The first to mention this were Haggai and Zechariah, both prophets of the early Persian period. For Yahweh's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage. Lugalbanda was an early legendary king of the Sumerian city-state of Uruk, who was later declared to be a god. A prominent place in the Mesopotamian pantheon was occupied by healing goddesses. [69], It is unclear when the worship of Yahweh alone began. [51], In 587/6BCE Jerusalem fell to the Neo-Babylonians, the Temple was destroyed, and the leadership of the community were deported. According to Sumerian poetry, the goddess Ninmah acted as a midwife. By the time these works were written, the worship of Yahweh had undergone a dramatic transformation from what it had been in the early days of the Israelites in Canaan. [56] Greek translations of the Hebrew scriptures render both the tetragrammaton and adonai as kyrios (), meaning "the Lord". Emesh is a farmer deity in the Sumerian poem. It is generally accepted in the modern day, however, that Yahweh originated in southern Canaan as a lesser god in the Canaanite pantheon and the Shasu, as nomads, most likely acquired their worship of him during their time in the Levant. [26] There is considerable although not universal support for this view,[27] but it raises the question of how Yahweh made his way to the north. Hendursaga was a Sumerian god described as "protective god with a friendly face" in inscriptions. 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. Yes, the clouds dropped water. Yahweh the Destroyer: On the Meaning of Heath D. Dewrell. In this passage from Deuteronomy, El gives each of the gods authority over a segment of the people of earth and Yahweh is assigned to the Israelites who, in time, will make him their supreme and only deity; but it is clear he existed beforehand as a lesser Canaanite god. atumdug was a goddess from the early pantheon of Lagash. [66], Yahweh-worship was famously aniconic, meaning that the god was not depicted by a statue or other image. Known as enki in the sumerian language, ea was the mesopotamian god of water. Nanshe was a goddess associated with the state of Lagash, Ninazu was a god regarded as either the son of. She was introduced in Mesopotamia in the Ur III period as an independent deity. Mark, published on 22 October 2018. [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". Uur-amssu was one of the deities regarded as children of Adad and Shala. Barbiere di Siviglia. In his prophecies, Ezekiel describes a divine being as `a man was there, whose appearance shone like copper' (Ezek. As it has been established they were a nomadic people, attempts have been made to link them with the Hebrews and with the Habiru, a group of renegades in the Levant, but these claims have been refuted. 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). Die Antworten liefern Tracks ohne jegliche Abstriche wie Behind The Mirror, Congelia oder Forest Dweller, die frisch, unverbraucht und eine Moderne der norwegischen Klte prsentieren. He is the son of the couple Anshar and Kishar (heaven and earth, respectively), the second-born of the primordial couple Apsu and Tiamat. Although the biblical narratives depict Yahweh as the sole creator god, lord of the universe, and god of the Israelites especially, initially he seems to have been Canaanite in origin and subordinate to the supreme god El. Thus, the tribe of Levi, to which Moses belonged, probably knew the name Yahweh, which originally may have been (in its short form Yo, Yah, or Yahu) a religious invocation of no precise meaning evoked by the mysterious and awesome splendour of the manifestation of the holy. While in texts from cities such as Nippur Ura was an earth goddess, in Dilbat it was the name of an unrelated male god, husband of Ninegal, who served as the city's tutelary deity. For example: Howard the Duck: Inverted; Pazuzu is the patron god of the Doucheblade.Played straight with the other Mesopotamian gods, whose followers were . Whoever the Shasu were, they were not Hebrew and the Habiru seem to be Canaanites who simply refused to conform to the customs of the land, not a separate ethnic group. His wife is the earth goddess Ki. 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? Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms. As the Israelites developed their community in Canaan, they sought to distance themselves from their neighbors and, as noted, elevated Yahweh above the traditional Canaanite supreme deity El. Nin-MAR.KI (reading uncertain) was the daughter of Nanshe. The words at the top of the list are the ones most associated with sumerians, and as you go down the relatedness becomes more slight. Dumuzi is also listed as having ruled as a king in both the Sumerian metropolis of Uruk and another Mesopotamian city called "Bad-tibira". For only $5 per month you can become a member and support our mission to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide. The Shasu (also given as Shashu) were a Semitic, nomadic people described as outlaws or bandits by the Egyptians and, in fact, they are named on the column of the temple at Soleb among Egypt's other enemies and appear later, in an inscription from the reign of Ramesses II (r. 1279-1213 BCE), as among the pharaoh's enemies at the Battle of Kadesh. The Godchecker Holy Database currently contains 149 Mesopotamian deity names these are listed below. The top 4 are: babylonians, mesopotamia, uruk and assyria. Enslaved haben mit Heimdal vieles richtig gemacht und ein vielseitiges wie weitsichtiges Werk abgeliefert, trotz den erwhnten . In time, this practice evolved into worship of deities such as El, Asherah, Baal, Utu-Shamash, and Yahweh among others. The rest of the Book of Exodus details the Ten Plagues which Yahweh sends on Egypt and how Moses leads his people to freedom. Yahweh as the all-powerful creator, preserver, and redeemer of the universe was then later developed by the early Christians as their god who had sent his son Jesus as the promised messiah and Islam interpreted this same deity as Allah in their belief system. Early Christian writers, such as St. Clement of Alexandria in the 2nd century, had used a form like Yahweh, and this pronunciation of the tetragrammaton was never really lost. The Moabite Stone has also been reinterpreted in light of recent scholarship which demonstrates that the people of Moab also worshipped Yahweh and the reference to Mesha taking the vessels of Yahweh to Kemosh most likely means he repossessed what he felt belonged to the Moabites, not that he conquered Israel and its god in the name of his own. Worship of the goddess Atargatis is attested from. The name YHWH, consisting of the sequence of consonants Yod, Heh, Waw, and Heh, is known as the tetragrammaton. The names of the principal gods of Akkad and Sumer, c.3100 BC. By Nissim Amzallag, Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization. Mesopotamian God Names: Anu - "Sky," the chief god of the Babylonian pantheon Nergal - "Lord of the Underworld," the Babylonian god of death and disease Adad - "Thunder," the Babylonian god of storms and rain Ninhursag - "Lady of the Mountains," the Sumerian goddess of fertility and nature Terracotta figurines of Athena are known from Seleucid Babylon. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. The overwhelming importance of the god of metallurgy reflects the central role played by the copper smelters in the emergence of civilizations throughout the ancient world. 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. [12] Anatu means an intuitive woman who is sensitive, passionate, and introspective. 69, [Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, Cambridge University Press], 1979, pp. Amzallag writes: An essential link between Yahweh and copper is suggested in the Book of Zechariah where the dwelling of the God of Israel is symbolized by two mountains of copper (Zech. Aralu A nether-world that is expansive, but dark and gloomy. Pabilshag was a god whose worship is attested from the Early Dynastic Period onwards. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Ninmug was the tutelary goddess of metal workers. Ninlil was the wife of Enlil, the ruler of the gods. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Ninurta, also known as Ningirsu, was a Mesopotamian warrior deity who was worshipped in Sumer from the very earliest times. [70] The early supporters of this faction are widely regarded as being monolatrists rather than true monotheists;[71] they did not believe Yahweh was the only god in existence, but instead believed he was the only god the people of Israel should worship. [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 claim that Israel always only acknowledged one god is a later belief cast back on the early days of Israel's development in Canaan. 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. 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. In Mesopotamian texts, Dumuzi is described as the son of Enki, the god of water, and the brother of Geshtinanna, the goddess of agriculture and dream interpretation. Ishkur, later known as Adad or Hadad (from the root *hdd, "to thunder". Ninigizibara was a deified harp who could be regarded as an advisor of Inanna. 