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Divine Presence in Ancient Near Eastern Temples Michael B. Hundley* University of Scranton
Abstract
This article addresses ancient Near Eastern conceptions of divine presence in the realm of the temple, considering evidence from Egypt, Mesopotamia, Hittite Anatolia, and Syria-Palestine. It analyzes the perceived religious function of ancient Near Eastern temples, cult images, the installation and maintenance of divine presence, as well as the complicated relationship between the deity and its cult image and between a deity’s various cult images.
The present contribution presents a distilled version of my most recent book (Hundley 2013a), which examines conceptions of divine presence in the temple in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Hittite Anatolia, and Syria-Palestine. Since it covers so much ground, the following synopsis is by necessity general, focusing on shared features across the different contexts. As such, there is little space for the divergences both across and within regions and for the exceptions to the general trends. While this article is synthetic, there nonetheless remains a remarkable consistency across cultures, such that we can meaningfully speak of ancient Near Eastern conceptions of the divine presence in the temple. Since biblical and ancient Israelite materials are indeed ancient Near Eastern material, they will be included under the purview of Syria-Palestine. While the Bible and Israelite religion are in many ways distinct (just as the other cultures are distinct from each other), this article will focus on their areas of commonality with the other ancient Near Eastern data. The reader should look elsewhere for the distinctives ( for my understanding of the biblical Deuteronom[ist]ic and Priestly conceptions of presence, see respectively Hundley 2009 and 2011; for a consideration of the political aspect of biblical and ancient Near Eastern treatment of images, esp. those of foreigners, see Levtow 2008). The Necessity of Divine–Human Contact Life in the ancient Near East was precarious. People had no recourse to modern health care, maternity care, or supermarkets. In turn, illness, childbirth, and the absence of rain could prove fatal. Rather than submit to the whims of fate, people sought some measure of control over the otherwise uncontrollable. Their primary solution was an appeal to the gods, whom they believed governed the necessary, dangerous, and humanly uncontrollable elements of the world. In order to inf luence the gods, people required contact with them. However, consonant with normal human experience, (living) humans generally had little to no access to the divine realm. The gods described in mythology commonly dwelt in realms outside of the human experience. For example, in Egyptian mythology, human and divine originally dwelt together, yet evil in creation (attributed to human rebellion or Seth) precipitated the gods’ withdrawal from the human sphere (see, e.g., the Book of the Heavenly Cow (Guilhou 2010)). The Bible likewise envisions a short-lived original intimacy in the garden of Eden (Genesis 2 and 3). In Mesopotamia, separation was built into the fabric of creation (see, e.g., Atrahasis (Lambert and Millard 1999) and the Enuma Elish (Lambert 2013: 45–133); see also Wiggermann © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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2000: 1859–1861). People could see the gods or their effects in the stars and storms and interpreted the behavior of these and other natural elements as divine communication. The Temple as Divine Abode While omens and oracles served as a primary means of divine communication with humanity and as such were necessary, they were considered insufficient alone (regarding omens and oracles, see Maul 2005). The temple was designed as a necessary complement. While omens and oracles typically served as divine-to-human communication, divine service in the temple served as human-to-divine interaction, thereby enabling two-way conversation. The temple was constructed to provide a more direct, regular, and regulated access point. It served as a cosmic axis that united heaven and earth and, in Mesopotamia, was literally the navel of the world both vertically and horizontally (see Maul 1997). While the gods continued to dwell in their natural habitats, they also came to dwell in temples, thereby bridging the gap between human and divine worlds. This connection is ref lected in the names of the temples and their parts. For example, the ziggurat tower in the Mesopotamian Enlil sanctuary of Nippur was called Duranki, ‘the bond of heaven and earth’, while the shrines housing cult statues in the Egyptian temples were said to mark the thresholds of heaven and earth (Hundley 2013a: 46 n. 133, 71). Rather than being the gathering place for a worshipping congregation, the ancient Near Eastern temple was a divine abode, to