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The Deity Bethel and the Old Testament

Author(s): J. Philip HyattSource: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Mar., 1939), pp. 81-98Published by: American Oriental Society

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THE DEITY BETHEL AND THE OLD TESTAMENT *

J. PHILIP HYATT

WELLESLEY COLLEGE

IT HAS LONG been known that there was a West Semitic deitynamed Bethel,' and it has been conjectured by many scholars thatthis deity appears in certain Old Testament passages. The mostimportant recent discussion of this god, with a summary of the

references in biblical and extra-biblical sources and with specialattention to the importance of the deity for the history of religion,is that of Otto Eissfeldt in Archiv fiur Religionswissenschaft 28(1930) pp. 1-30.2 The discovery and publication of new epi-graphic and archaeological material bearing upon the subject makepossible a re-consideration of the origin and history of the deity,and his relationship to the Old Testament records.

1.

The extra-biblical sources for the study of the god are manifold.These will be briefly summarized in order to prepare the way forthe consideration of the new material.

One of the earliest occurrences to be recognized was in the treatyof Esarhaddon with Ba'al (written Ba-a-lu) of Tyre. This treatyis contained on three fragments of cuneiform tablets in the Ku-younjik Collection, K. 3500 + 4444 + 10235.3 The treaty ends

* The writer wishes to thank Professor Albrecht Goetze of Yale Universityfor his kindness in reading the manuscript of this paper and making severalvaluable suggestions for its improvement.

1 In 1898, H. Winckler recognized the deity in the Treaty of Esarhaddonwith Ba'al of Tyre (see below), Altorientalische Forschungen, 2te Reihe(Leipzig), I, pp. 10 ff. In 1905, K. L. Tallquist equated the deity with thedivine name contained in Neo-Babylonian personal names, NeubabylonischesNamenbuch p. 232, although earlier he had equated it with the deityBdnitu, ZA 7 (1892) pp. 277 f.

2Further references to Eissfeldt throughout this paper will be to this

article. Cf. also his remarks in JPOS 14 (1934) p. 296.The most recent treatment of this treaty is by Weidner, Archiv fur

Orientforschung 8 (1933) pp. 29-34, who recognized the correct order ofthe fragments and suggested that another fragment also belongs here. Thetreaty is translated by Luckenbill, Ancient Records II pp. 229-231.

6 81






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82 J. Philip Hyatt

with a section containing the names of gods and goddesses of

Assyria and of jbir nari, by whom it is attested and who are in the

usual manner called upon to inflict curses upon any violator of the

treaty. Among the Assyrian deities named are Ishtar, Gula, and

the Seven Gods. Among the deities of jbir nari are dIs-tar-tu

(Ashtart), dQa4-ba,4 dBa-al-sa-me-me (Ba'al-shamem), dBa-al-

ma-la-gi-e (Ba'al-malki?), dBa-al-sa-pu4-nu4Ba'al-sapo'n), dMi-il-

qar( ?)-tu(?) (Melqart), dla-su-mu-nu (Eshmun), and a deity

whose name is written dBa-a-a-ti-DINGIR.ME9,5-that is, Baiti-

ilani.6 It is obvious that the last-named deity is consideredas one

of the great gods of jbir nari, or Syria, and he is apparently well-known, if not particularly worshipped, in Tyre. This god has

often been recognized as the West Semitic Bethel, and there is no

reason for doubting the identification.

Our deity appears also in a number of theophorous personal

names found in Neo-Babylonian and Late Babylonian documents.

In addition to the names cited by Eissfeldt from the reigns of

Nebuchadrezzar,Neriglissar, Nabonidus, Darius I, Artaxerxes I,

and Darius II, we may add the four following names which I have

'This name may be incomplete, as there is a lacuna in the tablet imme-

diately following -ba.

