The Spiritual World of Jezebel and Elijah

by Brian Godawa

  [75] Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History, Book 20, 14:4-7, Loeb Classical Library, 1954, 153, quoted in Henry B. Smith, Jr., “Canaanite Child Sacrifice, Abortion, and the Bible,” The Journal of Ministry and Theology, 98.

  [76] Yigael Yadin, “The ‘House of Ba’al’ of Ahab and Jezebel in Samaria, and that of Athalia in Judah,” in Archaeology in the Levant, eds. Peter Roger Stuart Moorey and Peter Parr (Warminster, UK: Aris & Phillips, 1978).

  [77] Jennifer Lynn Greig-Berens, Jezebel: Religious Antagonist in Israel, Masters Thesis (Oral Roberts University, 2011), 45-46.

  [78] John H Walton, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary (Old Testament): 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), 71.

  [79] See also 2 Chron 2:3, 7, 13-14.

  [80]John H. Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), 113-34.

  [81] The abbreviation KTU stands for “Keilalphabetische Texte aus Ugarit”, the standard collection of this material from Ugarit.

  [82] All these Ugaritic texts can be found in N. Wyatt, Religious Texts from Ugarit, 2nd ed., The Biblical Seminar, vol. 53 (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002).

  [83] Aloysius Fitzgerald, “A Note on Psalm 29,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no. 215 (October 1974), 62. A more conservative interpretation claims a common Semitic poetic discourse.

  [84] Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess 3rd Enlarged Edition (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1967, 1978, 1990), 37.

  [85] N. Wyatt, “Asherah,” ed. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (Leiden; Boston; Köln; Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: Brill; Eerdmans, 1999), 99.

  [86] William G. Dever, Did God Have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 2005), 219-220.

  [87] Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, 39.

  [88] Dever, Did God Have a Wife?, 250.

  [89] Karel Van Der Toorn, “Female Prostitution in Payment of Vows in Ancient Israel,” Journal of Biblical Literature 108 (1989): 195.

  [90] Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess 3rd Enlarged Edition (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1967, 1978, 1990), 38.

  [91] The most famous of these references is the Ta’anach cult stand that depicts Asherah as both a naked mistress of animals and a tree of life. See Dever, Did God Have a Wife, 219-220.

  [92] William G. Dever, Did God Have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 2005), 102.

  [93] Othmar Keel, Chirstoph Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis: MN, Fortress Press, 1998), 229-239. Ziony Zevit translates the phrases without the possessive, “his,” thus indicating “Yahweh and Asherah,” still as consorting deities. Ziony Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches (London, Continuum, 2001), 361, 373.

  [94] “The word here rendered “garments” is Hebrew bāttîm, which surely cannot have its usual meaning “houses” but rather, as originally suggested by A. Šanda, is probably cognate with Arabic batt “woven garment.” John Day, “Asherah in the Hebrew Bible and Northwest Semitic Literature,” Journal of Biblical Literature 105 (1986): 406–407.

  [95] See also: Hosea 2:2; Jeremiah 3:6; Exodus 34:15–16; Leviticus 17:7; Numbers 15:39; 25:1; Deuteronomy 31:16; Judges 2:17; 8:27, 33; 1 Chronicles 5:25; 2 Chronicles 21:11, 13; Psalm 106:39; Isaiah 1:21; Jeremiah 2:20; 3:1–9; 5:7; Ezekiel 6:9; 16:15–17, 20, 22, 25–36, 41; 23:5–8, 11, 14, 19–19, 27–30, 35, 44; 43:7, 9; Hosea 1:2, 2:2, 4–5; 3:3; 4:10–15, 18; 5:3–4; 6:10; 9:1; Joel 3:3; Amos 7:17; Micah 1:7; Nahum 3:4.

  [96] N. Wyatt, “Astarte,” ed. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (Leiden; Boston; Köln; Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: Brill; Eerdmans, 1999), 110.