which humans had limited access (Hundley 2013b: 8). As such, it bears a greater resemblance to a modern home than a modern church. The temple’s goal was not primarily to meet worshippers’ needs, but divine ones, so that the resident deity would remain resident and continually extend its blessing and protection. The people presumed as long as the deity in its temple was satisfied, the wider world around it would prosper. Temples inevitably varied across and within ancient Near Eastern cultures, in terms of structure, function, and ideology (Hundley 2013a: 1–129). However, despite the differences, they shared many features. In each context, the built environment of the temple allowed for both divine proximity and protection (see Figure 1). In the divine home, walls formed impenetrable barriers between significant spaces and doors the only means of access between those spaces. The outer wall of the temple complex separated the public world of humanity from the deity’s private estate, while the gateway regulated access and served as the often imposing face of the divine residence. Once inside divine space, additional walls and gateways further divided spaces. In general, the importance of a room was directly proportional to its distance from the entrance of the temple complex and the number of walls and portals one encountered to reach it. With each successive wall and door, fewer and fewer people had access, until only a privileged few could enter the deity’s private chamber, often found in the most secluded and most protected area of the compound. The temple thereby allowed for divine presence, while securing that presence from unwanted human interaction. Those granted ingress functioned as servants, who took care of the needs of the divine resident and residence, much like the household servants of a king. In return for acceptable service, the servants expected some measure of divine protection and provision for the community. While humans were welcome to bring their gifts to the gods, they were not typically invited to bring their problems to the temple (see brief ly Hundley 2011: 119–133). Purification rituals designed to keep pollutants from infecting the divine realm often featured as part of larger rituals like the daily cult ritual or the Mesopotamian akītu ceremony. However, rituals for the removal of pollutants from humans themselves had little place in the temple (the biblical Priestly material offers the most notable exception to this trend (Hundley 2011: 151–200; regarding the akītu, see Linssen 2004: 71–86, 184–237)). Instead, such rituals often featured elsewhere, frequently in carefully constructed, temporary sacred spaces that allowed for secure human–divine commerce © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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Figure 1. Plan of the Neo-Assyrian temple of Nabu at Kalhu (modern Nimrud). Room 21 was the outer sanctuary, with isolating corridors surrounding it, and room 22 was the raised inner sanctuary with a raised pedestal for the cult image. The courts, which formed a single architectural unit with the temple, had portals set off-axis, while within the temple core, the cult image could be approached directly. From Loud and Altman, Khorsabad, Part 2, pl. 79.
(see, e.g., the Mesopotamian Šurpu series (Reiner 1958) and Egyptian circumambulation rites (Ritner 1993: 57–67)). Rather than simply assuming divine presence, people sought to make the divine abodes as alluring as possible, for if the gods were dissatisfied, they could always move out, which would signal disaster on a national level (see, e.g., the Egyptian Restoration Stele of Tutankhamun, in which the gods abandoned Egypt for Akhenaten’s neglect of their temples (Murnane 1995: 212–214)). In Mesopotamia, for example, kings devoted significant resources to embellishing the divine abodes to ensure the gods’ continued presence and blessing and conversely attributed the collapse of a temple or its disrepair to divine dissatisfaction with the living conditions (Ambos 2004; 2010). More generally, many ancient Near Eastern kings directly correlated their success as rulers with the satisfaction of the gods in their temples. For example, ‘the gods who go before me’ (in battle) is a common trope in Mesopotamian royal inscriptions, while the biblical books of Kings largely judges rulers according to cultic criteria (centralization and exclusive and appropriate worship) and attributes the exile to cultic failure (see, e.g., 1 Kings 14: 21–24). The Deity and its Cult Image Within the divine abode, the divine presence often was concretized in a cult image, which served loosely as a divine body to which the divine essence was symbiotically joined (see Figure 2 © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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Figure 2. A bronze anthropomorphic statue of Amun (Dynasty 22). Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
