Pre-Babylonian Hebrew Pantheon

[Jeanne dArc]

Hey guys, thought I'd strike up a discussion of Israelite history and religion prior to 622BCE

I took the liberty of compiling a fairly lengthy list of deities worshipped by the Hebraeo-Canaanite culture (epithets and alternate renderings included; and the list is still incomplete, BTW: feel free to alert me to any I've left out!), I think it's rather fascinating. Hopefully we can discuss some of their histories, the practices and rites involved in their cults, the religio-politics of the Levant in the Iron Age, all that fun stuff, haha

’Elohim (gods)

’Elahim

’Elim

’Elhim – children of ’El, pantheon, divinities

Yahweh

Yahweh ^TSeba’ot (he who enlivens the armies, Yahweh of the soldiers)

Yahu

Yah

Yaw – war god, storm god, fertility god, father god, horse god

Ba‘al (lord)

Ba‘al-Zebul (lord on high, lord of summits)

Ba‘al-Hadad

Ba‘al-^TSapon (lord of the north)

Ba‘al-Raman (lord of thunder)

Ba‘al-Šamin (lord of heaven)

Rapiu (phantom)

Pidar (gleaming one) – storm god, fertility god

’Ašerah

’Ašer

’Atirat

’Elat (goddess)

Milkat hašŠamayim (queen of the skies)

^KHawat (living one, life-giver)

^KHewah – mother goddess, fertility goddess, wisdom goddess

‘Aštart

‘Aštarit

‘Aštart Qarnayim (‘Aštart of the horns)

’Atirat

Milkat hašŠamayim (queen of the skies)

Milk‘Aštart (queen Aštart)

Ra^khal

Re^khil – stellar goddess, Venusian goddess, evening star, lunar goddess, matron goddess, fertility goddess

‘Attar

‘Aštar

‘Aštar Šamin (‘Aštar of heaven)

Ibridimi (irrigating one)

Ibardamay

Yabrodimi

Ibu (lion)

Yabb

Hilel (effulgent one)

Hiylal – stellar god, Venusian god, morning star, shepherd god, lunar god, irrigation god

’El (God)

’El ‘Olam (eternal god)

’El Melek (’El is King)

’El Qoni ’Are^ts (’El, creator of Earth)

’El Barit (’El of the concordat)

’El Dan (’El is judge) – father god, creator god

Gad (luck, fortune) – luck god

Qayin

Qenan

Qen

Qin – metalworking god, mining god

Yam (sea)

Rahab (blusterer, pompous one)

Nahar (river)

Ne^khuštan (copper serpent, brazen dragon)

Lowyatan (snaking serpent, serpentine dragon, snake of Lowi)

Lowitan

Lotan

Lutan

hanNa^khaš (the serpent, the hissing one) – serpent god, sea god, chaos god, healing god

Šalim (dusk, twilight)

Šalmu

Šulman

Šalmen

Šalem – stellar god, Venusian god, evening star, underworld god, night god, peace god

Ša^khar (dawn, morning) – stellar god/goddess, Venusian god/goddess, morning star, dawn god/goddess, lunar god

‘Anat

Betilat ‘Anat (virgin ‘Anat)

Ra^khmay (merciful/compassionate one)

Ra^khami – war goddess, virgin goddess, love goddess

Mowt (death)

Mut

^TSal-Mowt (death-shade, shadow of death)

^TSalim-Mowt (deep darkness of death)

Ša’owl (underworld, netherworld)

Abadown (ruinous, oblivion)

Abadun

Ša^khat (corruption, desecration)

Bowr (pit) – underworld god, death god

Malik (king)

Melek

Malek

Milku

Mulku

Milkah (queen)

Malkeh

Molek – possibly fire god (?), often epithet of other gods

Šamaš (sun)

Šemš

Šemšun

Šepaš – solar god/goddess, horse god/goddess, donkey god/goddess

’El Šaday (god of the mountains, god of breasts?) – epithet of either Ba‘al-Hadad or ’Ašerah

‘Elyon (highest one, loftiest one)

‘Aliyown

‘Alyun

’El ‘Elyon (uppermost god) – primordial god, grandfather god

Yare^kh (moon)

Yeri^kh – lunar god

Nikal

Nekel-’Ab (blossoming Nikal, blooming Nekel) – orchard goddess, fruit goddess, garden goddess

^KHir^khib

^KHeribi

^KHer^khebi – summer god, autumn god

Kutar-wa^kKHasis (skillful and wise, deft and clever)

Kotar-wa^kKHesiys

Kotar

Heyan (Ea)

^KHuwsor

^KHowsar – artisan god, craftsman god, sorcerer god, metalworking god, architect god, inventor god