  [97] John Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan (The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies) (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2002), 149. Susan Ackerman, “At Home with the Goddess,” in Symbiosis, Symbolism, and the Power of the Past: Canaan, Ancient Israel, and Their Neighbors from the Late Bronze Age through Roman Palaestina, ed. William G. Dever and Seymour Gitin (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003), 461.

  [98] Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 8.13.2.

  [99] John Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan (The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies) (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2002), 214.

  [100] See also Judges 10:6; 1 Sam 7:3-4; 12:10.

  [101] Susan Ackerman, “At Home with the Goddess,” in Symbiosis, Symbolism, and the Power of the Past: Canaan, Ancient Israel, and Their Neighbors from the Late Bronze Age through Roman Palaestina, ed. William G. Dever and Seymour Gitin (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003), 464.

  [102] KTU 1.5.20; 1.10.

  [103] P. L. Day, “Anat,” ed. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (Leiden; Boston; Köln; Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: Brill; Eerdmans, 1999), 37–38.

  [104] Susan Ackerman, Under Every Green Tree: Popular Religion in Sixth-Century Judah, (Atlanta: GA, Scholars Press, 1992), 51.

  [105] KTU 1.6:2:6-9.

  [106] KTU 1.6:2:30-37. Smith and Parker, Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, 155-156.

  [107] KTU 1.6:3:20-21. Smith and Parker, Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, 158.

  [108] For Baal’s defeat of Leviathan, see: (KTU 1.2 iv; 1.5 i:1–3) P. L. Day, “Anat,” ed. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (Leiden; Boston; Köln; Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: Brill; Eerdmans, 1999), 37–38.

  [109] “Beth-Anat (bet-‘andt) in Naphtali (Josh. 19.38; Judg. 1.33); Beth-Anot (bet-‘anot) in Judah (Josh. 15.59), and Anathoth in Benjamin (‘anatdt, in Josh. 21.18; 1 Kings 2.26 and ‘“natotin 1 Kings 2.26; Isa. 10.30; Jer. 1.1,11.21, 23, 32.7, 8, 9; 1 Chron. 6.45; Ezra 2.23; Neh. 7.27; cf. also the adjective ‘the Anathothite’, ha’annetoti in 2 Sam. 23.27, 1 Chron. 12.3 and Jer. 29.27; and hd’annetdtim 1 Chron. 11.28, 27.12).” John Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan (The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies) (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2002), 132-133.

  [110] P. L. Day, “Anat,” ed. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (Leiden; Boston; Köln; Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: Brill; Eerdmans, 1999), 42.

  [111] Day, Yahweh and the Gods, 134.

  [112] Day, Yahweh and the Gods, 131.

  [113] KTU 1.5:1:1-4.

  [114] KTU 1.5:1:4-8. Mark S. Smith and Simon B. Parker, Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, vol. 9, Writings from the Ancient World (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1997), 141.

  [115] KTU 1.5:2:2-6. Smith and Parker, Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, 143. See also N. Wyatt, Religious Texts from Ugarit, 2nd ed., Biblical Seminar, 53 (London; New York: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 120.

  [116] KTU 1.5:2:13-16. Coogan, Michael D.; Mark S. Smith. Stories from Ancient Canaan, Second Edition (Kindle Locations 5072-5073). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.

  [117] KTU 1.6:2:30-37.

  [118] KTU 1.6:3:20-21.

  [119] KTU 1.6:5:5-6:38.

  [120] “Sheol,” DDD, p 768.

  [121] Day, Yahweh and the Gods, 186.

  [122] Mark Smith, The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel, 2nd Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1990, 2002), 88.

  [123] “The eschatological hymn in Hab 3 presents Deber and Resheph marching at Yahweh’s side as His helpers. This follows the ancient Mesopotamian tradition according to which ‘plague’ and ‘pestilence’ are present in the entourage of the great god Marduk… On the other hand, in Ps 91:6 it is Yahweh who liberates his faithful from the fear of this nocturnal demon Deber, in parallel this time with Qeteb, another aw
esome destructive demon.” del Olmo G. Lete, “Deber,” ed. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (Leiden; Boston; Köln; Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: Brill; Eerdmans, 1999), 232.

