I finished school at the end of January. Yes, it feels good to done! These last few months have been busy with several tours, finishing up papers, and making plans for where to go from here.  Joel and Cathy Kramer kindly let my stay with them for the last month or so of my time in Israel.  During that time, my parents and bro-in-law came over for 10 days.  We had a great time touring Israel and seeing some of the more off-the-beaten-path places.  I decided to fly out of Jordan on my way to London.  There is a lot to see there – way more than I had time for!  Tomorrow I will take the train to Cambridge where I plan to spend some time at the Tyndale House Library.

Here are some pictures from the set of panoramas I have been trying to bring together of places in Israel in Jordan.

[envira-gallery id=”756″]

The following is the summary of a little book by Jeffery Tigay called “You Shall Have No Other Gods”.  The premise is simple: Name lists compiled from ancient texts tell us about what deities were worshiped at different times.  For example, from a list of names of 90 families from Sippar (Old Babylonian period) we learn that parents named their children after Sin, Shamash, and a number of lesser deities.  So too, the names for the kings of Assyria (8th-7th centuries BC) were compounded with Asshur, Shamash (the sun), Sin (the moon), and Sherua (the consort of Asshur), etc.  One final example is a list of names found in the temple of Eshmun near Sidon.  These names are compounded with seven different deities: Baal, Ramman, Sism, Shamash, Eshmun, Tannit, and Astarte.

One would expect a significantly larger percentage of children will be named after the chief deity of a city or a temple but this not the case. In Sippar, the chief deity of the city, Shamash, appears in only 20% of the theophoric names, with Sin following close behind with 15%.  In Asshur during the 15-14th centuries, the god Asshur appears in only 17% of the theophoric names.  In name lists from the Eshmun temple, Astarte appears in 23.8% of the theophoric names, with other deities, including Eshmun, appearing with lesser frequency.

We can conclude from this:

1. The names of people in ANE were compounded with the names of the many deities that they worshiped.
2. The chief deity is not represented in a significantly larger proportion of names.
3. Children were commonly named after astral deities, storm deities and goddesses.

Ok, so there is nothing particularly earth shattering here!  But it gets more interesting when we catalog the names in the Bible and compare our results with those mentioned above.   We find that 96% of the theophoric names in the Bible are Yahwistic (this count excludes names with ‘el’ in them).  The other 4% may be considered pagan.  None of the pagan names are specifically astral deities or goddesses.  This is striking evidence that the worship of YHWH alone was orthodoxy from an early period – certainly much earlier than the reforms of Josiah.

It might be argued that the names in the Bible were changed at a later date in order to make them fit the monotheistic tendencies of a late redactor.  However, with the discovery of a large number of Hebrew inscriptions over the last 100 years or so, we have been given a way to check the name lists in the Bible against a list of over 1200 Judean and Israelite names compiled from these inscriptions.     According to Tigay, these inscriptions date from the 8th to the 6th centuries and are fairly evenly distributed over this time period.

Here is a break down of the names compiled from the Hebrew inscriptions (from Tigay):

1. 557 – names with YHWH as their theophoric element.
2. 77 – bear names with  the theophoric element ‘el
3. 35 – pagan (of these 7 refer to Horus, 6 to Baal, 4 Shalim, 3 to Qaus, 3 Mawet, 3 Min, 2 Gad, 2 Asher)
4. the remainder are not theophoric

If we crunch the number we get 94.1 percent Yawhistic vs. 5.9 % pagan, roughly the same proportion of Yahwistic / pagan names that we find in the Biblical text. (1)

So what is the takeaway?

1. Israelite names were not compounded with the names of goddesses. This accords with the Pentateuch, which gives no place to a goddess.   When the the prophets condemn the people for worshipping Asherah, they are not inventing something new.   The message of the prophets must be preceded by a law code that prescribed a way of life to which the broad majority of people adhered.  How does one explain the onomasticon any other way?
2. Israelite names were not compounded with names for the sun, moon or stars.  This too, is in accord with the Biblical injunction against worshipping the starry host.
3. The reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah were reforms.  The revolution began with Moses.