?The explanation for the writing DINGIR. MEA both in this treaty and

in some of the Babylonian names is probably either (1) that the plural

of the word for "god" was used for the singular, precisely as 'el6him is

used in Hebrew (cf. Langdon, RA 26 [19291 p. 193) ; or (2) that

DINGIR.MEA was sometimes used by the Babylonian scribes to represent

a West Semitic element -il or more probably -el (Clay, Bab. Exped. of the

Univ. of Penn., Series A, Vol. X pp. xix, 12-13, and more fully in Old

Testament and Semitic Studies in Memory of William Rainey Harper, I

pp. 316-320). In support of the first theory it may be remarked that several

Semitic languages or dialects show the same usage: the Amarna dialect

(B,6hl, Die Sprache der Amarnabriefe, pp. 35f.), Phoenician (Harris, A

Grammar of the Phoenician Language, p. 60), and the language of the

Sargonid letters (Pfeiffer, JBL 47 [1928] pp. 184-5). In objection to the

second theory, it may be noted that we cannot completely control the pro-

nunciation of the Hebrew and Aramaic names which Clay cites. For an-

other possible explanation, see Hilprecht, Bab. Exped. of the Univ. of Penn.,

Series A, Vol. IX, p. 19; Vol. X, pp. ix-xiv.

6 The exact reference for the name is K. 3500, Rev. II, line 6. The treaty

has recently been published (in part) by S. Langdon, RA 26 (1929) pp.

189-194. For the writing of the first part of the name cf. Delitzsch,

Assyrische Grammatik2, sec. 21 a 1), 22.






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The Deity Bethel and the Old Testament 83

listed and discussed elsewhere,7 all occurring in documents fromErech: (1) mdBit-ili-[da]-la-a4, from the first year of Nabonidus,8(2) mdBa-'i-it-ili-da-la-a4, from the same year,9 (3) mdBit-ili.sar-

usur, from the fifteenth year of Nabonidus,10 and (4) mdBa2ji-ti-

<ili>-she-zib, from the reign of Cyrus (the year missing)."1

The theophorous element is variously spelled in these names:Ba(')it(i)-DINGIR. (MEA), Ba-ti-il,12 and P. DINGIR. (MEg).The variety in the early spelling is evidence of the fact that thename was not wellknown to the Babylonian scribes, for the ap-parent reason that the deity was foreign to them. It has some-

times been doubted whether the second spelling is actually of ourdeity, and it has been suggested that it may be a derivative fromBjtnitu-ilu.13 But such a variation is to be expected in the writingof a foreign name, and it probably represents the name that thescribe actually heard in some cases. The last-named spelling isnot found earlier than the first year of Nabonidus, but is frequentin the Persian period. Such an ideographic writing may indicateeither that the deity had by that time become " domesticated" in

Babylonia, or that the scribes had come to realize that AkkadianBit-ili was the equivalent of West Semitic Beth-'el.The documentsbearing these personal names which contain their

place of origin come from Babylon, Erech, and Nippur. Some ofthe names are apparently non-Akkadian: mBit-ibrna-a-dir-ri 14 andmdBa-ti-il-ha-ra.15 Others, however, seem to be of men who are

7JBL 56 (1937) 387-94.

8Dougherty, Records from Erech Time of Nabonidus (YBT VI) 11: 28.G. Contenau, Contrats neo-babyloniens I (Louvre Textes

CuneiformesXII) 75: 7.10 Dougherty, op. cit. 108: 3.11Tremayne, Records from Erech Time of Cyrus and Cambyses (YBT

VII) 83: 7.12 With this spelling should be compared the Amarna personal name,

Bat-ti-ilu (DINGIR) or perhaps better, Be-ti-ilu, Knudtzon, Die El-Amarna-Tafeln 161: 20; 170: 3, 28. This individual is possibly a brother or nearrelative of Aziru, an Amurru prince (see Knudtzon 1265). It is not im-possible that this is a name derived from the god-name, although the deity-

determinative is not used. Such a name might be expected at this timein Syria, as we shall see below.18 Ebeling in Reallexikon der Assyriologie I. 392. Cf. note 1, above."Bab. Exped. of the Univ. of Penn., Series A, Vol. X 122: 4.