  [124] KTU 1.82:3. “[Resheph] appears as a cosmic force, whose powers are great and terrible: he is particularly conceived of as bringing epidemics and death. The Hebrew Bible shows different levels of demythologization: sometimes it describes Resheph as a personalized figure, more or less faded, sometimes the name is used as a pure metaphor. At any rate it is possible to perceive aspects of the personality of an ancient chthonic god, whichs fits the image of Resheph found in the other Semitic cultures.”

  van der Toorn, Becking van der Horst, DDD, 703-704.

  [125] N. Wyatt, “Qeteb,” ed. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst, DDD, 674.

  [126] del Olmo G. Lete, “Deber,” ed. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst, DDD, 231–232.

  [127] P. Xella, “Resheph,” ed. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst, DDD, 703.

  [128] John Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan (The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies) (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2002), 209

  [129] Exod. 34.15, 16; Lev. 17.7; Deut. 31.16; Judg. 2.17, 8.33.

  [130] Day, Yahweh and the Gods, 210.

  [131] Day, Yahweh and the Gods, 215.

  [132] J. F. Prewitt, “Topheth,” ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Revised (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1979–1988), 876.

  [133] John Joseph Collins and Adela Yarbro Collins, Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel, ed. Frank Moore Cross, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993), 375.

  [134] Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, “The Book of Daniel,” in New Interpreter’s Bible, ed. Leander E. Keck, vol. 7 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994–2004), 137.

  [135] Special thanks to Robert Cruickshank for finding some of the scholarship presented here on Underworld valleys.

  [136] Francesca Stavrakopoulou, “The Jerusalem Tophet: Ideological Dispute and Religious Transformation,” Studi Epigrafici e Linguistici 29-30, 2012-2013: 141.

  [137] James H. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1 (New York; London: Yale University Press, 1983), 37. Thanks to Robert Cruickshank for finding this passage.

  [138] James H. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1 (New York; London: Yale University Press, 1983), 38.

  [139] Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1, 38.

  [140] See also Josh 15:8; 2 Sam 23:13; 1 Chron 11:15; 14:9: Isaiah17:5.

  [141] Nick Wyatt, “À la recherche des Rephaïm perdus”, The Archaeology of Myth, ed. Nick Wyatt, (London: Equinox, 2010) , 587-588.

  [142] Duane F. Watson, “Gehenna (Place),” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 927.

  [143] Daniel Isaac Block, The Book of Ezekiel, Chapters 25–48, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997–), 468–470.

  [144] “Bashan,” DDD, p 161-162. “According to KTU 1.108:1–3, the abode of the dead and deified king, and his place of enthronement as [Rephaim] was in [Ashtarot and Edrei], in amazing correspondence with the Biblical tradition about the seat of king Og of Bashan, “one of the survivors of the Rephaim, who lived in Ashtarot and Edrei” (Josh 12:4).”

  [145] The non-canonical book of Enoch supports this same interpretation: “Enoch 6:6 And they were in all two hundred [sons of God]; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it.”

  [146] “Sheol,” DDD, p 768.

  [147] “Abaddon,” DDD, p 1.

  [148] “Hades,” DDD, p 382.

  [149] See the chapter “The Book of Enoch: Scripture, Heresy, or What?” in When Giants Were Upon the Earth: The Watchers, Nephilim and the Cosmic War of the Seed (Los Angeles: Embedded Pictures, 2014).

  [150]Kelley Coblentz Bautch, A Study of the Geography of 1 Enoch 17-19: No One Has Seen What I Have Seen, (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2003).

  [151] Glasson, T. Francis. Greek Influence in Jewish Eschatology. London: S.P.C.K., 1961, 8-11; Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981) 54–55; 66, n. 26; also 1 Enoch, 280; James C. VanderKam, Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition. CBQMS 16. Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1984.

  [152] Amos 9:2.

  [153] Ps. 136:6; Job 41:34 LXX.

  [154] Wayne Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, (Winona Lake; IN: Eisenbrauns, 1998), 334-348.