Tigay notes that there is no evidence that the Israelites had any regard  for foreign deities.  He concludes, “What is more surprising is to find similar indifference to nature gods whose spheres were not limited to specific nations, such as the sun god, rain gods, and fertility gods.  The Israelites surely recognized that they were as dependent on the sun and rain and fertility as their neighbors were.  If the bulk of the Israelites ignored the gods of these phenomena, is it likely that they considered these phenomena divine or independently effective?  A unilatry which ignores the gods of other nations can be classified as monolatry, but a unilatry which ignores phenomena on which all nations depend looks implicitly like monotheism.”  (Tigay 1986, 38)

A question arises from all of this.  If the Israelites were such good monotheists, what do we do with the widespread condemnation of the worship of the stars, the queen of heaven, etc. in the prophetic books?  One possible explanation is that the naming of children was based on tradition that did not change even as the people engaged in idolatrous and synchretistic forms of worship.

 Notes:

(1) It is not always clear whether the pagan names are actually pagan.  For example, Baal means ‘Lord’ and could have been used as an epithet for YHWH.   Only later, when Baal worship gained prominence, did Baal become associated with a pagan deity.  Scribes changed the ‘baal’ element in the name to ‘boshet’ meaning ‘shameful’ – a somewhat unsubtle emendation of the text!

Bibliography

Tigay, J. H. (1986). You shall have no other gods : Israelite religion in the light of Hebrew inscriptions. Atlanta, Ga., Scholars Press.

Was the name YHWH revealed for the first time to Moses or did the Patriarchs also know the name YHWH?  Ex. 6:2-3 states quite clearly that the Patriarchs did not know the name.

God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them. (Exo 6:2-3 ESV)

Despite this explicit statement, it is often stated that the patriarchs must have known the name YHWH because the name is used by the patriarchs when addressing God and vice versa.  It is therefore suggested that Genesis 6:2-3 means that God did not reveal a new name to Moses but gave a more complete and nuanced understanding of the name.  This interpretation has influenced the NIV translation of the verse.

God also said to Moses, “I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself fully known to them. (Ex. 6:2-3 NIV)

There is no textual reason to insert the word ‘fully’ into the text.  That the name YHWH appears in Patriarchal narratives should not surprise us.  That was, after all, the most familiar name for God in the time period in which the narratives were composed!  What is more telling is a simple of break down of names in the Bible according to their time period and their theophoric element.  (The theophoric element is the part of a name that refers to God.  It might be ‘ya’ in Hezekiah meaning “YHWH is my strength” or ‘el’ in Daniel meaning “God is Judge”, etc.)

Here is a little chart from Tigay’s book ‘You Shall Have No Other Gods’.

Tigay does not count names with the theophoric element ‘el’ in them.  If he did, then there would be many more theophoric names listed for the Patriarchal period.  (Abel, Mahalalel, Abimael, etc.)  In contrast, there are no Yahwistic names from the Patriarchal period.   The takeaway is simple, the Patriarchs did not know God by the name YHWH.  The use of the name YHWH in the patriarchal narratives may be anachronistic, that name being the familiar name by which God was known in the time period in which the narratives were composed, or the name YHWH was used to make a theological point, YHWH being the revealed name of God.

But as Tigay points out, the real interesting part of this chart is the proportion of names with pagan theophoric elements (11%) compared to those that  are Yahwistic (89%).   More on that in another post.

Bibliography

Tigay, J. H. (1986). You shall have no other gods : Israelite religion in the light of Hebrew inscriptions. Atlanta, Ga., Scholars Press.

Psalm 24:

Choir: Lift up your heads oh Gates, and be lifted up you eternal Doors, that the King of Glory may enter!
Gate keepers: Who is this king of glory?
Choir: YHWH strong and mighty, YHWH mighty in battle!

Choir: Lift up your heads oh Gates, and be lifted up you eternal Doors, that the King of Glory may enter!
Gate keepers: Who is this king of glory?
Choir:  YHWH of hosts, he is the King of Glory!

Where are these gates that are shut tight and refuse to open for the King?    I think there is a lot to support the  interpretation of the early church fathers that this is a description of the LORD conquering the grave.  These gates do not belong to a city or a temple -neither of which had gates that were raised.   They are the Eternal Doors (petachi ulam) through which all enter and none leave.  I think this makes Psalm 24 one of the most hopeful psalms in the Bible.  He is the King of Glory!

http://youtu.be/AZTZRtRFkvk?t=1h28m42s

Came across this today in the CAD – Vol. 10 pg 166-168 (by way of a footnote in Tigay’s book, “You Shall Have No Other Gods”):

One of the usages of malku in Akkadian is as a common noun for a netherworld demon:

I gave (funerary) gifts to the Mal-ki, the Anunnaki, and all the gods dwelling in the netherworld. (TuL p 58 I 19)

When you [Shamash] appear the [nether-world] gods and the ma-al-[ku]  rejoice.  (this is parallel with  – “the Igigi-gods rejoice”)

Why do you (witch) want to carry my soul to the ma-al-ki. [1]

This might shed some light on the identity of Molech in the Bible where the worship of the god takes place outside of cities, in valleys and clefts of the rocks (Is 57:5, 2 Kings 23:10), and was associated with necromancy (Deut. 18:10-12; 2 Ki. 17:17; 2 Ki. 21:6).  We also find scattered references to the sacrifice of children to the “shedim” – an Akkadian loan word that means ‘spirits of darkness’ (HALOT) parallel to ma-al-ku.  (Ps. 106:37; Deut. 32:17)

Another possible reference to human sacrifice and demons is found in Amos 2:1.  There, the Massoretic text reads, “because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime’ (melek Edom lassid) – a reading that doesn’t seem to make any sense.  H. Tur Sinai suggested that the consonants be re-pointed to ‘molek adam lassed’ which gives us the following translation:

Because of three offenses of Moab, Because of four, I shall surely requite him!  Because he burns the bones of a human sacrifice (molek adam) to a demon (lassed).”  

If this is the correct reading, then ‘molek‘ in the phrase ‘molek adam’ refers to a type of sacrifice that is specifically dedicated to the god Molech.  It is not unusual for objects used in the worship of a deity to be named after the deity to whom they are dedicated.  For example, Asherah may refer to the goddess or to an object associated with her worship – a wooden pillar that stood next to the massebah.

Although the phrase molek adam in Amos 2:1 (if correct!) is not found elsewhere in the Bible, the phrase ‘mulch adam’ appears on Phoenician stelae that served as burial markers for clay jars containing a mixture of charred remains of infant bones and small sacrificial animals.  These jars are buried by the thousands in what were called ‘tophets’ by the early excavators based on comparisons between these graveyards and descriptions of child sacrifice in Jeremiah 7 and 19.  These these ceremonial infant burial grounds are unique to the Carthaginians, a Phoenician culture that flourished in north Africa, Sicily and Sardinia.   The burial sites were confined to a relatively small area surrounded by a temenos wall (a wall the separates the sacred from the profane).  As the number of  burials in the ‘tophet’ increased, the burial ground became too crowded.  But rather than expand the size of the burial ground, they leveled it with soil so that another layer of burials could be placed above the previous ones.  At the Carthage ‘tophet’, four such leveling operations were made across the span of five centuries.

It is usually noted that the ‘taphteh‘ described in Isaiah 30 and the place called Tophet in Jeremiah 7 and 19 refers to a place of burning and not a burial ground like what we find at Carthaginian sites.  Undoubtedly the sacrifice of children is the primary practice associated with the Tophet (‘tophet’ = ‘hearth’) but Jeremiah also seems to connect the Tophet with a burial ground.

Men shall bury in Topheth because there will be no place else to bury. (Jer 19:11 ESV)

Jeremiah describes a situation in which Jerusalem will be so crowded with burials, that there will be no place left to bury people.  Maybe there is some irony in his statement:  All of Jerusalem will become like that crowded little graveyard at the Tophet…  It is certainly possible that the Judeans practised rites similar to those of the Carthaginians and even had an infant burial place like the Carthaginian ones.  The earliest pottery urns found in the Carthaginian tophets date to approx 750 BC and the tophets did not go out of use until the mid 2nd century BC.  Their heyday would have been in the days of Jeremiah and shortly after.  But the question remains, can we connect the practice of child sacrifice (mulk adam) among the Carthaginians to the practice of child sacrifice practised by Canaanites (leheavir ba-esh) many centuries previous to them?

