While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Scholars J. Maxwell Miller and John H. Hayes write: The origins of Yahwism are hidden in mystery. Nanna, Enzu or Zuen ("Lord of Wisdom") in Sumerian, later altered as Suen and Sin in Akkadian. An Eblaite goddess of pre-Semitic and pre-Hurrian origin. From the sky the stars fought. Muuu ("furious snake" or "aweful snake") was a dragon-like creature (sometimes a lion-dragon hybrid), depicted as a servant of various gods in Mesopotamian art. Assyriologists regard Ninshubur as the most commonly worshiped. Anatu means an intuitive woman who is sensitive, passionate, and introspective. (Type in a word or a number e.g. All of these stipulations and details were applied to the god later, however; it is unclear exactly when Yahweh was first worshipped, by whom, or how. [37], Yahweh was originally described as one of the sons of El in Deuteronomy 32:89, but this was removed by a later emendation to the text. The Sumerians regarded Inzak as the chief god of the Dilmunite pantheon. Enkimdu is described as the "lord of dike and canal". Mami or Mama is a mother goddess whose name means "mother". Worship of the goddess Atargatis is attested from. Yahweh was an ancient Levantine deity that became the national god of ancient Israel and Judah. The kingdoms of Israel and Judah periodically warred or allied with each other until 722 BCE when the Assyrians destroyed Israel and, in keeping with their usual military policies, deported the inhabitants and replaced them with others from their empire. The meaning of the personal name of the Israelite God has been variously interpreted. The earliest portrayals of Yahweh as the principal deity to whom "one owed the powers of blessing the land" appear in the teachings of the prophet Elijah in the 9th century BCE, and was likely well established by the time of the prophet Hosea in the 8th century BCE, in reference to disputes between Yahweh and Baal. Anunit - Mesopotamian mother or creator goddess derived from the earlier Sumerian Ki. Ninmug was the tutelary goddess of metal workers. His name is composed of four Hebrew consonants (YHWH, known as the Tetragrammaton) which the prophet Moses is said to have revealed to his people. and our [10] When reading from the scriptures, Jews began to substitute the divine name with the word adonai (), meaning "Lord". (Deuteronomy 32:8-9, Masoretic Text). Thus Genesis 4:16, attributed by literary critics to the so-called `Yahwistic' source, traces the worship of Yahweh back to the earliest days of the human race, while other passages trace the revelation and worship of Yahweh back to Moses [in the Book of Exodus]. In the late middle ages, `Yahweh' came to be changed to `Jehovah' by Christian monks, a name commonly in use today. Miller and Hayes comment: Perhaps the most noticeable characteristic of Yahweh in Israel's early poetry and narrative literature is his militancy. Yahweh, name for the God of the Israelites, representing the biblical pronunciation of YHWH, the Hebrew name revealed to Moses in the book of Exodus. Shara was a local deity associated with the city of Umma, where his main temple was the E-mah. The name "Yahweh" means "He Who Makes That Which Has Been Made" or "He Brings Into Existence Whatever Exists". Laguda was a god associated with the Persian Gulf. Lulal, also known as Latarak in Akkadian. Nintu is a Sumerian mother goddess associated with childbirth. Ninkarrak, most likely of Akkadian, rather than Sumerian, origin, This page was last edited on 24 February 2023, at 07:56. As the name of the supreme being was considered too holy to be spoken, the consonants YHWH were used to remind one to say the word 'adonai' (lord) in place of the god's name, a common practice throughout the Near East in which epithets were used in referencing a deity. [54] In 539BCE Babylon in turn fell to the Persian conqueror Cyrus the Great, the exiles were given permission to return (although only a minority did so), and by about 500BCE the Temple was rebuilt. [12], The god's name was written in paleo-Hebrew as ( in block script), transliterated as YHWH; modern scholarship has reached consensus to transcribe this as Yahweh. They saw the messiah in Zerubbabel, a descendant of the House of David who seemed, briefly, to be about to re-establish the ancient royal line, or in Zerubbabel and the first High Priest, Joshua (Zechariah writes of two messiahs, one royal and the other priestly). Mark, Joshua J.. He was the preserver of life on earth, and the protector of humans against the evil designs of their, and