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 e-ISBN(EPUB)978-1-5015-0022-0 ISSN2161-4415 LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData ACIPcatalogrecordforthisbookhasbeenappliedforattheLibraryofCongress. BibliographicinformationpublishedbytheDeutscheNationalbibliothek TheDeutscheNationalbibliothekliststhispublicationintheDeutscheNationalbibliografie; detailedbibliographicdataareavailableontheInternetathttp://dnb.dnb.de. ©2015WalterdeGruyterInc.,Boston/Berlin/Munich Typesetting:MetaSystemsPublishing&PrintservicesGmbH,Wustermark Printingandbinding:Hubert&Co.GmbH&Co.KG,Göttingen ♾Printedonacid-freepaper PrintedinGermany www.degruyter.com 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.