Well, maybe not directly, but it is worth noting that after the destruction of the Canaanite culture in Canaan, the practice of child sacrifice continued among certain groups, such as the Sepharvites.  2 Kings recounts that they, “burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.” 2 Kings 17:31  We do not know who the Sepharvites were, but Kaufmann suggests that they be identified with the Phoenicians based on the order in which they appear in the list of people groups in 2 Kings 17, and on the basis of the divine name mlk and ‘dr in the names of their gods.   It is usually agreed that that the Phoenicians were the Iron Age inheritors of the Bronze age culture of the Canaanites.  Thus, it is possible to trace a line from Canaan to Carthage. This explains the striking similarities between Carthaginian and the Canaanite iconography.

 

 

Many scholars deny that child sacrifice was practiced, except perhaps irregularly, and only in dire circumstances.   But this is the crux of it, if child sacrifice was widely believed to have been beneficial in dire circumstances, then isn’t it likely that the practice became common in certain periods and among certain peoples?   We know that human sacrifice was practiced by other cultures and that some cultures in particularly where characterized by it…  I think it was Herodotus who warned foreigners from entering the lands of the Tauri!  In Tauri, humans were sacrificed to a fertility goddess who was a violent and terrifying lady, thirsty for the blood of humans (cf. Sekhemet or Anat)!  So it is possible that the Canaanite religion was characterized by a particular fear of a cthonic deity (ie. Molech) and that this drove them to make particularly costly sacrifices to appease it.  In the Pentateuch, the practice of child sacrifice and sodomy were the distinctive practices of a reprobate society.  In the time of Jeremiah, it was the practice of child sacrifice in particular that sealed Judah’s fate.

Notes:

[1] Ma-al-ku-um also appears as an individual god – and ma-lik appears as a theophoric element in personal names (ie. Puzur-Ma-lik).

We got a pile of snow in the last few days! Must be a record.  Josh and I took a little jaunt to Mar Saba yesterday… we made it there fine but ended up getting stuck in Bethlehem on the way back. Some friends in B’lehem rescued us and were able to get through the Azariah checkpoint this morning. Here are a few pics from the trip.

The philosophical treatise ‘Octavious’ was written by the Christian apologist, Muncius Felix, in the 2nd-3rd century.  It offers valuable insight into the debates that raged in the Roman empire between early Christians and their pagan neighbors.  Muncius Felix gives a lot of space to the views of his opponent and I think he tries to present their views as fairly as possible before offering a refutation of them.  Here is one example in which the pagan (Caecilius) explains to the Christian (Octavius) the beginnings of all things.

The seeds of all things have been in the beginning condensed by a nature combining them in itself— what God is the author here? Let the members of the whole world be by fortuitous concurrences united, digested, fashioned— what God is the contriver? Although fire may have lit up the stars; although (the lightness of) its own material may have suspended the heaven; although its own material may have established the earth by its weight; and although the sea may have flowed in from moisture, whence is this religion? Whence this fear? What is this superstition? Man, and every animal which is born, inspired with life, and nourished, is as a voluntary concretion of the elements, into which again man and every animal is divided, resolved, and dissipated. So all things flow back again into their source, and are turned again into themselves, without any artificer, or judge, or creator. Thus the seeds of fires, being gathered together, cause other suns, and again others, always to shine forth. Thus the vapours of the earth, being exhaled, cause the mists always to grow, which being condensed and collected, cause the clouds to rise higher; and when they fall, cause the rains to flow, the winds to blow, the hail to rattle down; or when the clouds clash together, they cause the thunder to bellow, the lightnings to grow red, the thunderbolts to gleam forth. Therefore they fall everywhere, they rush on the mountains, they strike the trees; without any choice, they blast places sacred and profane; they smite mischievous men, and often, too, religious men.

