ìnth in a Ugaritic ritual text’ (Pardee, ibid. 1995, p. 301). ‘In any case this text by itself is not clear enough to provide the key for the interpretation of (l) yhwh w (l) îšrth in the Hebrew inscriptions’ (Pardee, ibid. 2000, p. 248). 68. In relation to yhwh wîšrth – first Lemaire, loc. cit. (n. 11), p. 608. B. SASS 59 – ‘Temple’ as divine guarantor of oaths. ‘The temple’ (msgdî), unnamed but certainly well known to all concerned, is listed among the deities by whom a certain Menahem at Elephantine in the Persian period swore an oath: bḥ[rm îlh]î bmsgdî wbìntyhw, ‘by Ḥarm the god, by the temple and by ìAnatyahu’.69 Clearly the person taking the oath swears by three deities, one of them a divinised temple.70 – ‘Temple’ in the onomasticon of Arabia. In southern Arabia îwm, Awwam, the temple of the god Almaqah at Marib, is productive in personal names – ìbdîwm, whbîwm.71 Similarly, the theophorous element in the PN ìbdrḥbn on an unprovenanced Moabite seal,72 may refer to one of the Arabian temples named rḥbn, in Qataban, Saba, or possibly other places.73 – ‘Temple’ in the onomasticon of Mesopotamia. Numerous Mesopotamian anthroponyms are composed with names of temples or sacred cities rather than their respective deities: Mannu-kī-Arbaʾil, ‘who is like Arbaîil (city of Ištar)?’, Esagil-mukīn-apli, ‘Esagil (temple of Marduk in Babylon) is the one who establishes the heir’, etc. etc.74 Note also the PN Bītum-kīmailim-šēmi, ‘The temple listens like the god’.75 Differing from the above Mesopotamian names, the last example refers to an unnamed temple of an unnamed deity, though no doubt perfectly obvious to the name-giving 69. B. Porten and A. Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic documents from Ancient Egypt 2, Jerusalem 1989, p. 146, Text B7.3: 3. 70. Like others before him (e.g. J. Teixidor, The pagan god, Popular religion in the Greco– Roman Near East, Princeton 1977, p. 86), Cross (loc. cit. [n. 19], p. 23*) quoted the oath that Menahem swore ‘by Yahu the god and by (his) temple’. But this purported unique parallel for ‘Yahweh … and his temple’ at ìAjrud and Khirbet el-Qom is founded on a double misreading: A. Cowley, Aramaic papyri of the fifth century B.C., Oxford 1923, p. 147, Text 44.3, transliterated by[hw îlh]î bmsgdî wbìntyhw, ‘by Yaîu the God, by the temple [not: his temple] and by ìAnathyaîu’, corrected by Porten and Yardeni as in the main text above. Whether the first-mentioned god was Yahu or Ḥarm is less important for our present purpose, but msgdî lacks the personal pronoun, which moves us a step away from the ìAjrud formula. 71. M. Arbach, Inventaire des inscriptions sudarabiques 7, Les noms propres du Corpus inscriptionum semiticarum, Pars IV: Inscriptiones ḥimyariticas et sabaeas continens, Paris 2002. Reference from S. Frantsouzoff, gratefully acknowledged. 72. WSS 1042, pp. 384 and 531. 73. For Qataban, where rḥbn may be an appellation of the sun goddess and/or a name of her temple, see M. Höfner, ‘Die vorislamischen Religionen Arabiens’, in H. Gese et al., Die Religionen Altsyriens, Altarabiens und der Mandäer, RM 10, 2, Stuttgart 1970, pp. 283-284. For Saba, where the moon god tîlb had at least one temple rḥbn, at Riyām or its vicinity, see ibid., pp. 267-268; C. Robin, Les Hautes-terres du nord-Yémen avant l’islam 1, Recherches sur la géographie tribale et religieuse de Hawlān Quḍāìa et du pays de Hamdān, Leiden 1982, p. 51; Arbach, op. cit. (n. 71), p. 315. 74. J.J. Stamm, Die akkadische Namengebung, Leipzig 1939, pp. 84-93. 