his arch enemy, GodEnlil, the future monotheist Satan. View Rude Words. This identification had a long-lasting influence on Nanaya by introducing associations with the moon and archery. We have 73 individual gods listed in the Mesopotamian pantheon of gods and spirits. Musician goddesses always mentioned as a pair who were handmaidens of Shaushka. The name Bl-arbi means "lord of the poplar" (the tree meant is assumed to be, Most historians generally agree that Gilgamesh was a historical king of the Sumerian city-state of. Erra is a warlike god who is associated with pestilence and violence. The way the Yahweh line was interpreted further supported the concept of Yahweh as the god of the Israelites alone since Mesha claims to have taken the Israelite god's vessels as tribute to his own. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. It appears in every book but Esther, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. [67] There is no universally accepted explanation for such aniconism, and a number of recent scholars have argued that Yahweh was in fact represented prior to the reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah late in the monarchic period: to quote one study, "[a]n early aniconism, de facto or otherwise, is purely a projection of the post-exilic imagination". In time, this practice evolved into worship of deities such as El, Asherah, Baal, Utu-Shamash, and Yahweh among others. The biblical narrative, however, is not as straightforward as it may seem as it also includes reference to the Canaanite god El whose name is directly referenced in `Israel' (He Who Struggles with God or He Who Perseveres with God). Contents 1Major deities 2Lesser deities 3Primordial beings 4Demigods and heroes 5Spirits and demons 6Legendary beasts Major deities Adador Ishkur - god of storms, venerated as a supreme power especially in Syriaand Lebanon Anshur- head of the Assyrianpantheon, regarded as the equivalent of Enlil Erragal, also known as Errakal, is a relatively rarely-attested deity who was usually regarded as a form of Erra, Gareus was a god introduced to Uruk during late antiquity by the. atumdug was a goddess from the early pantheon of Lagash. Enlilazi was a minor god regarded as the "superintendent of Ekur. The Bull of Heaven is a mythical beast that Ishtar demands from her father Anu in both the Sumerian poem, Girtablullu were creatures with the upper body of a human (. Antioch on the Orontes (/nti.k/; Ancient Greek: , Antikheia h ep Orntou; also Syrian Antioch)[note 1] was a Hellenistic city[1][2] side of the Orontes River. According to Mesopotamian sources, such as the god list. [3] The origins of his worship reach at least to the early Iron Age, and likely to the Late Bronze Age if not somewhat earlier,[4] and in the oldest biblical literature he possesses attributes typically ascribed to weather and war deities, fructifying the land and leading the heavenly army against Israel's enemies. (394). [82] In his Quaestiones Convivales, Plutarch further notes that the Jews hail their god with cries of "Euoi" and "Sabi", phrases associated with the worship of Dionysus. Pabilshag was a god whose worship is attested from the Early Dynastic Period onwards. It's based on the fusion of a Sumerian god named Yah and a Mesopotamian god named Weh." Nothing about that sentence is even remotely right. 22:20). [43][44] During the reign of Ahab (c. 871852BCE), and particularly following his marriage to Jezebel, Baal may have briefly replaced Yahweh as the national god of Israel (but not Judah). A number of superhero comics have featured the Mesopotamian gods (or at least beings using their names) as gods, demons, gods degenerated into demons, or Ancient Astronauts.Their resemblance to their depictions in the original myths varies. Particularly compelling are his arguments from biblical passages and the archaeological evidence cited from the ruins of the mines of Timna. Nabu was the Mesopotamian god of scribes and writing. [55], Towards the end of the Second Temple period, speaking the name of Yahweh in public became regarded as taboo. He was also associated with water, as he dwelt in Abzu, also spelled Apsu - the freshwater ocean believed to be beneath the earth. The sun god Shamash crossed the heavens in a chariot as the Egyptian god Aren in Mesopotamian and Egyptian times and the Greek god Apollo would later do. This paper views the relevance of cuneiform texts to the history of science from inside, i.e., from the perspective of the available sources, as well as from outside, i.e., from t Wer was a weather