Sárospataki Füzetek 17. (2013)

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

Ancient Israelite Polyi Inscriptions.

third person masculine pronominal suffix at least unusual,66 unless there are substantial differences between epigraphical and biblical Hebrew. Because of these considerations, Zevit offers an alternative interpretation; he suggests to read the word as ‘Asheratah’,67 being the name of the goddess written with a secondary feminine ending.68 Indeed, the name of the goddess is written in Akkadian as Asratum in the second millennium b.c.e., and in a text dated to the fifteenth century b.c.e. from Taanach, near Megiddo, her name is spelled as dA-si-rat. In the el-Amarna letters, her name is found as part of personal names, abdi-a-si-ir-ti, abdi-as-ra-tum, abdi- das-ra-tum, abdi-as-ra-ti, abdi-das-ra-ti, and abdi-as-ra-ta.69 In Hittite, her name is Asertu.70 At Ekron, inscriptions dated to the seventh century b.c.e. were found referring to Ashera as 'srt, but it is uncertain whether the language of the inscriptions is Hebrew, Phoenician, or even Philistine.71 In the Old Testament only the word i"H\ÜX occurs, with as plurals both D'TlüK and nÍ“ltűN. Yet, it is possible that the inscriptions from Khirbet el-Qöm and Kuntillet 'Ajrud reflect a more archaic orthography in which the final h is not necessarily a marker of a pronominal suffix referring to Yhwh.

66 Cf. Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel, 403, who mentions sporadic occurrences of a divine name with a pronominal suffix in Akkadian, six occurrences in Eblaite, one case from Ugaritic, with first person singular suffix, ‘my Athirat’ (KTU2.31:41), and one case with third person singular suffix, ‘his Anaf (KTU 1.43:13). According to Zevit, these occurrences are temporally and geographically too far away from the El-Qőm and 'Ajrud inscriptions to be taken into consideration.

67 Cf. Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel, 403-405. His arguments are: (1) in the inscription from Khirbet el-Qöm the final h is missing a grammatical antecedent, (2) in a context where El, Baal, and Yhwh are mentioned, the presence of the name of a goddess is not surprising, (3) the syntax of the sentences in which srth is mentioned place the word on the same semantic level as the word Yhwh; therefore it would be strange if a cult object would have the same level of sanctity, (4) the orthography of the goddess’s name in Late Bronze texts is a-Si-ir-ta. In a similar way, Angerstorfer suggested that 'srth represents Ashirtah, written in the same way as in the Tell el-Amarna letters. Quoted by J. A. Emerton, “‘Yahweh and His Asherah’,” 315. For other authors following this interpretation, see Dijkstra, “I Have Blessed You By Yhwh of Samaria,” 29 nt. 15.

68 Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel, 364-366, mentions examples of nouns which retained their original feminine ending in -at. Some words which retained the archaic feminine ending underwent a secondary feminisation in the ninth to eighth century, by that a ‘new’ feminine marker was attached to the archaic one. Zevit (366) lists the following nouns: emätä(h) (Exod 15:16), 'ezrätä(h) (Ps 44:27; 63:8; 94:17), andyesü ätä(h) (Ps 3:3; 80:3; Jonah 2:10). He adds the following toponyms: eprätä(h) (Gen 35:19; Mic 5:1), yotbätä(h) (Num 33:33), and timnätä(h) (Josh 19:43). However, according to Emerton, “it has not been established that such forms in the Bible are to be explained as examples of a ‘double feminization’.” J. A. Emerton, “‘Yahweh and His Asherah’,” 316.

67 Cf. Day, “Asherah in the Hebrew Bible,” 386-387.

70 In Hittite myth, she is the wife of ElkunirSa, which corresponds to Northwest Semitic inscriptions mentioning El as l qn rs, ‘El creator of the earth’, cf. Day, “Asherah in the Hebrew Bible,” 391. Cf. also M. C. A. Korpel, “Creator of All,” DDD:208—211; Stefan Paas, Creation and Judgement: Creation Texts in Some Eighth Century Prophets (OTS 47; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 123-125.

71 For a photograph of one of these inscriptions written on storage jars, see S. Gitin, “Cultic Inscriptions Found in Ekron,” BA 53 no. 4 (1990): 232. Cf. also Philip Johnston, “Figuring out Figurines,” TynBul 54 no. 2 (2003): 91.

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