cf. the much publicized biblical divine image ban (Exodus 20: 1–6)). It is thus a misconception to assume that by making a statue, people believed they were making a god. Instead, the statue provided an access point to the god who already existed, yet was out of the suppliant’s reach and control. The cult image could take many forms: anthropomorphic, theriomorphic, hybrid, or a symbol. In the southern Levant, including Israel and Judah, the reception of highly manufactured images was more complicated and the penchant for aniconism more variable. Although the forms differed, each could theoretically serve as a fully functioning locus of divine presence, since visual representation of a deity did not determine the extent to which the deity was perceived to be present. Nonetheless, in some circles, anthropomorphic images were considered superior (see esp. the Mesopotamian Sippar tablet of Nabu-apla-iddina [Walker and Dick 1999: 58–63]), perhaps since they were more appropriate to the anthropomorphic cult (Hundley 2013a: 228–239). Indeed, although the gods transcended the human model in nearly every respect, they were nonetheless understood to be human-like. In addition to adopting human-like form, they were capable of the full gamut of human emotions and behaviors, from the most noble to the most petty. Although likely not a conscious theological decision, conceiving of the gods as human-like also had the added benefit that their human-likeness rendered them more understandable, approachable, and malleable than, e.g., the ineffable fury of a storm. Thus, since the goal of divine contact was securing divine aid, imagining them as human-like had distinct advantages (see brief ly Hundley 2013b: 82–84). The relationship between statue and deity was articulated most clearly in Egypt (Hundley 2013a: 199–204). In Egypt, the Memphite Theology explicitly calls statues the gods’ ‘bodies’ (Lichtheim 1973: 51–57). The text even claims that the gods ‘become’ (hpr) their bodies; ˘ namely, by entering their cult statues, the gods in some way ‘became’ those statues. Thus, rather © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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than being an inanimate vessel in which the immaterial potencies of a deity manifested themselves, the Egyptian statue symbiotically joined with the divine essence such that the body and all it contained was the deity. Although the relationship between a deity’s immaterial elements and the statue remains difficult to define, we may nonetheless approximate it. The deity’s ba, its mobile power, joined with and indwelled its cultically enlivened body (statue), endowing it with the divine ka (vital force) and making it a place of power (shm). Although this relationship ˘ was never so clearly articulated in Mesopotamia and Syria-Palestine, the statue likewise functioned as a divine body. As in Egypt, Hittite deities appear to have possessed both material and immaterial aspects, tuekka and ištanza, roughly and anachronistically translated as ‘body’ and ‘soul’. In turn, the cult image (sometimes referred to as the tuekka) served as a form in which the immaterial aspect of the deity could manifest itself (Hundley 2013a: 324–328). In Hittite Anatolia, however, the cult image did not seem to inherently partake of the divine essence (Goedegebuure 2012; Hundley 2013a: 331), unlike in Mesopotamia (and presumably also Egypt and Syria-Palestine). Rather, the cult image became animated only when the deity’s immaterial presence chose to symbiotically join with it. Even in the Bible, there seems to be at least some connection between YHWH and physical objects (see, e.g., Genesis 28; 1 Samuel 4–7). Thus, opinions varied in the ancient Near East on the potency of the divine body in itself, yet there was a general consensus that each active cult image was a statue–deity symbiosis that functioned as a semi-permanent theophany. Although the deity theoretically could be distinguished from its statue, there was generally little impetus to do so (see brief ly Hundley 2013a: 367–371). As their primary access point to the divine, people tended to identify the statue–deity symbiosis as their god and treat it accordingly with care and petitions even if they theoretically envisioned the god as far more than its image. To treat it as any less would be to minimize their access point and thus their access. Even in the case of deportation of divine images, the defeated people fundamentally assumed that the deity went with its statue willingly, as a means of punishment rather than as a helpless prisoner (see, e.g., the Prophecy of Marduk (Chavalas 2006: 168–174); cf. YHWH’s abandonment of the temple in Ezekiel 10 and the Philistine capture of the biblical ark (1 Samuel 4–7)) (see Figure 3). However, despite its strength and tenacity, the link between statue and deity was not indissoluble. Certain situations, most notably the destruction of a statue, made the connection unpalatable and invited its theoretical severing. Since the death of the god was unacceptable, the people