15Strassmaier, Inschriften von Nabonidus 1133: 1. Tallquist, Neubaby-lonisches Namenbuch 316, lists the second element of this name as non-Akkadian.






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84 J. Philip Hyatt

Babylonian, as shown by the second elements of their names and

by the names of their fathers,-e. g., mdBa-i-ti-<ili>.se-zib, and

mdBa-ti-il-se-zib.l6 The father of one has the good Babylonian

name mdBil-iddina.17 We conclude from these facts that the deity

Bethel may have been known and honored-privately, at least-by

some of the native Babyonians.In the Aramaic papyri found at Elephantine there are names in

which many scholars have recognized the deity under discussion.

In a documentwhich Cowleycalls a list of " Names of Contributors

to Temple Funds," occur the following: '?ntl4=K (18 Col. VII,

5) 18 and 7Kn4=1p (18 Col. VII, 6). The context indicatesclearly that these are deities, because of the association with lid(1. 4). In another papyrus, 7Kn='lhYt (27: 7) is definitely called

a god (Xn17'). The first part of each name is that of a deity.

'Anat is well-known as a deity of Syria-Palestine and of Egypt."9

MV8has been identified with the deity 'ASima'named in II Kings

17: 30 as a god of Hiamathand possibly in Amos 8: 14,20 or with

ISum, an unimportant Babylonian deity, or with Phoenician

Eshmun. ble is not known from other sources, but is apparentlya god-name, as shown by a theophorouspersonal name of Elephan-

tine (see below). The second element in each name, 'KX'1, has

sometimes been interpreted as meaning " temple " or " pantheon."

Noth, for example, thinks that the term is a circumlocution for

the three deities who were thought of as living in the temple of

Elephantine.2' But this is doubtful, for several reasons. The

word is nowhere used in any other context where it could have

such a meaning,and the usual word in the

papyrifor

"temple"is 8:118N.22 NMZ8T 14 is used once (3: 3) and possibly also

16 Strassmaier, Inschriften. von Darius 372: 17.17 Univ. of Penn. Mus., Pubs. of the Bab. Sec. II, 1, 222: 12 and LE.

18 The numbers of these papyri are given according to the numbers of the

papyri (not of the tables) in Sachau, Aramiische Papyrus und Ostraka aus

einer jiidischen Militdr-Kolonie zu Elephantine (Leipzig, 1911). Com-

parison has been made in every case with the publication of Cowley, Aramaic

Papyri of the Fifth Century B. C. (Oxford, 1923).

"9Albright, AJSL 41 (1925) 92-101.20 Cf. R. Kittel, JBL 44 (1925) pp. 130-131; Cowley, op. cit. p. xix;

Sachau, op. cit. pp. 82-84; Noth, Die israelitischen Personennamen im

Rahmen der gemeinsemitischen Namengebung (Stuttgart, 1928) 123-126.21 Op. cit. 128.

22 See esp. papyri 1, 2. On this name cf. Van Hoonacker, Une Communaut6






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NIUn (32: 3). Furthermore, UNn4 occurs in a large number

of personal names where it certainly is to be taken as a theo-phorous element, comparable with similar names of Elephantine:[l]VU5Snt1> 40 R. 1); 23 1 (18 Col. I, 6); 24 jne5Sn; .>who is the son of n (34: 5); MNIVZ, the father of 1n1n1(34: 4) ; ZpD)5NM= (17: 9); TMnl= (16: 8) ; and CIN5Snll(25: 6, 10).

Bethel was undoubtedly a deity in Elephantine, and 5MVWIYV,

5NMZ=N. and 5MVZVIM are to be taken as names of doubledeities (not necessarily androgynous compounds), comparable to

lj41 (32: 3) of Elephantine, V=111Wy of the Mesha Inscrip-tion (1. 17), and other Semitic divinities.25 It is very probablytrue, as Van Hoonacker suggests,26 that Bethel and the otherdeities named here, except 1'14, were only privately worshippedand were not accorded official recognition. But, the private wor-ship of individuals is often more important for the study of popu-lar religion than the official cult.

