Sárospataki Füzetek 17. (2013)

2013 / 1-2. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Doedens, Jacob J. T.:Ókori izraelita politeista feliratok: Aséra mint JHVH felesége?

Doe de ns. Jacob J. T.

1. Khirbet el-Qóm

At Khirbet el-Qőm,2 an inscription was found3 in a burial cave. The inscription has been dated to around 725 b.c.e.4 In the epigraph a left5 hand in downward position has been deeply incised.6 *

In the transliteration and translation of Keel and Uehlinger, the inscription reads,

1. 'ryhw. h'sr. ktbh

2. brk. 'ryhw. lyhwhJ

3. wmsryh I'srth8 hws lb

4. I'nyhw

5. I’srth

2 The site is located about 13 km. west of Hebron, cf. Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1998), 237. The place has been identified with biblical Makkedah, cf. Ziony Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches (London: Continuum, 2001), 359.

After its discovery, tomb robbers roughly cut out the inscription, which made it partially illegible beyond repair, cf. Meindert Dijkstra, “I Have Blessed You By Yhwh of Samaria and His Asherah: Texts with Religious Elements from the Soil Archive of Ancient Israel,” in Only One God? Monotheism in Ancient Israel and the Veneration of the Goddess Asherah (ed. Bob Becking et al.; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 32.

4 Cf. Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel, 360; Keel and Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, 237.

5 Or a right hand with its palm open to the onlooker.

For a photograph, see Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel, 358, figure 5.4. For interpretations, see Keel and Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, 237, (interpreted apotropaically); Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel, 369, (explained as the hand of Uryahu, the person mentioned in the inscription, grasping the right hand of Yhwh); Baruch Margalit, “Some Observations on the Inscription and Drawing from Khirbet el-Qőm,” VT39 no. 3 (1989): 373, (interpreted as a symbol signifying generosity, cf. Deut 15:7-8). According to McCarter, the drawing of the hand seems to have been incised before the inscription was written around it, see “Khirbet el-Qom,” translated by P Kyle McCarter in Context Of Scripture (ed. William W. Hallo) 2.52:179. If true, there may be only a secondary connection between the depicted hand and the inscription, at least if a longer time elapsed between the drawing of the picture and the writing of the text.

' Margalit, “Some Observations,” 373, submits here an added phrase <ky. hsyl(h)w. m(kp.) 'ybyh> “For he has saved him from (the hand(s) of) his enemies.” This reconstruction is based on similar biblical wordings, the inscription, however, does hardly provide room for such an addition.

8 According to Margalit, “Some Observations,” 373, the word I'srth has to be deleted here, being either a scribal error anticipating the following part of the inscription where the word I 'srth is found twice, or a remnant of a previous caption accompanying the rudimentary design of a tree which he sees in what are called scratches by others. Cf. Margalit, “Some Observations,” 370. Margalit translates line 3 accordingly (373): “And from his foes {...} he saved him.”

42 SÁROSPATAKI FÜZETEK 2013/1-2