Figure 3. Cult statues, presumably Syrian, carried away by Assyrian soldiers (wall relief, palace of Tiglath-Pileser III, Nimrud, eighth century). From Layard, Monuments of Nineveh, pl. 65. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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imagined that the divine body alone was destroyed. Indeed, the goal of such divine iconoclasm seems to have been directed primarily against the enemy people and not their god ( for the political implications, particularly iconoclasm as ideological warfare, see Levtow 2008). Since the statue was the people’s access point to their god, destroying it meant that they no longer had access and thus were left without divine protection, while the deity was left inconvenienced but essentially unharmed. Even for the people, the loss of an access point was merely a temporary setback. While the statue was destroyed, the deity remained alive beyond their reach; all it needed to manifest itself was another suitable and suitably activated body. Installing the Divine Presence People recognized the problem of concretizing the ineffable divine in human-made statues. Just as they did not simply assume the temple was a suitable dwelling, people were not willing to assume that the cult image was a suitable body. With so much at stake, they employed multiple means to ensure initial and continued presence. Cult images had to be constructed in ways suitable for and pleasing to the divine. In Hittite Anatolia and Egypt, for example, it seems that the deity could choose the form of its statue (Hundley 2013a: 166, 300–301), while in Mesopotamia, the statue was constructed of already divine materials and had to be designed according to a divinely approved prototype (Hundley 2013a: 229–230, 254). While not an exact match, in the Bible as well, the deity offers specific instructions for the construction of the ark (his podium), his terrestrial abode, and its furnishings (see, e.g., Exodus 31: 2–11). Realizing that even the best human craftsmanship was insufficient, priests also constructed elaborate rituals to overcome or transcend the human element and make these statues suitable vessels. For example, in Egypt, the Opening of the Mouth ritual (wpt-r3 or wn-r3) brought the statue to life and charged it with the appropriate divine powers ( for text and translation, see Budge 1909; Otto 1960; Goyon 1972; for analysis, see Hundley 2013a: 168–186) (see Figure 4 for a depiction of the ritual being performed on a mummy). In Mesopotamia, the mouth-washing ritual (mīs pî) ensured that the statues, like the gods, were perfectly pure and empowered them to function appropriately as divine vessels and objects of service ( for text and translation, see Berlejung 1998; Walker and Dick 2001; for analysis, see Hundley 2013a: 239–270). In this case, the Mesopotamian statue functions much like a newborn, who must mature and be instructed and empowered to fulfill its intended role. In Hittite Anatolia, by means of multiple evocations, the ritual for the expansion of the cult of the Goddess of the Night focuses on ensuring the deity’s full presence in the new statue ( for text and translation, see Miller 2004; for analysis, see Hundley 2013a: 301–321). There is no extant ritual in SyriaPalestine, but by analogy, and given the presence of an activation ritual for a priestess at Emar (Fleming 1992), we should expect some kind of ceremony that ritualizes the installation of the cult image. As with other ancient Near Eastern cultures, the Bible also devotes significant attention to the installation of the divine presence in the divine dwelling (Hundley 2011: 53–83). Since the symbiosis of deity and statue was a complex process and its success largely unverifiable, people employed a multiplicity of means to achieve this single all-important end. In Egypt, for example, the Opening of the Mouth ritual involves two separate presentations of a bull’s foreleg and heart and the application of various tools to the statue’s mouth (Hundley 2013a: 180–182). Each serves as equally valid means of quickening otherwise inert matter, and each builds on the one before to make that quickening more thorough and more secure. The Mesopotamian mouth-washing ritual repeatedly and in different contexts washes and opens the statue’s mouth alongside various complementary rites (Hundley 2013a: 250–252). Realizing that no single action is sufficient, the Hittites likewise employ every means at their disposal, most notably multiple divine evocations, to cover all the bases and ensure functional © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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Figure 4. Scene depicting the Opening of the Mouth of a mummy from The Book of the Dead of Hunefer (Dynasty 19; EA 9901). Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum.