One of the latest evidences for the deity Bethel is found in the

writings of Philo Byblius. This author is said by Suidas to havebeen born in the reign of Nero. ile wrote, therefore, in the latterpart of the first century A. D., or the early part of the second cen-tury. The writings of Philo Byblius have been lost and are pre-served for us only in the works of the early Christian fathers,especially in Eusebius's Praeparatio Evangelica. Philo is said tohave translated into Greek a work on Phoenician history by San-

Jud&o-Aram6ene a El6phantine, en 9gypte, aux Vje et Ve sivecles av. J.-C.(Schweich Lectures, 1914, London) 52 f.

28 The reading of Cowley. The daleth is uncertain in the reproduction ofSachau.

24 Also the reading of Cowley. The name may be, of course, simply 'Rl-narf,but apparently this reconstruction fills well the lacuna.

25 Albright, AJSL 41 (1925) 92-101, has given a somewhat differentinterpretation of these deities. He interprets them as really "attributes ofdeity." Egem-bet'jl is the hypostasized "name of God"; fIerem-bgt'el isthe "sacredness of God"; 'Anat-bet'et = 'Anat-Yahu is the "providence(or predestination) of God." To the

presentwriter it

seems that theseare excellent explanations of the origin of some of these names, but thatthe original significance had been lost in most cases and they were lookedupon by the Elephantine Jews as simply gods, whose origin was forgottenby them.

26 Op. cit. 76-77.






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86 J. Philip Hyatt

chuniathon who, Eusebius says, lived before the time of the

Trojans. Scholars have been divided on the question of the au-

thenticity both of Sanchuniathon and of Philo. It seems best,however, to consider the work of Philo as being fairly authentic,

particularly in view of the undoubted Semitic elements in it.

Sanchuniathon also may be considered as a historical character,

although we cannot determine his date.27 This Phoenician history

includes the cosmogony and theogony of the Phoenicians. In the

theogony, Ouranos (Sky) has four children by his wife-sister, Gj

(Earth): Elos (interpreted as Kronos), Baitylos, Dagin (Siton),

and Atlas.28 Baitylos, then, is the brother of El in this system,and here is plainly a deity and not simply, as elsewhere in Philo

and in other classical writers, the name of the sacred stone. This

deity is undoubtedly to be identified with our Bethel, who is here

a memberof the Phoenician pantheon.The very latest evidence for the deity is to be found on an in-

scription discovered in 1892 at Kafr Nebo (near Aleppo), datingfrom A. D. 223. It is the dedication of an oil-press, and begins

:~IEmy Ka'&EVjpTA(O Ka't A&ORT ?EOig TarpwO.29 The second namemay be taken, with Kittel,30 as the appellative of a deity who

shared the bityl (seat of the god) with another deity, or-as is

more likely-as the equivalent of the Elephantine tMV=NK.31In summary, these sources show us that the deity Bethel was

known in Phoenicia (Tyre specifically) in the seventh century B. c.,

where he is named along with well-known Phoenician deities, and

in the time in which Sanchuniathon wrote, whenever that may

have been. He was known in Babylonia, as evidenced by theo-

phorous personal names, as early as the time of Nebuchadrezzar

27 On the authenticity of Philo and Sanchuniathon, see esp. Paton,

Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics IX 843b and XI 180-181; and Contenau,

La Civilisation Phenicienne (Paris, 1926) 100-101, 104-105. Contenau

remarks that Sanchuniathon, if historical, must have been late, since he

shows the influence of a certain amount of Greek speculation. The influ-

ence, however, may have been upon Philo rather than Sanchuniathon! The

Ras Shamra tablets make it more probable that Sanchuniathon was really

historical and possibly early; cf. Olmstead, History of Palestine and Syria

(New York, 1931) 239.28 Praeparatio Evangelica I 10. See ed. E. H. Gifford (Oxford, 1903) 36c.