Rešep

Rašep Gan (Rešep of the garden)

Lahat (flame, fiery one)

^KHe^ts (arrow) – archery god, fire god, plague god, healing god, tutelary god, destruction god, hunter god

^KHuron

^KHaurown

^KHurun

^KHarun

^KHaru

^KHoruw – falcon god, sky god, destruction god, war god, hunter god

Ša’taqat

Šataqitu – healing goddess, demon goddess

Hirgab

Hargeb – vulture god

Sumul – vulture goddess

Elš

Ališ – carpenter god

Gupn (vine)

Gapn – wine god, messenger god

Ugar (field) – wine god, messenger god

Pidray

Padari – light goddess, thunder goddess, fog goddess

Tallay

Teli – dew goddess, rain goddess

Arsay

Ersi – spring goddess, water goddess

Radman

Redmin

Radmin

Radmenu – servant god

Šeger

Šegir

Šagar – cattle god, herdsman god

Ithm – sheep god, shepherd god

Tiroš

Tirat

Tiraš

Tiruš – wine god, drinking god

Yi^tshar

I^tshar – olive god, oil god

Dagun (grain, corn, crops)

Degown – agriculture god, beer god, grain god, fertility god, harvest god, rain god

Išat (fire) – fire goddess

Dan’El (judge god, ’El is judge)

Dani’El – oracle demigod, wisdom demigod, justice demigod

Aqhat – archer demigod

Nimrowd

Namrud

Nemrowd – hunter god/demigod, war god/demigod

^TSedeq (justice, righteousness)

^TSideq

hašŠatan (the adversary, the prosecutor, the accuser) – justice god

’Ešmun

’Ešmen – healing god

Kutarat (skillful ones)

Kotarot – pregnancy goddesses, midwife goddesses

Marqod (dance)

Marqud – dance god, healing god

Qadeš (sacred one, holy one)

Qediš – holiness goddess, love goddess, sex goddess

Šamayim (sky, heavens)

Šemyim – sky god, primordial god

‘Ara^ts (earth, land)

‘Ere^ts – earth goddess, primordial goddess

Tehowm (abyss, deep)

Tohu

Tehmat

Tehumah – primordial goddess, dragon goddess, sea goddess, chaos goddess, saltwater goddess

Behmut

Bohu

Behowm

Behemat – primordial god, bull god, order god, sky god

Set

Sute^kh – desert god, donkey god, chaos god, storm god

Yabal (shepherd, herdsman)

Ibel – pastoral god

Yubal (musician)

Yobel – music god

Tubal (metalworker, blacksmith)

Tobel – metalworking god, mining god, artisan god

^TSilah (shadow)

^TSaleh

^TSeleh – night goddess

Na‘amah (pleasure)

Ne‘meh – sex goddess, prostitute goddess

Kerubim

Karub – tutelary gods, sphinx gods, storm gods, cloud gods

Šarapim (fiery ones, burning ones)

Šerap – fire gods, tutelary gods, healing gods, snake gods, dragon gods

Lahem

Lahmu

Lehamah – stellar god/goddess, tutelary god/goddess, dragon god/goddess

’Abraham (father Raham)

Raham

Rahamu

’Abram (high father, father of summits) – exilic god, nomad god, lunar god, bull god

Šaray (gentlewoman, queen)

Šarah – fertility goddess, consort goddess, mother goddess, virgin goddess, transgender goddess

‘Ešaw

‘Ašu

‘Ešo – hunter god

’Adam (ruddy one)

’Adamu

’Edum

’Edam – first man demigod

’Enowš (man)

’Enuš

’Anoš – first man demigod

[eight bits]

A formidable list, Jeanne. I would be curious about your thoughts on El Shaddai. God is your witness (Exodus 6: 3) that the Patriarchs knew him by that title, which may streamline discussion as we leave the gate.

I understand the title may correspond with any number of phrases linking God with high places, or simply height itself. God certainly is fond of high places in Exodus.

I notice you also have this as a possible lady's title on your list. That certainly works for an Indo-European pantheon (Athena-Minerva-Brigid). I'd be curious about how the Semitic case would go.

The I-E ladies are fire-lovers (flames rise), as is YHWH, who likes smoke, too. Smoke and fire are both divination aids. Smoke offers the opportunity to mix in some attitude-adjustment ingredients, although conscious absorption in fire can be effective even without spices.

Edited August 31, 2015 by eight bits

[Jeanne dArc]

A formidable list, Jeanne. I would be curious about your thoughts on El Shaddai. God is your witness (Exodus 6: 3) that the Patriarchs knew him by that title, which may streamline discussion as we leave the gate.

