Abnormal Interests

« Is it "His Asherat" or Simply "Asheratah"?
Main
A Reminder of Our Responsibility »

January 15, 2007

Ba'al and El at Kuntillet Ajrud

The inscriptions on the pithio from Kuntillet Ajrud seem to get a disproportionate amount of publicity. Perhaps this is because of the implied relationship between Yahweh and Asherah: "husband and wife(?)" But there are several other inscriptions from Ajrud that merit considerable discussion. For example, there's the partially legible wall painting discovered near the entrance of the same building where the pithio were found. Gogel, 414, calls this inscription K. Ajrud 8. I will follow Zevit's, 372, reading which is more complete and also different than Gogel's in a couple of places. In part, because I do not have access to a good picture or autograph, I'm not up to a discussion of which reading is best and since I will only look at two lines, where Gogel and Zevit only disagree about one letter, its not too important in any case. The reading of the first several (4?) lines is disputed and in large measure conjectural.

The last two lines read,

lbrk . b‛l . bym mlḥ[mh
lšm . ’l . bym mlḥ[mh

[If you see squares, rectangles or something else that is incorrect please install the Charis SIL font.]

Zevit sees the the l before brk while Gogel does not.

Zevit's translation, which I see no reason to dispute, is

to bless Baal on the day of w[ar
to the name of El on the day of w[ar

I am tempted to augment the last line so that together I understand them as follows:

In order to bless Baal on the day of w[ar
In order to (bless) the name of El on the day of w[ar

I want to point out that in the Kuntillet Ajrud inscription we have a reference to the Baal and the "name of El" in the same archaeological context with Yahweh and Asherah whose names appear not only in the pithio inscriptions but also in another wall inscription from the same late 9th/early 8th century BCE building. The literary context has something to do with war.

The Kuntillet Ajrud inscription reminds me of the Ugaritic text KTU 1:22:6b-9a:

. . . ṯm . y‛[?]bš . šm . íl . mtm
y‛bš . brkn . šm . íl . ǵzrm
ṯm . ṯmq . rpu . b‛l . mhr . b‛l
w mhr . ‛nt . . .

. . . There morals will extol(?) the name of El.
Warriors will extol(?) the blessing of the name of El.
There the shade of Baal, the soldier of Baal
and the soldier of Anat are. . . .

Don't pay too much attention to my translation KTU 1.22:6-9. These lines are notoriously difficult. The verb in lines 6 and 7, if it is the same verb, only appears here; its meaning is exclusively determined by context; and that context isn't very clear. And this is not the only problem with the passage. The point I want to make is that the "name of El," Baal and, in this case, Anat are all associated with each other and with the same location. In this case, the location appears to be El's temple.

Because I should be thinking about Job, I am also reminded of Job 1:21d:

יְהִי שֵׁם יְהוָה מְבֹרָךְ,"Blessed be the name of Yahweh."

References:

Posted by Duane Smith at January 15, 2007 7:32 PM | Read more on Hebrew Bible |

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.telecomtally.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1996

Comments

Sorry, comments are closed for this post.
Send me an email if it is important.

Tags: