Goddesses and trees, new moon and Yahweh: Ancient Near Eastern art and the Hebrew Bible

Abstract

Goddesses and Trees, New Moon and Yahweh: Ancient Near Eastern Art and the Hebrew Bible, by Othmar Keel. JSOTSup 261. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998. Pp. 207. L35/$57.50. This volume consists of two papers, expanded and edited for publication. The first examines the iconography of earth and tree goddesses, chiefly from Syro-Palestinian sources, from the Early Bronze to the Late Iron Age, with an investigation of texts in the Hebrew Bible that refer to tree cults. The second surveys representations of the emblem of the moon god of Harran in monumental and miniature art, from its Aramaean homeland to its manifestations in Syria-Palestine, including a discussion of the festival of the new moon in the Hebrew Bible and the astral cults of seventh-century Judah. Three appendices follow: the first presents translations of inscriptions on four stelae that mention Sin who dwells in Harran; the second evaluates evidence for a late Iron Age moon temple near Amman; and the last summarizes a German study by M. Bernett and 0. Keel, who argue for the existence of an Iron Age sanctuary of the moon god at the city gate of Bethsaida. The illustrations are well integrated and inform the text at every stage. Keel asserts that throughout the period in question real and artificial trees were objects of worship in Syria-Palestine as manifestations of the one goddess. He also challenges the attempts of C. Frevel in his lengthy dissertation, Aschera and der Ausschliesslichkeitsanspruch YHWHs (1995), to minimize the connection between tree and goddess. According to Keel, this relationship is confirmed by an ample iconography from the Early Bronze Age down to Iron IIA (ca. 2500-1000 BCE) that establishes the close link between tree and goddess as objects of worship. Stylized trees stand next to the goddess, branches emerge from her, fish and caprids are beside the tree, denoting water and fertility. Other depictions show an anthropomorphic goddess with a tree rising from her vulva or navel, trees flanking her, worshipers and caprids on either side of the tree, exhibiting its divine and life-giving qualities. Fashions in material and representation occasionally changed: vase paintings and terra cotta figures or plaques from the Late Bronze age indicate that the anthropomorphic form of the goddess gave way to the stylized tree flanked by caprids. Keel addresses at length the two thirteenth-century ewers from Lachish (figs. 49-50), where the tree or vulva has the caprids on either side and the word -lt, goddess, above the tree in figure 49. He uses this to counteract Frevel's contention that there is no certain identification of the tree with the goddess. The author notes that in Egyptian iconography the goddesses Nut, Isis, Hathor or Maat are severally identified with the tree. From this he concludes (p. 38) that the tree might represent different goddesses, but in seventh- and sixth-century Judah it depicted Asherah, since she was the only surviving goddess. In Iron Age I, he notes, the link of the tree to the anthropomorphic goddess became less obvious, but this detachment may have opened the way to associate the sacred tree with the male deity as a symbol of his blessing. …

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