75. Ibid., p. 91. Trans 46, 2014 60 TRANSEUPHRATÈNE parents and their circle. The above instances of divinised temples are related in one way or another to îšrth, yet they constitute no exact parallels. At Elephantine an oath is sworn ‘by DN and by the Temple’, not ‘by DN and by his temple’ as the blessing at ìAjrud and Kh. el-Qom. An additional role of the divinised temple, named and unnamed, is as the theophorous component in anthroponyms, similar to îšr in Avigad’s bullae. Conclusions Leaving out the Biblical documentation altogether (see ‘2. Biblical ‫שׁ ָרה‬ ֵ ‫ ֲא‬in the paper’ above), Table 1 compares the inscriptional and figural evidence invoked by proponents and opponents of epigraphic Hebrew *îšrh as a goddess, Yahweh’s consort, and of îšr as a god, on the one hand, and of both as ‘(Yahweh’s) temple’ on the other. 61 B. SASS Table 1. Epigraphic îšr and *îšrh: deities or ‘temple’? Epigraphic Hebrew îšr and *îšrh understood as ↓ Pro Contra Deity: îšr, male counterpart of Asherah îšr in PNs presumed DN Deity: *îšrh, Yahweh’s consort, equals 2ndmillennium Canaanite îAṯirat and Biblical goddess Asherah *îšrh in yhwh wʾšrth presumed DN, with rare parallels for pronominal suffix at 3rd-millennium Ebla Temple: Primary meaning of both îšr and *îšrh in Hebrew Images of goddess/es or her/their attributes, frequent in Israel and Judah, presumed to depict Asherah, Yahweh’s consort ‘Queen of Heaven’ in Jeremiah, ‘Image of Jealousy’ in Ezekiel and ‘Woman in the Ephah’ in Zachariah presumed Yahweh’s consort/s (1) ‘Temple’ primary meaning of both îšr and îšrt in Phoenician and Aramaic, hence presumably in Hebrew too until edited out of the Bible (see below); (2) *îšrh/îšrt unattested as explicit DN or namecomponent in firstmillennium WS Pronominal suffix in îšrth likely for ‘temple’, much less likely for DN îšr probably no DN: it is unattested as explicit DN in first-millennium WS (1) *îšrh/îšrt probably no DN: it is unattested as explicit DN or as namecomponent in firstmillennium WS; (2) pronominal suffix in îšrth likely for ‘temple’, much less likely for DN No evidence for her/their identity with epigraphic Hebrew *îšrh (but role as Yahweh’s consort a possibility) No evidence for her/their identity with epigraphic Hebrew *îšrh (but role as Yahweh’s consort a possibility) None Rare parallels for pronominal suffix to DN at 3rd-millennium Ebla Trans 46, 2014 62 TRANSEUPHRATÈNE Whereas the available evidence is too slight for categorically ruling out its interpretation ‘Yahweh and his (consort the goddess) Asherah’, the understanding of epigraphic Hebrew yhwh wîšrth as ‘Yahweh and his temple’ is certainly not less likely, and moreover seems much simpler. The main grounds in Table 1 for favouring the understanding ‘temple’ of both masculine îšr and feminine *îšrh in epigraphic Hebrew are recapitulated: 1. The primary meaning ‘(holy) place’ of first-millennium West Semitic îšr/îšrt, or similar, masculine and feminine. 2. The absence of a DN îšrt in Phoenician, Aramaic and Transjordanian texts of the early first millennium. The absence in epigraphic Hebrew and Philistian of unequivocal attestations of *îšrh/îšrt as a DN. 3. The absence from the Hebrew and other West Semitic onomastica of a goddess *îšrh/îšrt, apparently linked to her absence from the texts. Had she been Yahweh’s consort, would not a wealth of Hebrew îšrh-names be expected, on par with the yw and yhw-names, and comparable to the great popularity of Astarte names among the Phoenicians? (But see n. 49). 4. The implausibility of a West Semitic divine name with a pronominal suffix, ‘his Asherah’: The justification of the suffix in a DN requires elaborate linguistic virtuosity, and even then doubts persist; on the other hand in îšrth, ‘his temple’, the pronominal suffix is commonplace. If the meaning ‘temple’ for îšr is accepted, the presumed Judahite origin of the unprovenanced bullae with îšr-names implies the temple of Jerusalem. And if yhwh wʾšrth is to be understood ‘Yahweh and his temple’, we have to do with three such temples – at Khirbet el-Qom likewise the temple of Jerusalem, at ìAjrud the temples of Samaria and Teman.76 Whether the latter temple stood at ìAjrud itself or elsewhere remains unclear. Once this survey of îšr and *îšrh according mainly to the epigraphic evidence is concluded, Biblical Asherah can finally be brought in. The question arises why the sense ‘temple’, the main meaning of îšr/îšrt in Phoenician and Aramaic, is not found in the Bible.77 Was it absent from Hebrew in the first place, or was it present in the pre-Exilic language, then consistently edited out of the Bible? Keeping to the latter option, could it be that the Deuteronomists would not live with despised ‫שׁ ָרה‬ ֵ ‫ ֲא‬being synonymous in their writings also with the temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem? A dtr eradication of ‘temple’, the primary sense of Hebrew îšr and îšrh. Or could the development have been the other way round? Taking F.M. Cross’ notion in note 56 of Asherah’s transformation by the Deuteronomists, and the ensuing semantic shift, a step further, I propose the 76. E.g. A. Lemaire, ‘Date et origine des inscriptions hébraïques et phéniciennes de Kuntillet ìAjrud’, SEL 1, 1984, pp. 132-133. 77. Except perhaps a veiled reference in pejorative ‫שׁ ַמת שׁ ֹ ְמרוֹן‬ ְ ‫ ַא‬- see n. 82. B. SASS 63 following scenario: the primary meaning of pre-Exilic îšr and îšrh was ‘temple’. The transformation of ‫שׁ ָרה‬ ֵ ‫ ֲא‬from this into idolatrous objects, possibly also a pagan goddess named Asherah,78 could have stemmed from dtr’s opposition to ‘Yahweh’s Asherah’, the divinised temple of Jerusalem (formerly also Yahweh’s temples in Samaria, etc.) gaining so much in prestige as to compete with the supremacy of Yahweh himself.79 End of scenario. Could this have been combined with a dtr awareness of an ancient homonymous goddess Asherah, no longer worshipped in the Levant but still revered in Arabia? If it has any merit, this conjecture about the disappearance from the Bible of Asherah’s primary sense ‘temple’ may rationalize dtr’s urge to transform ‫שׁ ָרה‬ ֵ ‫ ֲא‬into idolatrous objects, and perhaps a pagan goddess, despite the absence of a goddess îšrh/îšrt from the first-millennium Levant. A dtr eradication of the synonymy Yahweh-Baal. Similarly, could their disapproval of Yahweh’s synonymy with Baal and of Yahweh’s worship outside Jerusalem have prompted the Deuteronomists to banish any reference to the Yahwehs of Samaria, Teman and other places, identifying them instead with the now discredited Baals, and simultaneously to silence the synonymy of Yahweh of Jerusalem with Baal?80 Biblical expressions such as ‫בֵּית ַה ַבּעַל‬,81 ‫שׁמַת שֹׁמְרוֹן‬ ְ ‫ ַא‬,82 and ‫ ֵעגֶל שׁ ֹמְרוֹן‬83 could hint to this. 78. Despite her occasional placement in the Jerusalem temple according to the Biblical text, Asherah is never labelled ‘Yahweh’s consort’, nor is a direct link created from Yahweh to her. Indeed it would have contradicted the redactors’ convictions. Yet indirectly, such a link may be implied (T. Römer, pers. comm., and see n. 84). But all this concerns dtr ideology, with little or no bearing on earlier epigraphic Hebrew *îšrh, if its primary sense ‘temple’ is accepted. 79. ‘What … the critical authors of the Old Testament - the prophets, authors of Deuteronomy, and Deuteronomists - condemned as the breaking away from Yahweh and move towards the religion of Canaan, was … the traditional Israelite religion of the pre-Exilic period’ - M. Weippert, Jahwe und die anderen Götter, Studien zur Religionsgeschichte des antiken Israel in ihrem syrischpalästinischen Kontext, FAT 18, Tübingen 1997, p. 10. 