god worshiped chiefly in northern Babylonia and in Assyria. "[14] The sacrality of the name, as well as the Commandment against "taking the name 'in vain'", led to increasingly strict prohibitions on speaking or pronouncing the term in writing. Not only will Belet Nagar was the tutelary goddess of the Syrian city of Nagar. [38], With the notable exception of Yahweh himself, the deities worshipped by Israel were also Canaanite. Web. Sumerian God Weh. Although Christian scholars after the Renaissance and Reformation periods used the term Jehovah for YHWH, in the 19th and 20th centuries biblical scholars again began to use the form Yahweh. [12] The archangels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Ouriel and Jewish cultural heroes such as Abraham, Jacob, and Moses are also invoked frequently. Mesha Stele - Moabite StoneHenri Sivonen (CC BY). Jewish God Yahweh Originated in Canaanite Vulcan, Says New Theory by Ariel David, On the Origins of Yahweh: A Response to Martin Leuenberger, Yahweh, the Canaanite God of Metallurgy? Scholar Nissim Amzallag, of Ben-Gurion University, disagrees with the claim that Yahweh's origins are obscure and argues that the deity was originally a god of the forge and patron of metallurgists during the Bronze Age (c. 3500-1200 BCE). [56] Greek translations of the Hebrew scriptures render both the tetragrammaton and adonai as kyrios (), meaning "the Lord". World History Encyclopedia, 22 Oct 2018. While the great gods of the pantheon were worshipped by priests at . Yahweh-as-warrior is evident throughout the Hebrew scriptures which became the Christian Old Testament and warrior imagery is also apparent in passages in the New Testament which drew on the earlier works (ex: Ephesians 6:11, Philippians 2:25, II Timothy 2:3-4, I Corinthians 9:7, among others). The name YHWH, consisting of the sequence of consonants Yod, Heh, Waw, and Heh, is known as the tetragrammaton. The story of Atram-hasis, the Mesopotamian "Noah," is the original story of the flood, in which the god Enlil decides to destroy humanity, because the people annoy the gods with their noise. Omissions? Some Rights Reserved (2009-2023) under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license unless otherwise noted. In 931 BCE, following the death of Solomon, the kingdom split in two and a new political entity, the Kingdom of Judah with its capital at Jerusalem, emerged in the south. The Sumerian term Martu, also used as the gods' name, had a more vague meaning - "westerner." The god was envisioned as a tutelary deity of the Amorites by the Mesopotamians, and in texts he was a courtier or even son of the sky god An and his wife Urash. For more information, please see our 3000 - 323 BC, 2nd Edition, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. In fact, the word Mesopotamia means "between rivers" in Greek. Akkad - The northern part of Mesopotamia. World History Encyclopedia. [52] The next 50 years, the Babylonian exile, were of pivotal importance to the history of Israelite religion. The discovery of Amenhotep III's mention of the Shasu of Yahweh placed the god much earlier in history than had been accepted previously. Mesopotamia was a geographical region, the many cultures that inhabited it (Sumerians included) collectively known as "Mesopotamians". An is the Sumerian word for heaven, and he represents the father of all the gods. Jacob's favorite son, Joseph, was sold by his brothers into slavery and brought to Egypt where, owing to his skill in interpreting dreams, he rose to prominence and was able to save the region from famine (Genesis 25-50). Ura is the earliest attested consort of Anu, as evidenced by Sumerian texts dating to the third millennium BCE. The Assyrian Empire fell to an invading force of Babylonians, Medes, and others in 612 BCE and the Babylonians claimed the region of Canaan. [20] One scholarly theory is that he originated in a shortened form of el yahw abat, "El who creates the hosts",[21] but this phrase is nowhere attested either inside or outside the Bible, and the two gods are in any case quite dissimilar, with El being elderly and paternal and lacking Yahweh's association with the storm and battles. The Book of Genesis concludes with Joseph dying after telling his brothers that Yahweh will bring them out of Egypt and back to the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. [28] An answer many scholars consider plausible is the Kenite hypothesis, which holds that traders brought Yahweh to Israel along the caravan routes between Egypt and Canaan. [72] Finally, in the national crisis of the exile, the followers of Yahweh went a step further and outright denied that the other deities aside from Yahweh even existed, thus marking the transition from monolatrism to true monotheism. But when they came together to wage war against their common enemies, they would have turned to Yahweh, the divine warrior who could provide victory. Shaushka was a Hurrian goddess regarded as analogous to Ishtar ("Ishtar of, Shuqamuna and Shumaliya were a pair of Kassite gods regarded as the tutelary deities of the. [11] During the Hellenistic period, the scriptures were translated into Greek by the Jews of the Egyptian diaspora. Enmesharra was a minor deity of the underworld. 