29 Lidzbarski, Ephemeris f-hr semitische Epigraphik (1903-07) II 323 f.

80JBL 44 (1925) 128.

't See Eissfeldt, op. cit. 22; Cowley, op. cit. xix.






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and as late as Darius II. He was worshipped-privately, at least-

among the Jews settled in Elephantine in the fifth century, having

been brought with them into Egypt in the sixth or seventh century.Finally, he was honoured in the third century A. D., in Syria, in theneighborhood of Aleppo.

2.

Eissfeldt has conjectured, in his study of this deity, that, al-

though he was known in Palestine in the eighth century B. a., he

was in reality an old Canaanite deity whose origin must be sought

at least half a millenium earlier. Eissfeldt has supposed that hisorigin is to be found in Palestine itself. But the recently dis-

covered inscriptions of Rds Shamra furnish us with a very prob-

able explanation of the time and place of origin of this deity. The

evidence is not entirely conclusive, but at least very suggestive.It has been suggested 32 that Bethel as a deity occurs in the

mythological poem called by Virolleaud "La Naissance des Dieuxgracieux et beaux,"33 line 45. The words under consideration here

have been translated by Virolleaud and Montgomery as "house ofEl," but a better rendering has been given by Ginsberg andAlbright as "daughter(s) of El."34 This rendering suits better

the meaning of the passage as well as the parallelism of the lines.In the dialect of Ugarit, bt'el may be read, of course, either as

bet'el, "house of El (or, god)" or batel, "doughter of El (or,

god) ."

The deity under discussion may appear in one of the tablets pub-

lished in 1929, no. 14, line 1.35 In this text, the first line is btel,and each of the following lines (with the possible exception of line

10) begins with the two words bIl bt, followed by a word which

may be a proper name; in some cases the third word appears to bea gentilic.36

Dhorme has interpreted this tablet as a list of Baals which are

82 For example, by J. W. Jack, The Ras Shamra Tablets: their Bearinrg

on the Old Testament (Edinburgh, 1935) 15, 51.

88Syria 14 (1933) 128-151; plates XVIII-XIX.

84 JPOS 14 (1934) 136; Ginsberg, The Ugarit Texts (Jerusalem, 1936)82 f.

8"Syria 10 (1929) 304-310. The tablet is on PI. LXX.86 This text, and no. 10 to be mentioned below, should be compared with

the text published by Virolleaud, Syria 15 (1934) 244-251.






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88 J. Philip Hyatt

found in the temple of the god E1.37 He has been followed by

Olmstead.38 Bauer has offered another interpretation, calling the

list "Ein Verzeichnis von lleiligtUmern mit gr6ssenteils fremdar-tigen Namen." 3' Both of these are possible interpretations, and

becauseof the abbreviatedform of the text, neither can be definitely

disproved. But it is entirely possible that the first line contains

the name of a minor deity, as all the other lines apparently do. In

such case bt'el is a deity, and the whole list may be taken as a

series of deities like certain of the Akkadian texts of Rds Shamra.40

Bauer has found the divine name Bethel in a personal name of

RMsShamra.4' It is on tablet no. 10, line 16, of the group pub-lished in 1929. This tablet consists mostly of a series of personal

names,eachbeginningwith bn (1n). The last name is bn n'bt'el.Bauer has compared this with the name found in Judges 8 and

Psalm 83: 12, V=3%. This he interprets as meaning "(the god)

Mt%rules," on the basis of the parallelism between '1913 nd VI: in

Judges 9: 8, 9. He comparesalso a name in text 4, line 8, krbn'

(which should now be read mrbn). The Ras Shamra name might

be explained as meaning " Bethel rules," or " the rule of Bethel."It is theoretically possible, however, that in the last two cases

the reading should be batel, " daughter of El," rather than bet'el.