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. An was said to be both the brother and husband of Ki, the goddess of the Earth, and was at some points considered the de facto father of all creation. Silili is an obscure goddess who was apparently the mother of all horses. Humhum was a minor god worshiped in Dr-arruku (also known as Sippar-Aruru) in northern Babylonia. [9] The notion that Yahweh is "to be venerated as the creator-god of all the earth" is first elaborated by the Second Isaiah, a 6th-century exilic work, though the case for the theological doctrine again rests on Yahweh's power over other gods rather than independent monotheistic reasoning. Mark, J. J. Recently, Rick vanquished one of an implied multitude of Zeuses over some misguided paternity issues. Sumer was the southern part. In the late middle ages, `Yahweh' came to be changed to `Jehovah' by Christian monks, a name commonly in use today. [73], Yahweh is frequently invoked in Graeco-Roman magical texts dating from the 2nd century BCE to the 5th century CE, most notably in the Greek Magical Papyri,[74] under the names Iao, Adonai, Sabaoth, and Eloai. 4 3 299 Trey the Explainer @Trey_Explainer May 11, 2020 Kilili was a demon or minor goddess who served as a messenger of Ishtar. Judah was able to withstand the Assyrian military campaigns but only by paying tribute to Assyria. If you include nicknames, official titles and honorifics, some gods have hundreds of names! The following is a list of Mesopotamiandeities. In some cases, he was denoted as a consort of Nammu. Beginning in the second millennium B.C., Babylonian theologians classified their major gods in a hierarchical numerical order. Anunit - Mesopotamian mother or creator goddess derived from the earlier Sumerian Ki. Adad or Hadad - the God of Storm and Rain The Mesopotamian storm god varied from place to place. Moses never reaches the promised land of Canaan himself owing to a misunderstanding he has with Yahweh in which he strikes a rock for water when he was not supposed to (Numbers 20) but he turns over leadership to his right-hand-man Joshua who then leads his people in the conquest of Canaan as directed by Yahweh. [68] Other scholars argue that there is no certain evidence of any anthropomorphic representation of Yahweh during the pre-exilic period. Miller and Hayes comment: Perhaps the most noticeable characteristic of Yahweh in Israel's early poetry and narrative literature is his militancy. A freelance writer and former part-time Professor of Philosophy at Marist College, New York, Joshua J. The most important god in the Sumerian pantheon is An (known also as Anu to the Akkadians). Nabu was the Mesopotamian god of scribes and writing. 9. [49] Features of Baal, El, and Asherah were absorbed into Yahweh, El (or 'el) (Hebrew: ) became a generic term meaning "god" as opposed to the name of a specific god, and epithets such as El Shaddai came to be applied to Yahweh alone. The Assyrians had a weather god named Adad who carried lighting bolts in his hand and bore a striking . In 598 BCE they invaded Judah and sacked Jerusalem, destroying the temple of Solomon and taking the leading citizens back to Babylon. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Ningirida was the wife of Ninazu and mother of Ningishzida and his two sisters. Mandanu was a divine judge, attested after the Old Babylonian period, but absent from older god lists such as the so-called Weidner and Nippur lists. Aruru was initially a distinct minor goddess, regarded as violent and connected to vegetation; Sherida (Sumerian) or Aya (Akkadian) was the wife of the sun god Utu/Shamash and the goddess of dawn. Shulpa-e's name means "youthful brilliance". Mesopotamian Gods Family Tree UsefulCharts 1.38M subscribers Subscribe 24K Share 1M views 1 year ago Watch Mythology with Mike's video about Ishtar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Anpre.. [44] The earliest known Israelite place of worship is a 12th-century BCE open-air altar in the hills of Samaria featuring a bronze bull reminiscent of Canaanite Bull-El (El in the form of a bull) and the archaeological remains of further temples have been found at Dan on Israel's northern border, at Arad in the Negev and Beersheba, both in the territory of Judah. 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 He creates animals and human beings, destroys all in a great flood except Noah, Noah's family, and the animals Noah saves, and elects Abram (later known as Abraham) to lead his people to the land of Canaan and settle there (Genesis 1-25). A woman of the Levite tribe among the Israelites hides her son and then sends him downriver in a basket to be found by pharaoh's daughter, who adopts him; this child is Moses (Exodus 2:1-10). Some Rights Reserved (2009-2023) under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license unless otherwise noted. Anu (also known as An) is an early Mesopotamian sky god who was later viewed as the Father of the Gods and ruler of the heavens, a position which then passed to his son Enlil. [29] This ties together various points of data, such as the absence of Yahweh from Canaan, his links with Edom and Midian in the biblical stories, and the Kenite or Midianite ties of Moses,[28] but its major weaknesses are that the majority of Israelites were firmly rooted in Palestine, while the historical role of Moses is highly problematic. 