40:3), and in another part of this book, Yahweh is even explicitly mentioned as being a smelter (Ezek. Kumarbi was one of the main gods of the Hurrians, An Elamite deity known chiefly from a passage mentioning "the forest of Manziniri.". Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. The Canaanites, like all ancient civilizations, worshipped many gods but chief among them was the sky-god El. [8], Towards the end of the Babylonian captivity, the very existence of foreign gods was denied, and Yahweh was proclaimed as the creator of the cosmos and the one true God of all the world,[9] giving birth to Judaism, which has c. 1415 million adherents today. In some cases, he was denoted as a consort of Nammu. Introduction Venerated as the patron deity of Babylon itself, Marduk as one of the major Mesopotamian gods formed an important part of the Babylonian pantheon. Geshtinanna was a rural agricultural goddess sometimes associated with. The rest of the Book of Exodus details the Ten Plagues which Yahweh sends on Egypt and how Moses leads his people to freedom. This in itself suggests a shift in cultural prominence from the ancient Sumerians to the later Babylonians. The Moabite Stone was discovered in 1868 in modern-day Jordan and the find published in 1870. [12] [69], It is unclear when the worship of Yahweh alone began. [9] [10] As such, cult statues were given constant care and attention [11] [9] and a set of priests were assigned to tend to them. [53] In the writing of second Isaiah, Yahweh was no longer seen as exclusive to Israel but as extending his promise to all who would keep the sabbath and observe his covenant. Indeed, the meaning of Yahweh's name appears to have been a problem in search of an explanation even during the time when the Hebrew Bible was still being composed. Levine, Lee I. Judaism and Hellenism in Antiquity: Conflict or Confluence? A passage like this reflects the early beliefs of the Canaanites and Israelites in polytheism or, more accurately, henotheism (the belief in many gods with a focus on a single supreme deity). Simut was an Elamite god associated with Mars, Umbidaki was a god worshiped in the temple of Ishtar of, Nintinugga, "mistress who revives the dead," worshiped in Ninlil's temple in Nippur, Ninisina, who in addition to her primary role was also the goddess of Isin. These ancient gods of Mesopotamia had wings, wore horned caps, and possessed the ability to . [30] It follows that if the Kenite hypothesis is to be maintained then it must be assumed that the Israelites encountered Yahweh (and the Midianites/Kenites) inside Israel and through their association with the earliest political leaders of Israel. A prominent place in the Mesopotamian pantheon was occupied by healing goddesses. Kusarikku ("bison man") was a creature depicted as a human-faced bison standing on its hind legs. Nimintabba was a minor goddess who belonged to the entourage of Nanna, the tutelary god of Ur. Essentially the supreme lord of all the gods and mortals according to Mesopotamian religion. Aruru Aruru was the Goddess of creation. 3538, Last edited on 21 February 2023, at 10:40, "The Role of Archaeological and Literary Remains in Reconstructing Israel's History", "A Land Divided: Judah and Israel from the Death of Solomon to the Fall of Samaria", "Into Exile: From the Assyrian Conquest of Israel to the Fall of Babylon", Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series, "El the God of Israel-Israel the People of YHWH: On the Origins of Ancient Israelite Yahwism", "Tracking Observance of the Aniconic Tradition", "Priests and Levites in the Hebrew Bible", "Yahweh's "Wife" and Belief in One God in the Old Testament", "The Divine Name Yahweh Alohim from an African Perspective", "Yahweh's Asherah, Inclusive Monotheism and the Question of Dating", "A Conversation with My Critics: Cultic Image or Aniconism in the First Temple?