80. ‘Initially, Yahweh and Baal were not two distinct deities but two names for one and the same god. This explains the severity of the conflict which broke out when part of Yahweh’s devotees would no longer adhere to this identification’ (ibid., p. 17). ‘It is fascinating to behold how, in the thinking of the prophet, Yahweh and Baal, up till then one and the same deity …, go their separate ways to become two fiercely competing gods’ (ibid., p. 22). 81. Ahab’s ‫( בֵּית ַה ַבּעַל‬1K 16 32 and passim) may well be one of the names by which the Deuteronomists alluded to Yahweh’s sanctuary in Samaria – e.g. M. Köckert, ‘YHWH in the northern and southern kingdom’, in R.G. Kratz and H. Spieckermann eds, One god - one cult - one nation, Archaeological and Biblical perspectives, BZAW 405, Berlin 2010, p. 366. 82. Another reference to Yahweh’s sanctuary in Samaria could be ‫שׁ ַמתשׁ ֹ ְמרוֹן‬ ְ ‫ ַא‬in Amos 8 14, a possible derisory corruption of îšrt šmrn - S.R. Driver, Joel and Amos, Cambridge 1915, p. 215; Tigay, op. cit. (n. 8), p. 26, n. 31. The two authors probably had a wooden cult-object in mind, while according to the present proposal the temple of Yahweh of Samaria is probably more likely. Oaths are Trans 46, 2014 64 TRANSEUPHRATÈNE Dtr’s attitude towards îšrh and Baal – differences and similarities. The above cases of Asherah and Baal differ certainly from one another. Pre-dtr Baal was synonymous with Yahweh, whereas îšrth was presumably ‘his (i.e. Yahweh’s) temple’. All the same, Baal and *îšrh had a common denominator in dtr’s eyes: each in his/her own way was posing a threat to Yahweh’s uniqueness. This is supposedly why the Deuteronomists sought to transform them into a couple of obscenities. Epigraphic Hebrew *îšrh neither ‘cult-object’ nor ‘tree’. Furthermore, were a sacred tree and cult-object included in *îšrh’s semantic spectrum in epigraphic Hebrew as they are in Biblical Asherah? Possibly not, for they have no clear-cut Hebrew comparisons outside the Bible, nor for that matter in any other contemporary West Semitic language. If the above scenario is valid, *îšrh before the Deuteronomistic re-interpretation was no cult-object, nor a tree. If pre-dtr îšrh meant ‘temple’, did Yahweh have a differently-named consort? Lastly, the images of a goddess and of her attributes on seals and other archaeological finds indicate that a female deity whose name, apparently, has not survived in epigraphic Hebrew, was worshipped in ancient Israel and Judah and perhaps, on analogy with divine family relationships in neighbouring countries, that she was perceived as Yahweh’s consort. As suggested by several colleagues,84 there is a possibility that this role was fulfilled by Jeremiah’s Queen of Heaven, and/or by the Biblical goddesses, later pejoratively nicknamed ‘Image of Jealousy’ and ‘Woman in the Ephah’ (see ‘4.2. West Semitic *îšrh/îšrt and îšr – divine names?’ above), whether the Biblical authors were referring to distinct figures or to a single one. If this is valid, ‘Yahweh’s (consort the goddess) Asherah’ turns out to be a scholarly misconception. But there is no contradiction between the notion that Yahweh had a consort and the proposal in this paper that each instance of ‘Yahweh’s *îšrh’ at Kuntillet ìAjrud and Khirbet el-Qom indicates not a goddess said to be sworn by ‫שׁ ַמת שׁ ֹ ְמרוֹן‬ ְ ‫ ַא‬and, if my suggestion is accepted, we could have here a parallel to Menahem’s oath sworn by a temple in Elephantine (see end of ‘4.3. West Semitic *îšrh/îšrt and îšr – ‘temple’?’ above). Moreover, the Biblical expression may have been meant as a double entendre, implying at the same time the god Ashima of Samaria (briefly WSS, pp. 485–486). 