Substitute “random mutation” for “fortuitous concurrences” and you might have something Dawkins would be happy with.  This is because the philosophy expounded by Caecilius is consistent with natural religion of all stripes.   Both Dawkins and Caecilius belong to a long line of natural philosophers who can trace their ideas to some of the very earliest creation epics.  According to the Enuma Elish (late 2nd millenium BC?), the world began when the salty water (Tiamat) mingled with sweet water (Apsu) and there came forth silt (Lahmu and Lahamu?).  Then, after many ages passed, there arose Ansar and Kisar – the twin horizons, etc, etc.  And so it goes.   The Enuma Elish states that this occurred, “before any of the gods had been called into being”.  The world of the Enuma Elish was a magical world before it was a supernatural one.  If a shaman knows the secrets of the natural ‘powers’, he may try to manipulate them and bypass the gods entirely.

While modern man may not believe in magic, his outlook is compatible with it.  Ultimately, he believes that nature assembled itself.  He may confine this event to a singularity, or distance himself from it by theorizing an infinite number of parallel universes – but his world is ultimately material and magical.  It is, therefore, supremely ironic that Dawkins would call his children’s book “The Magic of Reality”!  Dawkins is simply giving a ‘scientific’ spin to the philosophy of Caecilius and the myth of the Enuma Elish.  The mingling of the waters has become the primordial soup.

There is only one alternative to this magical world.  It is the one described by Octavius in his response to Caecilius:

Wherefore the rather, they who deny that this furniture of the whole world was perfected by the divine reason, and assert that it was heaped together by certain fragments casually adhering to each other, seem to me not to have either mind or sense, or, in fact, even sight itself. For what can possibly be so manifest, so confessed, and so evident, when you lift your eyes up to heaven, and look into the things which are below and around, than that there is some Deity of most excellent intelligence, by whom all nature is inspired, is moved, is nourished, is governed? 

There can be no compromise between Caecilius and Octavius.  Their differences cannot be measured on a scale.  They live in different worlds.

May the people of Ashur buy 30 kor of grain for one shekel of silver!
May the people of Ashur buy 30 minas of wool for one shekel of silver!
May the people of Ashur buy 3 seah of oil for one shekel of silver!

I came across an interesting little book the other day that I think sheds some light on what happening in the world of finance.  It is a history of money during the French Revolution.  The book was written in 1896 by Andrew White, an American historian at Cornell University.  It is a simple little book that doesn’t require an economics degree to understand it.  The fact that it was written more than 100 years ago makes it all the more interesting in light of recent events.

One of the results of the French Revolution was that all income producing land that belonged to the church was seized by the Republicans in order to be distrubuted among the people.  The problem was that ‘the people’ didn’t have enough money to purchase the land.  The solution was to issue assignats – a paper currency that was backed by the land.  Each piece of paper represented a portion of land owned by the issuers of the currency.  As the land was purchased, the assignants would be removed from circulation.  The first issue was for 4 million livres and the notes paid a 3% interest.     This appeared to be a very sensible policy.

However, as France continued to suffer economicaly, it was decided to continue printing the asignats.  16 million livres were printed and this time the notes paid 0% interest!   In good, populist fashion, the justification for this governnment policy was that it ‘served the people’.   And indeed, the issuance of paper stimulated manufacturing as “every one endeavors to invest his doubtful paper in buildings, machines and goods, which, under all circumstances, retain some intrinsic value.”  The merchants and the poor alike clamored for the printing of more bills.  According to White, ”France was now fully committed to a policy of inflation; and, if there had been any question of this before, all doubts were removed now by various acts very significant as showing the exceeding difficulty of stopping a nation once in the full tide of a depreciating currency.”

Uncertaintly over the value of the currency resulted in what White calls the “obliteration of thrift.”  Why save money if you are not sure it will maintain its value?   It also resulted in a speculative frenzy in which “the purchase of every article of supply became a speculation – a speculation in which the professional speculator had an immense advantage over the ordinary buyer.”  According to one observer, “Commerce was dead; betting took its place.”

Moreover, the printing of money stimulated over production and left “every industry flaccid afterward.”   Because of the the devaluing currency, “businesses found it increasingly difficult to forecast input costs.  This climate of uncertaintly resulted in businesses laying off workers.  The rise of unemployment meant that as prices for goods rose, wages stagnated.”  Worst of all, the specter of inflation gave rise to a “class of debauched speculators, the most injurious class that a nation can harbor – more injurious indeed than professional criminals whom the law recognizes and can throttle.”   

The takeaway message from the book is that inflation is worse than deflation because it destroys the moral and social fabric of society.

Since time immemorial, one of the most important tasks of the king was to maintain the purchasing power of money.  In our enlightened era, we have delegated that task to a select group of central bankers who operate outside of national interests.   They get to deal and play our cards and since 2008 they have gone all in.   At stake is not the assignats of Revolutionary France but an entire global system of finance.

The book can be downloaded for free from here: http://archive.org/details/moneyandfinance00dillgoog

One of the major arguments against the historicity of Joshua and Judges is that archaeology has revealed a significant Egyptian presence in Canaan in the 12th – 11th centuries, something that is not reflected in the Bible.  Nadav Na’aman has gone so far as to argue that the Biblical account of the slavery of the Israelites in Egypt is really just a dim recollection of Egypt’s oppressive imperialistic polices in the land of Canaan at the time when ‘Israel’ began to emerge as a distinct entity in the highlands of Canaan.  I was interested to come across an article by J.M. Weinstein that offers a completely different view of Canaan during the New Kingdom period.  According to Weinstein, the bulk of the evidence for a significant Egyptian presence in Canaan in the 12-11th centuries BC comes from two places – Bet Shean and Timna – cities on the periphery.   Furthermore, very little identifiable pottery from Egypt has been found in Late Bronze / Iron Age 1 Canaanite cities –  a period when Naaman argues that Canaan was a virtual colony of Egypt!  (actually, archaeologists cannot seem to find anything from that time period but that is another story)

But what I find even more interesting is the lack of evidence for an abiding Egyptian presence in Canaan at the end of the Middle Bronze age.    The Middle Bronze age cities in Canaan where massive, with walls ‘fortified to the heavens.’  The destruction of these cities was epic.  Weinstein states,

“It would appear that at the end of the Middle Bronze Age or very early in the Late Bronze Age, a large series of destructions occurred in a geographical arc stretching from southwestern Palestine eastward across the southern part of the country, up through the Judean hills-with at least one destruction in the Jordan Valley, at Jericho-and then north past the Sea of Galilee and westward across the Plain of Esdraelon at least as far as Tacanach.” (Weinstein 1981)

Here is a list of cities compiled by G. Wright and W. Dever where evidence has been found of destructions or abandonments at the end of MB IIC or early in the Late Bronze Age (taken from Weinstein 1981) :

1.Tell el-’Ajjdl (City III and Palace I)
2.Tell el-Farcah (South)
3.Tell el-Hesi
4.Lachish
5.Tell Beit Mirsim [Debir] –
6.Jericho
7.Bethel
8.Shechem (two closely-spaced destructions)
9.Tell el-Farcah (North)
10.Beth-shan (?)
11.Hazor
12.Dan

Weinstein adds another eight cities to the list.

13.Tell en-Nagila
14.Malhata
15.Ashkelon
16.Beth-zur
17.Beth-shemesh
18.Gibeon (?)
19.Shiloh
20.Tacanach

The standard narrative is that the Egyptians laid waste Canaan after they expelled the Hyksos from Egypt (1530 BC).  If so then we should expect to find records in Egypt of significant military campaigns in Canaan.  But the opposite is true.  The Caananite cities listed above (with the exception of Tanaach) are absent from Egyptian monuments.  It is not even clear whether Thutmose III destroyed Megiddo.

According to the internal Biblical chronology – the beginning of the Israelite conquest dates to around 1400 BC… later than the date assigned to MBIIC if we go by the standard chronology.   Of course, if archaeologists give the Exodus any historical significance at all, they date it to 1250 BC, and so Israel is never considered to be a possible cause for the destruction of the Canaanite cities at the end of the Midde Bronze period.   But it seems to me that the destructions commonly assigned to the end of the Middle Bronze age are worth considering in light of the Israelite conquest.

from here

Amazing! Interesting how science acknowledges common body patterns among a great variety of creatures and yet concludes that they are predetermined by some mysterious law. Plato lives!

And the old myth continues – nature creates herself.