divine presence (Hundley 2013a: 323). In each ritual text, repetition is a primary feature, producing a cumulative effect and enhancing the effectiveness of any one action. In addition, many of the ritual actions and the accompanying words simultaneously function on multiple levels. For example, in Egypt the ritual simultaneously (a) produces an instrumental effect (e.g., incense produces a pleasing aroma); (b) appeals to mythic precedent, as actors, objects, or activities are associated with their mythic counterparts; and (c) identifies and in some sense equates a ritual element or activity with other elements, activities, and potencies, most prominently by means of wordplay. For example, the bull’s foreleg is used as an especially effective and deliberate pun, associating the foreleg ( pš) with physical strength ( pš). As a result, the rituals function on multiple levels that, although often interrelated, do not always coexist peacefully. However, in an ancient context, such tensions are far preferable to a consistent yet simple and thus simply ineffective ritual. Maintaining the Divine Presence Ritual activation and installation alone were considered insufficient to ensure continued divine presence and its benefits. Regular service, consisting primarily in the care and feeding of the gods in the forms of their images, was the necessary complement. Most fully articulated in Egyptian sources, there is also evidence for this regular service in Mesopotamia, Hittite Anatolia, and Syria-Palestine (Hundley 2013a: 187–199, 270–276, 321–322, 352–354). In Egypt, for example, priests performed thrice daily care and feeding rituals designed to maintain divine presence through constant cultic renewal. In the Bible as well, Israel existed to serve their god, and this service was typified by twice daily food offerings (Exodus 29: 43–46; 40). In each case, regular service in the temple catered to the physical needs (or at least desires) of the gods, © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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much like a human king’s servants catered to his physical demands in the palace. In turn, while the activation and installation rituals brought the gods to the temple, the regular service rituals were designed to keep them there (on the possibility of a deity’s abandonment of its image, see the Erra Epic (Foster 2005: 880–911)). Was this divine nourishment necessary for survival or merely a luxury? It is hard to say definitively whether or not people believed their deities required food, though it is likely that people believed they required some form of nourishment (Hundley 2013a: 204–205, 281–283, 331, 360–361). Nonetheless, it is abundantly clear that they enjoyed it and demanded it from their human servants. More than that, it would seem that in some cases, regular alimentary service was in some way necessary for continued divine presence in or as the cult statue. Before the Mesopotamian mouth-washing ritual, ‘this statue without its mouth opened cannot smell incense, cannot eat food, nor drink water’ (Walker and Dick 2001: 151, ll. 70–71). If these faculties were not enlivened (and it could not be assumed that a statue would already possess them), the deity could be unable to enjoy human service, the very purpose for which humans were created. The mouth-opening element of the ritual seems designed to address this issue, giving the statue mastery over the basic human functions of eating, drinking, and smelling so that it could enjoy human offerings. More than that, mouth opening seems to have created a need for such offerings that had to be satisfied regularly in order for the statue to be fully functional. If not fed, the deity–statue symbiosis theoretically could starve, forcing the deity to leave the statue. In Egypt, offerings (kau) sustained the divine ka, the life-force that animated the cult image. Without such offerings, the statue, like its human counterpart, would be left in a weakened state. In Ugarit as well, cultic offerings appear to be transposed onto the mythic sphere, such that divine meals could be referred to as offerings, thereby suggesting that the cult was a primary way for deities to acquire food without which they could become hungry and thirsty. Thus, by conveniently assuming that the service they could offer was the very thing the gods wanted, humans gained some leverage over the gods and were thus able to inf luence their own fate. In other words, humans served the gods with what they desired—luxurious care and feeding of the statues—in return for divine protection and blessing. The deity–statue symbiosis represented a semi-permanent theophany that would remain as long as properly served, and as long as it remained, prosperity would follow. Thus, the people believed that when the small world of the temple functioned properly, the wider world around it would prosper. The Relationship between Multiple Statues While, on a local level, the statue could be the only access point and thus simply equated with the deity, understanding a deity and its multiple manifestations on a regional level raised additional issues. In some cases, multiple manifestations could be considered part of a single divine entity, while in other instances, each manifestation