Lovely place to start

I understand the title may correspond with any number of phrases linking God with high places, or simply height itself. God certainly is fond of high places in Exodus.

That does seem to be part of it, yes. I've suspected it could also be a title borrowed possibly from the Hurro-Hittites, but that's neither here nor there.

I notice you also have this as a possible lady's title on your list. That certainly works for an Indo-European pantheon (Athena-Minerva-Brigid). I'd be curious about how the Semitic case would go.

Yeah, the tricky thing is that Shaddai can mean both "mountains" and "breasts", haha Mountains were considered sort of "breasts of the earth", so etymologically its difficult to distinguish who we're talking about.

The I-E ladies are fire-lovers (flames rise), as is YHWH, who likes smoke, too. Smoke and fire are both divination aids. Smoke offers the opportunity to mix in some attitude-adjustment ingredients, although conscious absorption in fire can be effective even without spices.

I've at times wondered if Yahweh had a highly-derived origin from Mycenaean culture. The Midynai/Qini tribes in Western Arabia that were evidently his earliest worshippers show clear signs of Bronze Age Grecian influence (their pottery is eminently Mycenaean in style), and it's thought that the brazen serpent found in the Midyani tabernacle shrine at Timna is an idol of Yahu, who was apparently their god of healing, fire, volcanoes, metalworking, etc. Well, in the Aegean and Minoan cultures, a bronze serpent was associated with goddesses, not male deities: Yahu is a fairly gender-indeterminable name, it's not inconceivable that he began as a female, and changed gender when introduced to Canaan (as happened for a number of Hebraeo-Canaanite divinities, such as the sun god/goddess).

[eight bits]

Jeanne

There's another canonical thread that runs back to your list, cakes for the Queen of Heaven. Jeremiah (7:18 and 44 generally) depicts a still living practice around the time of the exile. (The book itself, however, has a complicated composition dating.) Epiphanius will write about his Collyridians in the Fourth Christian Century doing likewise, with the rites then sanitized as honoring a Christian saint (although Epiphanius is aghast anyway). So there's roughly a millennium of practice in reasonably well documented times, pointing back to your list.

Jeremiah's chapter 44 is interesting because he debates Israelites in the diaspora. They are clear that they haven't backslid because they've picked up the habits of their new neighbors. This is what their ancestors did. Moreover, times were good when the Queen of Heaven got her incense, libations and cakes. Ever since her offerings stopped, times have been bad, so that's why they're resuming the practices.

There apparently is a gender-based division of religious labor. It is the women's responsibility to look after these rites, keeping the men ritually pure to engage in YHWH rites (the meatiest of which women aren't allowed to do). Jeremiah rejects the effectiveness of the arrangement, he and his God see right through it - the men are complicit in the idolatry, offering material support and enjoying the benefits of it, even though the women are the direct agents.

"Plausible deniability" doesn't cut it - but that's what Jeremiah says is going on, and the people don't deny it. They are all, men, women and children alike, enthusiastic idolators, but have found a way to observe the letter of the law. YHWH gets his rites on schedule, performed by men who refrain from worshipping anybody else, as instructed.

Fast forward to Rabbi Hillel, and among his quotable quotes is "The more possesions, the more worry. The more women, the more witchcraft." The gender-defined division of labor appears durable.

This seems to provide witness to your main underlying point, or what I take from your posts, that into late ancient times, Judaism was a nuanced monotheism, with living and consciously tolerated pagan elements. Gendered Judaism does seem to have left behind some of those divinities on your list. Unsurprisingly, the sexes could well have agreed that child sacrifice was horrific, for example, and it was thus excluded from both "sides" of the actual religion.

To the extent the canon supports this view, the less you need seem like a conspiracy theorist .

[Harte]

Can you provide your source for that info in the OP?

I've read lots of sites concerning the Canaanite religion. I've not seen such a long list on any of them.

Harte

[Jeanne dArc]

Can you provide your source for that info in the OP?

I've read lots of sites concerning the Canaanite religion. I've not seen such a long list on any of them.

This is my own personal compilation after many years I hadn't seen a proper list either, so I took the liberty of compiling one from various sources. A lot of these are best documented in Ugaritic sources, with a few from Hebrew or Egyptian sources (for example, worship of Horus and Set in Canaan is known from archaeology at Bronze Age Egyptian sites in the Levant, as well as records).

[Jeanne dArc]

There's another canonical thread that runs back to your list, cakes for the Queen of Heaven. Jeremiah (7:18 and 44 generally) depicts a still living practice around the time of the exile. (The book itself, however, has a complicated composition dating.) Epiphanius will write about his Collyridians in the Fourth Christian Century doing likewise, with the rites then sanitized as honoring a Christian saint (although Epiphanius is aghast anyway). So there's roughly a millennium of practice in reasonably well documented times, pointing back to your list.