83. Epigraphic Hebrew yhwh šmrn could have become ‫ ֵעגֶל שׁ ֹ ְמרוֹן‬in Hosea 8 6 - first Gilula, op. cit. (n. 15), p. 131 - a transformation often attributed to a later dtr intervention - e.g. G.A. Yee, Composition and tradition in the book of Hosea, a redaction critical investigation, SBL Dissertation Series 102, Atlanta 1987, pp. 189-190. But there are those who regard it as original, e.g. S.C. Russell, Images of Egypt in early Biblical literature, Cisjordan-Israelite, Transjordan-Israelite and Judahite portrayals, BZAW 403, Berlin-New York 2009, p. 43. 84. E.g. those cited in n. 46. T. Römer called my attention to the possibility of an indirect Biblical link between the removal by King Josiah of the Asherah from the Jerusalem Temple in 2K 23 6, and the continued worship of the ‘Queen of Heaven’ by Jews in Egypt in Jeremiah 44 15-19 – see for instance K. Koch, ‘Ascherah als Himmelskönigin in Jerusalem’, UF 20, 1988, p. 107. B. SASS 65 (nor cultic paraphernalia or a tree) but primarily one of Yahweh’s temples – in Samaria, Teman, or Jerusalem – as does îšr in the names on the bullae. Appendix II. ‘Progressive’ vs. ‘conservative’, or: How did the views expressed in the paper take shape? For many years I was persuaded that yhwh wîšrth was best understood as ‘Yahweh and his (consort the goddess) Asherah’. At the time such an understanding seemed to me plausible enough in the light of P. Xella’s 1995 study.85 It may still seem so, but less. Then in 2008, when I was asked to read the Hebrew manuscript of S. Ahituv and E. Eshel on the Kuntillet ìAjrud inscriptions, I came across the possibility of translating îšrth as ‘his temple’.86 Even though I have encountered this alternative long before, the ìAjrud manuscript refreshed my memory and I realized that ‘his temple’ had no less merit than the proposed alternatives. What has convinced me in particular was that in contemporary Aramaic and Phoenician, the meaning ‘temple’ was the primary one, and that îšr and îšrt could never unequivocally be understood as divine names in firstmillennium West Semitic texts. Since then I was offering my students both options for *îšrh, goddess and temple, without recommending a preferred one.87 While writing the present paper, the disparity in plausibility between ‘temple’ and a divine name for epigraphic *îšrh appeared to me in sharper focus, not least as a result of re-reading F.M. Cross’ valuable 2009 article.88 I now believe that ‘his temple’ holds a certain advantage over ‘his (consort the goddess) Asherah’, not only as the primary meaning of îšrt in neighbouring languages, but also because, following the work of D. Pardee,89 P. Xella’s justification of the pronominal suffix to a DN has lost some of its erstwhile persuasion. Further, in view of the oath Menahem of Elephantine has sworn ‘by the temple’, and of the element ‘temple’ in the onomastica of Arabia and Mesopotamia, it seems reasonable that the component îšr in the names on N. Avigad’s bullae likewise denotes ‘(divinised) temple’. 85. Loc. cit. (n. 63). 86. The Hebrew version was still unpublished at the time these lines were written. In the English edition - Ahituv et al., op. cit. (n. 13) - the option of ‘his temple’ is mentioned on p. 137, n. 24, while ultimately not followed in the book. 87. My reasoning for doubting the Biblical designations ‘cult object / symbol’ and ‘tree’ for Asherah is given at the end of ‘Conclusions’ above. 88. Op. cit. (n. 19). 89. See n. 66. Trans 46, 2014 66 TRANSEUPHRATÈNE It is well known (if rarely mentioned) that the divine-name interpretation of *îšrh is often favoured by those who regard themselves as progressive, whereas the ‘temple’ option (and all others) is entertained by colleagues considered conservative. The meaning ‘goddess Asherah, Yahweh’s consort’ is no doubt more captivating, more iconoclastic, than its proposed alternatives; there may even be among the proponents of Asherah as Yahweh’s consort an element of schadenfreude in the discomfiture (real or imagined) of the conservatives in view of such a conflict with the Biblical text. Even though I count myself amongst the nonconservatives, I have tried in this paper to show that the arguments in favour of ‘temple’ and in opposition to a goddess are not so bad. André Lemaire’s vast knowledge, and his method combining attention to detail with the broadest general view, impress me time and again. In this he is indeed inimitable. I have learned a great deal from him over the years and our long-time cooperation has been most rewarding to me. We have moreover been fortunate not to let our few points of disagreement to interfere with an otherwise amicable and fruitful relationship. These lines are dedicated to André in friendship and admiration. LÉGENDES DES PLANCHES Pl. I, 1a-b : Poids 6126 en forme de pyramide tronquée avec une inscription sur sa base. Pl. II, 2a-b : Poids 6116 en forme de pyramide tronquée avec caducée et balance. Pl. III, 3a-b : Poids 6117 en forme de pyramide tronquée avec signe de Tanit sur sa base. Pl. IV, 1 : Unprovenanced bulla inscribed [lîû]r@y(?) ìûyhw (Avigad, op. cit. [n. 1], no. 34; WSS 457); figs1-3 reproduced with the permission of the Israel Exploration Society. Pl. IV, 2 : Unprovenanced bulla inscribed lnryhw îûr@y (Avigad, ibid., no. 126; WSS 579). Pl. IV, 3 : Unprovenanced bulla inscribed lnryhw [î]ûry@t (Avigad, ibid., no. 127; WSS 580). Pl. IV, 4 : Lachish, scaraboid, surface find, eighth-seventh centuries (Keel-Uehlinger, op. cit. [n. 38], fig. 323; reproduced with the permission of O. Keel). Pl. IV, 5a-b : Jerusalem bifacial stamp seal, seventh century, one side inscribed lrpîyhw ûlm (R. Reich and E. Shukron, ‘Two Hebrew seals and three Hebrew bullae from the City of David in Jerusalem’, ErIs 29, 2009, p. 358, photographer V. Naikhin, reproduced with the permission of R. Reich). Pl. V, 6 : Hazor, enthroned Baal Statue, bronze, Late Bronze Age (Ornan, op. cit. [n. 39], p. 255, fig. 2, drawing by H. Bitan, reproduced with the permission of A. Ben-Tor). Pl. V, 7 : Kuntillet ìAjrud pithos A, detail of drawing (Ahituv et al., 190 TRANSEUPHRATÈNE op. cit. [n. 13], back cover, reproduced with the permission of Z. Meshel and the Israel Exploration Society). Pl. V, 8 : Unprovenanced scaraboid inscribed yh[y]hw [û]lm (Drawing by N. Z’evi after WSS 173). Pl. V, 9 : Unprovenanced terracotta group (Jeremias, op. cit. [n. 54], p. 46, reproduced with the permission of the editor, O. Keel). Pl. V, 10 : Khirbet ez-Zerqon Terracotta group, Early Bronze Age (Ajlouny et al., op. cit. [n. 55], p. 114, no 1a, reproduced with the permission of A. Sagona, editor, ANES). Pl. VI : Line drawing of silver bowl from Kourion. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 74.51.4556. Source: Markoe, op. cit. (n. 53), p. 254. Pl. VII : Line drawing of E2. Source: Markoe, op. cit. (n. 53), p. 278. Pl. VIII : Source: Hölbl, op. cit. (n. 64), pl. 159b. Pl. IX, 1a : The îAmaryahu bn hmlk bulla – front side (courtesy of the owner; Photo: R. Wiskin). Pl. IX, 1b : The îAmaryahu bn hmlk bulla – back side (courtesy of the owner; Photo: P. Van der Veen). Pl. IX, 1c : Line-Drawing of the îAmaryahu bn hmlk bulla ((c) linedrawing – R. Deutsch). Pl. X, 2 : [= K 16] The Domlaì servant of Hezekiah bulla (courtesy of J.C. Kaufman; (c) courtesy of R. Deutsch). Pl. X, 3 : [= K 268a] The Neraì (son of) Malkiyahu bulla (courtesy of J.C. Kaufman; (c) courtesy of R. Deutsch). Pl. X, 4 : [= K 183] The ‘Yigdalyahu (son of) îAmaryahu’ bulla (courtesy of J.C. Kaufman; (c) courtesy of R. Deutsch). Pl. IV 1 2 3 4 5a 5b Pl. V 6 7 8 9 10 TRANSEUPHRATENE 46, 2014 BIBLE ET PROCHE-ORIENT MELANGES ANDRE LEMAIRE III EDITEURS : J. ELA YI ET J.-M. DURAND GABALDA