seems to have been treated as a (semi-) independent, self-propelled entity (Hundley 2013a: 200–204, 279–281, 326–328, 354–359). On the one hand, in various texts, especially in mythology, deities were typically addressed holistically, such that a single deity could have multiple manifestations. While humans possess a single body that can only be in one place at a time, the gods were thought to be capable of simultaneously occupying multiple different bodies and manifesting in multiple different locations. This is most apparent in the various sun deities (e.g., Mesopotamian Shamash, the Hittite Sun-Goddess of Arinna, Egyptian Re, and Syro-Palestinian Shapshu), who are at once present in their cult images and in or as the sun. Many deities are perceived to be present in far more numerous and diverse forms. For example, major Mesopotamian deities like Ishtar manifested themselves in and were in charge of such visible and tangible elements as celestial bodies, natural phenomena, qualities, and perhaps more distantly numbers, stones, and metals © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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(Porter 2000b: 244). Egyptian deities were commonly referred to as ‘rich in manifestations’ or as ‘lord of manifestations’ (Hornung 1983: 126), systematized in the classic expression of the Leiden hymn to Amun in which his ba appears in the sky, his body in the underworld, and his statue in Heliopolis (Hallo and Younger 2002: 23–26; cf. Hornung 1983: 228). YHWH in the Hebrew Bible also resides both in heaven and in Jerusalem, as well as in other locales such as Dan and Bethel (according to northern traditions; cf. 1 Kings 12: 25–33). In fact, ancient Near Eastern deities could concurrently inhabit multiple different statues, even multiple images in the same temple. In addition to highlighting divine prestige, multiple images seem to have allowed for a division of labor. For example, while one image was used on procession, another could remain in the temple to receive regular service. In some cases, each such image appears to have had a circumscribed function. For example, when Sennacherib captured the statue of Marduk used in the akītu festival from Babylon, the festival could not be performed even though there were multiple other statues of Marduk in the Esagil temple of Babylon (Berlejung 2002: 216–218). In Syria, the city of Emar was populated by multiple Dagan cult images, who were named according to their function, such as Dagan Lord of Offspring, Dagan Lord of the Quiver, Dagan Lord of Shade and Protection, and Dagan Lord of Habitations. In turn, every image had a specific role to play and together they effectively divided the divine labor between them ( for the primary text, the zukru festival text, see Fleming 2000: 242–247). Rather than possessing a fixed amount of presence or power that had to be divided between manifestations (as the previous paragraph may suggest), ancient Near Eastern deities appear to have been divisible without diminishment, such that each could theoretically possess the full complement of divine powers. In Egypt, for example, it would seem that the divine ba and ka as immaterial substances could be divided or multiplied infinitely without losing any potency, such that the deity in heaven and in the cult image could each possess the full complement of divine potencies. Nonetheless, while each could be fully divine, each was not the fullness of the deity. Rather, the cult image was but one of a deity’s many manifestations or aspects. Divine plenitude instead lay in the aggregate, the accumulation of a deity’s multiple manifestations, names, and potencies. For example, Ishtar was not simply Ishtar as manifest in Nineveh; she was all of the manifestations of Ishtar throughout Mesopotamia and Anatolia, including the Ishtar described in mythology who dwelt in heaven, the planet Venus, the number 15, the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli, the mineral lead, and the embodiment of such qualities as love and war (Porter 2000b: 244). On the other hand, in various other texts like treaties and ritual texts, a deity’s multiple manifestations seem to have been treated as distinct. For example, in Hittite Anatolia, the divine witness list in the treaty between Suppiluliuma I and Huqqana of Hayasa lists 21 different weather gods (Treaty no. 3 in Beckman 1999: 28–29), while various offerings lists at Ugarit mention multiple Baals (presumably referring to different cult images) who receive distinct offerings (see brief ly Sommer 2009: 25; see more fully, Pardee 2002: 11–72). There is even a Mesopotamian hymn to Ishtar of Nineveh and Ishtar of Arbela in which the two goddesses are clearly distinct (Porter 2004: 41–44). There is also extrabiblical evidence from the southern Levant (Kuntillet Ajrud) for a YHWH of Samaria and a YHWH of Teman, presumably in addition to a YHWH of Jerusalem (Meshel 2012). How then should we account for this complexity? The relationship between divine manifestations is exceedingly complex and informed by various factors and, as such, cannot be reduced to a single monolithic explanation, much less a modern analogy. Nonetheless, understanding each manifestation as an access point is a helpful starting point ( for other analogies, see Hundley 2013a: 146–149; see also Dick 2005). While each cult image represented a concrete means of accessing the deity, each was only accessible to some. Thus, new temples with new cult images © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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were constructed in different locales, granting more people access to the ‘same’ god. By ‘access’, I do not mean that people had direct access to the deity in the temple or that constructing a new temple and statue was an altruistic decision for the benefit of the people or to facilitate proselytization. Instead, having the deity resident in their community gave people access to the divine provision and protection that its presence provided. Moreover, while a temple was constructed for various reasons (including economic and political), it was understood to be primarily for the gods’ benefit. As an example of reduplication, a temple of the Weather God of Aleppo was constructed in the Hittite capital, enabling both the citizens of Aleppo and Hattusa to access the god (Singer 1994). In the particularly illustrative Hittite expansion ritual text, the Goddess of the Night is asked, ‘Preserve your being, but divide your divine manifestation (šiuniyatar)! Come to that new house, too, and take yourself the honored place! And when you make your way, then take yourself only that place!’ (Miller 2004: 289–290, §22; cf. Goedegebuure 2012: 420 for the amended translation). As a result, she may join with a new cult image and simultaneously manifest herself in two locales. In Syria-Palestine as well, Baal of Ugarit seems to have been understood as an extension of the Baal of Sapan, described in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle (Smith 2012), thereby making the mythological Baal accessible to the people of Ugarit in the form of a cult image. In addition, in post-exilic Jehud, with the destruction of the first temple and the dispersion of the people of Israel, people constructed temples of YHWH not only in Jerusalem, but also in such locales as Elephantine, Mt. Gerizim, and Idumea. In contrast to the usual divine expansion, the Bible also includes the opposite tendency, the desire to centralize and thereby limit access (points) (see, e.g., 2 Kings 22–23). To make the concept of these reduplicated deities (and temples) more accessible to our modern minds, we may consider the similar dynamics at work in modern franchises or chain stores. By appealing to modern capitalism, this analogy in no way captures the issue in all its complexity, ignoring, e.g., the ancient political dimension, and implies a systematic intent and oversight rarely found in the ancient Near East (see Pongratz-Leisten 2011b for the complexity of translating deities across places and cultures). While a single store or restaurant provides access to people in its immediate environs, people from further afield live too far away to frequent it regularly. In order to offer them access and to double its sphere of inf luence and market share, the original store establishes a chain or franchise in a new, more accessible location. As a byproduct of such reduplication, multiple access points result in a complicated relationship between the individual stores. Each McDonalds franchise, for example, is clearly associated with the original. It bears the same name and for the most part offers the same products. However, each is also in some way distinct. Each is constructed in a different location in different buildings with different architectural plans and in some cases offers slightly different menu items. Depending on the context, ‘McDonalds’ may be viewed as (a) a specific restaurant; (b) a single corporate entity that includes the totality of the individual franchises; or (c) a collection of distinct restaurants that share the same name. Like each McDonalds, each new cult statue in each temple strengthened and expanded the divine profile, while providing more people with access to a deity and the goods and services it offered, or alternatively, it afforded a deity access to more people and the service and reverence they offered. Since a deity’s realm may be geographically limited, constructing more statues and temples multiplied that deity’s sphere of inf luence, worship, and service. The divine constellation thus expanded, making the deity greater, more prominent, and present in more locales (regarding constellations, see Hundley 2013b: 80–90). Like a human monarch (or modern corporation), the deity was in a sense an empire builder, whose prominence often relied on gaining territory by reduplication and the establishment of outposts. Similarly, the deity in each temple was clearly associated with the original deity. Like a clone or a franchise, it bore the same divine DNA, yet each developed independently. Although each © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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had significant overlap, individual divine manifestations, like Anatolian Ishtar, also developed their own unique context-specific characteristics, a product of their distinct worship base and its needs and beliefs (Hundley 2013a: 326). Thus, the context determines whether ‘weather god’ refers to (a) a