Yeah Queen of Heaven seems to have been equally applicable as a title to both Asherah and Ashtart (sometimes possibly even Anat), although they were sometimes conflated, so that's pretty complex, haha. 2 Kings also mentions that weaving of sacred textiles was a practice of Asherah/Ashtart devotees, especially her priestesses (which may or many not have included transgender and eunuch members).

Jeremiah's chapter 44 is interesting because he debates Israelites in the diaspora. They are clear that they haven't backslid because they've picked up the habits of their new neighbors. This is what their ancestors did. Moreover, times were good when the Queen of Heaven got her incense, libations and cakes. Ever since her offerings stopped, times have been bad, so that's why they're resuming the practices.

Yeah, and Jeremiah is an odd duck: he was the son of the very priest who I suspect wrote Deuteronomy (and then claimed it was Moses) and persuaded Josiah to usher in the monolatristic reformation right before the Exile. It's easy to see how the lay people would be eager to renounce the reforms after what happened: whereas the priests were probably devout enough that they just rationalized it all as disobedience to the new top god.

There apparently is a gender-based division of religious labor. It is the women's responsibility to look after these rites, keeping the men ritually pure to engage in YHWH rites (the meatiest of which women aren't allowed to do). Jeremiah rejects the effectiveness of the arrangement, he and his God see right through it - the men are complicit in the idolatry, offering material support and enjoying the benefits of it, even though the women are the direct agents.

It's interesting, priestesses and oracles seem to have been much more prominent pre-Exile, though little exhaustive attestation of this remains. Hypothetically that could go back to the Mycenaean/Minoan thing we were discussing before, who knows? I've long maintained that several Israelite tribes (Asher, Dan, etc.) might have had links to the Sea Peoples, and then there's the whole weird link that the Midyani/Qini seem to have had with Aegean culture.

"Plausible deniability" doesn't cut it - but that's what Jeremiah says is going on, and the people don't deny it. They are all, men, women and children alike, enthusiastic idolators, but have found a way to observe the letter of the law. YHWH gets his rites on schedule, performed by men who refrain from worshipping anybody else, as instructed.

And that first commandment, read literally, only says to keep other idols out of the temple of Yahweh ("you shall have no other gods before me (lit., in my presence)"). So yeah, polytheism and Yahwism aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, the Yahwist priests just wanted them to be, haha

Fast forward to Rabbi Hillel, and among his quotable quotes is "The more possesions, the more worry. The more women, the more witchcraft." The gender-defined division of labor appears durable.

Yeah, the role of women definitely seems to be associated quite consistently in Hebraic religion with very old rites. I wouldn't be surprised if by "witchcraft" he indeed meant sort of "covens": women who had been practicing Iron Age traditions for generations, even long after any of the men had rejected them, and left them undocumented. I can't think of any direct evidence of that off-hand, just speculating randomly, haha

This seems to provide witness to your main underlying point, or what I take from your posts, that into late ancient times, Judaism was a nuanced monotheism, with living and consciously tolerated pagan elements. Gendered Judaism does seem to have left behind some of those divinities on your list. Unsurprisingly, the sexes could well have agreed that child sacrifice was horrific, for example, and it was thus excluded from both "sides" of the actual religion.

Well, I tend to characterize post-Exilic Judaism as essentially monotheistic/monolatristic or henotheistic (depending on the sect and era): prior to around 622BCE (the Deuteronomic Reform) it seems quite apparent that Hebrew religion was exhaustively polytheistic, with competing monolatrist parties the closest thing to monotheism they ever got. It's interesting too: the child sacrifice thing doesn't necessarily seem to be renounced in Hebrew thought until very late; possibly as late as the Second Temple. Exilic and earlier sacrifice seems indeed to have included human sacrifice, including child sacrifice (Jephthah, Isaac, Exodus & Deuteronomy, etc.), however it was perhaps a rare occurrence practiced principally in very dire circumstances (perhaps rather like the Moabites performed human sacrifice only before the eve of battle or siege, or in times of famine and pestilence).

To the extent the canon supports this view, the less you need seem like a conspiracy theorist .

Well that's good!

[back to earth]

I have been playing with the idea that the whole thing was a hodge-podge of ....... ? .... 'non-monotheistic' cults, religions, forms . etc.

The 'story' (of the Jews historical relationship with one God through time) seems to have been constructed some time after release from captivity and adopted elements of the 'eclectic Zoroastrianism' that their 'releaser' had adopted .