  [155] Richard J. Clifford, The Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament (Wipf & Stock Pub, 2010). Also, Isa. 14:13-15.

  [156] See also Isa. 40:22; Zech. 9:10; Job 38:4.

  [157] Matt. 16:18.

  [158] Bautch, A Study of the Geography of 1 Enoch, 64-69.

  [159] George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, ed. Klaus Baltzer, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2001), 286.

  [160] Richard J. Clifford, The Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament (Wipf & Stock Pub, 2010),190.

  [161] Clifford, The Cosmic Mountain, 124-125. Seventy Sons of Asherah: page 61.

  [162] Gordon J. Wenham, “The Religion of the Patriarchs,” A.R. Millard & D.J. Wiseman, eds., Essays on the Patriarchal Narratives. Leicester: IVP, 1980, pp.157-188.

  [163] KTU 1.101:1-9; 1.100:9; 1.3:3:29.

  [164] KTU 1.6:1:15-18.

  [165] KTU 1.3:3:30.

  [166] KTU 1.101:1-4.

  [167] Michael Heiser, “The Mythological Provenance of Isaiah 14:12-15: A Reconsideration of the Ugaritic Material” Liberty University http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/lts fac pubs/280

  [168] H. Niehr, “Zaphon”, in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, ed. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking and Pieter W. van der Horst, 2nd extensively rev. ed., 929 (Leiden; Boston; Köln; Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: Brill; Eerdmans, 1999). Also see Job 26:7; 37:22; Ezek. 1:4 where the word “north” is used as a spiritual reference, more allusion to the divine mountain Saphon of Canaanite belief.

  [169] Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible, First Edition (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015), 200.

  [170] See the chapter “The Book of Enoch: Scripture, Heresy, or What?” in Brian Godawa, When Giants Were Upon the Earth: The Watchers, Nephilim and the Cosmic War of the Seed (Los Angeles: Embedded Pictures, 2014), 24-37.

  [171] James H. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1 (New York; London: Yale University Press, 1983), 15.

  [172] See also 1 Enoch 10:9, 15; 13:10; 14:1-3; chapters 15 and 16.

  [173] George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, ed. Klaus Baltzer, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2001), 247.

  “In addition to the oath, which is reminiscent of the oath of the watchers in 1 Enoch 6:6, the title “the greatest and holy God” closely parallels one of 1 Enoch’s favorite divine titles, “the Great Holy One,” often rendered into Greek as “the Great and Holy One” (see comm. on 1:3c–4). The similarities might reflect cultic activity that was somehow informed by traditions from 1 Enoch…

  “Two final attestations concerning the sacred character of Hermon occur in the church fathers. In the Onomasticon, Eusebius says of the mountain that “it is honored as sacred by the gentiles.” Interpreting this, Jerome states, “At its peak is a noted temple that is reverenced by the Gentiles from the region of Paneas and Lebanon.”

  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch, 247.

  [174] Wars of the Jews 1:405, Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works
of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987).

  [175] 1 Kings. 14:23; 2 Kings. 16:4; 17:10; Jer. 3:6.

  [176] Philip J. King, Lawrence E. Stager, Life in Biblical Israel (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 320.

  [177] CTA 17:1:26–30:

  so that he may beget a son in his house,

  a scion in the midst of his palace.

  He shall set up the stela of his ancestral god,

  in the sanctuary the cippus of his kinsman;

  N. Wyatt, Religious Texts from Ugarit, 2nd ed., Biblical Seminar, 53 (London; New York: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 255–256.

  [178] William G. Dever, Did God Have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 2005), 99. “(Gen. 28:18; Exod. 24:4; Josh. 24:26–27). They are often said to be associated with a bāmāh, or “high place” (1 Kings 14:23; 2 Kings 18:4; 23:13–14), or a temple (2 Kings 3:2); or located near an “idol” (Lev. 26:1; Deut. 7:5; 12:3; Mic. 5:13).” William G. Dever, The Lives of Ordinary People in Ancient Israel: Where Archaeology and the Bible Intersect (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012), 290.