specific manifestation; (b) a single, larger divine entity that includes the totality of the individual aspects and manifestations; or (c) a collection of distinct deities that share the same name. In some cases, the situation was even more complex. Especially in Syria-Palestine and Hatti, gods with similar functions and indeed who shared the same forename or title like Baal and Weather God (diškur) were considered entirely distinct, such that the franchise model no longer applies. For example, in environments where rainfall was necessary for survival, each city seems to have had had its own weather god (e.g., in Syria-Palestine, Baal of Ugarit and Baal of Aleppo). Rather than assimilate all the individual weather gods into a single weather god, people often maintained their distinct identities (and even distinct franchises); instead, the people organized the weather gods into a god group, conveniently labeled ‘the weather gods’ (see, e.g., Steiner 1957: 556–557). Returning to our analogy, instead of functioning like chain stores, these god groups function more like a group of related stores, such as high-end fashion or burger joints. While each store offers roughly the same product, each remains distinct. Likewise, each deity in a god group catered to more or less the same consumer with the same felt needs. For example, the various weather gods offered control over the weather, which was deemed absolutely essential throughout Hittite Anatolia and Syria-Palestine. While they could have distinct origins and identities, each weather god was linked by the shared goods and services he offered. Since the market was already saturated with independent weather gods and the overlapping goods and services they offered, there was generally less impetus to expand the cult of a single weather god to a new locale populated by another weather god, since it would not be offering anything substantially new. However, this situation did not preclude the expansion of a single deity’s cult, effectively the establishment of a chain temple. In our modern analogy, although fast food restaurants offer essentially the same products, they litter the (sub)urban landscape. While related, each chain is distinct and may be said to offer something the others do not, especially in the minds of the consumers who choose to frequent it. Likewise, although similar, certain prominent deities like the Weather God of Aleppo were, for pragmatic or popular reasons, deemed worthy of reduplication even in a market already saturated with weather gods. Thus, the relationship between a deity and its cult image and between different cult images was complex, and the presentation was context-specific. Nonetheless, while on the theoretical level, divine presence remained complicated; on the practical level, it was rather straightforward. The ancient Near Eastern temple served as a divine abode, where the deity dwelt as a semipermanent theophany, who would remain as long as it was satisfied with its care. This divine presence was considered necessary for human prosperity. In turn, the people’s initial and continued care of the deity and temple in many ways determined their fate. Note * Correspondence address: Michael B. Hundley, Theology and Religious Studies, University of Scranton, Scranton, Pennsylvania, United States. E-mail: mbhundley10@gmail.com
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Further Reading Allen, S. L. (forthcoming). The Splintered Divine: A Study of Ištar, Baal, and Yahweh Divine Names and Divine Multiplicity in the Ancient Near East. Berlin: de Gruyter. Assmann, J. (2001). The Search for God in Ancient Egypt. New York: Cornell University Press. Bahrani, Z. (2003). The Graven Image: Representation in Babylonia and Assyria. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Dick, M. B., ed. (1999). Born in Heaven, Made on Earth: The Making of the Cult Image in the Ancient Near East. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Haas, V. (1994). Geschichte der hethitischen Religion. Leiden: Brill. Jacobsen, T. (1987). “The Graven Image.” In P. D. Miller, P.D. Hanson, and S. D. McBride (eds.), Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of F.M. Cross. Philadelphia: Fortress, 15–32. Leitz, C., ed. (2002–2003). Lexikon der agyptischen Gotter und Gotterbezeichnungen. 8 volumes. Leuven: Peeters. May, N. (2012). Iconoclasm and Text Destruction in the Ancient Near East and Beyond. Chicago: University of Chicago. Pongratz-Leisten, B. (ed.) (2011a). Reconsidering the Concept of Revolutionary Monotheism. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Porter, B. N. (ed.) (2000a). One God or Many? Concepts of Divinity in the Ancient World. Casco Bay, ME: Casco Bay Assyriological Institute. Porter, B. N. (2009). What Is a God? Anthropomorphic and Non-Anthropomorphic Aspects of Deity in Ancient Mesopotamia. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Schwemer, D. (2001). Die Wettergottgestalten Mesopotamiens und Nordsyriens im Zeitalter der Keilschriftkulturen. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Walls, N. H., ed. (2005). Cult Image and Divine Representation in the Ancient Near East. Boston: ASOR.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Religion Compass 9/7 (2015): 203–215, 10.1111/rec3.12154