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October 11, 2007
Where is Ba'al?
Those who are worrying about the "Jezebel" seal might want to consider these two lines from a speech of El to Anat in KTU 1.6:3-4 and 15-16.
iy . aliyn . bʿl
iy . zbl . bʿl .arṣ
Where is the victor Ba'al?
Where is the prince, lord of the earth?
The first two words, "where is the prince" (Yes, I can count and there are only two words in Ugaritic) of the second line may help us understand the underlying meaning of the Phoenician/Hebrew name Jezebel. But they are not a personal name in this text and as far as I can discover, the letter string iyzbl does not occur in Ugaritic. But iybʿl is a personal name (KTU 4.168:2 and KTU 4.334:4?).
Chris Heard expressed the real issue about the "Jezebel" seal about as well as it can be expressed,
Before anyone cites the seal itself: it is in question and cannot be used to support the existence of a historical Jezebel, for that would be a circular argument. In fact, it’s hard not to see any argument one could make here as more or less circular: attaching the seal to the biblical Jezebel begs the question of that queen’s existence, and using the seal to prove her existence is flawed because the reconstruction depends on presupposing the name איזבל on the basis of the Bible itself.
I even wonder, and this is nothing but speculation, if whoever wrote about her in the Hebrew Bible created the name Jezebel as a kind of joke implying the weakness of her god. They were not above such things. Did I read this idea some place? I'm not sure.
Posted by Duane Smith at October 11, 2007 3:10 PM | Read more on Ugarit |
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