03 Mar 2023. [61] A number of scholars have also drawn the conclusion that infant sacrifice, whether to the underworld deity Molech or to Yahweh himself, was a part of Israelite/Judahite religion until the reforms of King Josiah in the late 7th century BCE. [31], Iron Age I corresponds approximately to the Judges period of the Bible. For this reason, the Sumerian god was also known by the title Lord of the Sweet Waters. Mark has lived in Greece and Germany and traveled through Egypt. The World History Encyclopedia logo is a registered trademark. An was believed to be a sky god, and was initially regarded to be the Lord of the Heavens, or the supreme deity of the Sumerian pantheon. [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. Pazuzu is a demonic god who was well known to the Babylonians and Assyrians throughout the first millennium BC. In Roman times, following the Siege of Jerusalem and destruction of its Temple, in 70CE, the original pronunciation of the god's name was forgotten entirely. The Bible does mention other nations worshipping Yahweh and how the god arrived from Edom to help the Israelites in warfare (Deuteronomy 33:2, Judges 5:4-5) but this is not the central narrative. [75] The frequent occurrence of Yahweh's name was likely due to Greek and Roman folk magicians seeking to make their spells more powerful through the invocation of a prestigious foreign deity. [11] During the Hellenistic period, the scriptures were translated into Greek by the Jews of the Egyptian diaspora. ", Ninhursag ("Mistress of the mountain ranges". [12] The archangels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Ouriel and Jewish cultural heroes such as Abraham, Jacob, and Moses are also invoked frequently. 6:1-6). 1. assem paramur traduco undeviceni tenuit in Hebrew Gematria equals 2575: a 1 s 90 s 90 e 5 m 30 0 p 60 a 1 r 80 a 1 m 30 u 200 r 80 0 t 100 r 80 a 1 d 4 u 200 c 3 o 50 0 u 200 n 40 d 4 e 5 v 700 i 9 c 3 e 5 n 40 i 9 0 t 100 e 5 n 40 u . Many Greek transcriptions also indicated that YHWH should be pronounced Yahweh. Text: FiniMiez. Assyriologists regard Ninshubur as the most commonly worshiped. Lahmu ("hairy one") was a type of apotropaic creature. University of Washington Press, 1998. and our The so-called Song of the Sea in Exodus 15:1-18 and the Song of Deborah in Judges 5 are typical in their praise of Yahweh, the divine warrior who could be counted on to intervene on behalf of his followersThus it may have been primarily in connection with Israel's wars that Yahweh gained status as the national god. Scholars J. Maxwell Miller and John H. Hayes write: The origins of Yahwism are hidden in mystery. World History Encyclopedia. According to scholar Nissim Amzallag, however, Yahweh was a god of metallurgy. In Mesopotamia and Syria, Artemis was identified with the goddess Nanaya. 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. The descriptions of Yahweh appearing as a pillar of fire by night and cloud by day as well as the other fire-imagery from the Book of Exodus were interpreted by some scholars as suggesting a storm god or weather-deity and, particularly, a desert god since Yahweh is able to direct Moses to water sources (Exodus 17:6 and Numbers 20). Erra is a warlike god who is associated with pestilence and violence. Its ruins lie near the current city of Antakya, Turkey, to which the ancient city lends its name. The Sumerians regarded Inzak as the chief god of the Dilmunite pantheon. Birtum was the husband of the prison goddess Nungal. Model of Herod's Renovation of the Temple of Jerusalem, Although the Bible presents Yahweh as the god of the Israelites, there are many passages which make clear that this deity was also worshipped by other peoples in. 22:20). [11], Yahweh is also invoked in Papyrus Amherst 63, and in Jewish or Jewish-influenced Greco-Egyptian magical texts from the 1st to 5th century CE. He was also associated with water, as he dwelt in Abzu, also spelled Apsu - the freshwater ocean believed to be beneath the earth. License. https://www.worldhistory.org/Yahweh/. World History Encyclopedia is a non-profit organization. Yahweh creates the world, and hangs the sun and the moon in the heavens, as the Book of Genesis opens. The name "Yahweh" means "He Who Makes That Which Has Been Made" or "He Brings Into Existence Whatever Exists". 2. Ninkilim was a deity who was associated with mongooses, which are common throughout southern Mesopotamia. He was brought into the pantheon by the Amorites in the third millennium BC.