But, the probability that in both of the latter cases we actually do

have a deity Bethel is strengthened by certain historical considera-

tions, and by comparison of the original meaning of such a deity

with certain other deities or theological ideas of Rds Shamra.42

87 Revue Biblique 40 (1931) 49.

88 Op. cit. 237.39Entzifferung d. Keilschrifttafeln v. Ras Schamra. (Halle, 1930) 73.

'4 See Virolleaud, Syria, 10 (1929) 304." Bauer, op. cit. 70, 72; ZAW 51 (1933) 82; OLZ 1930 cols. 589-590.

42 In the poem " Les Chasses de Baal," published by Virolleaud in Syria

16 (1935) 247-266, there occurs in Col. II, line 61, the phrase qr . bt 'eW.

Similarly in the Danel legend (see Ch. Virolleaud, La 16gende phenicienne

de Danel, Paris, 1936) I 153, is the phrase gr bt 'eW.In both cases Virolleaud

translates " 'hote de la maison de El," on the supposition that g and q are

interchangeable. Montgomery, however, has offered a better translation of

the first of these, " Fount of the House of God," in JAGS 56 (1936) 226-227.

Virolleaud may be correct in the second instance, where he thinks the

phrase may designate Aqhat. In neither case is btet to be considered as

a god, but if the meaning which Virolleaud proposes is correct in the second

instance, the expression may represent one of the stages by which the






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Of the places in which we have found the god in the first part of

this paper, it is striking that the occurrences are most frequent in

Syria, or specifically Phoenicia. The Esarhaddon Treaty is with aking of Tyre; Philo professes to be translating a work on Phoeni-

cian history or theology; and the Kafr Nebo inscription is from

Syria. On the other hand, the deity cannot be native to Baby-lonia, as we have seen, for the form of writing the earlier theo-phorous names shows that the deity is non-Babylonian. And, of

course, the god is not native to Elephantine, but was brought there

by the Jewish colonists in the sixth or seventh century B. C. We

should expect, therefore, to find the deity originally in Syria orPhoenicia.

The probability that Bethel had his origin in Phoenicia isheightened by a comparison of the gods found in the work of PhiloByblius with the gods thus far identified in the texts of Rds

Shamra.43 Such a comparison is likely to increase our respect forthe authenticity of Philo-Sanchuniathon as well as show thatPhilo's Baitylos had his origin in the second millenium B. c. at the

same time as many of his other deities. The comparison can bemade, of course, only between the Rds Shamra divinities and thoseof Philo which bear obviously Semitic names. Philo's Blioun isprobably a development of the Ugaritic 'Al'eyan, as Albright haspointed out.44 los plays a prominent part in the system of Philo,

being identified with the Greek Kronos, said to have been thefounder of Byblos. He is undoubtedly the Semitic El, in RdsShamra the proper name of god, as well as a common noun for"god." Philo's Dagon (Siton) is Ras ShamnraDgn. Astarte,identified by Philo with the Greek Aphrodite, and the greatest ofthe goddesses, appears also in the Rds Shamra lists, 'ttrt. A son ofEl and Rhea in Philo's system is named Mouth, interpreted asThanatos or Pluto; this is the Rds Shamra Mt (Moit). We evenhave in Philo a Zeus Bilos, a remembranceof Ba'al; and Baaltis(another name for Dionj), a remembrance of the Ugaritic B'lt.

"house of El" became personified and deified (see below). In the Danel

legend II i 33, ii 5, 22, btel apparently means the temple of El or its

personnel, although here the usage seems close to personification.

"SOn the deities of Rds Shamra, see Bauer ZAW 51 (1933) 81-101, and

53 (1935) 54-59; Dussaud, RHR 104 (1931) 353-408, and 105 (1932) 245-

302; and J. Friedrich, Ras Schamra (Der Alte Orient 33 1/2 1933) 34-37.

"JPOS 12 (1932) 190f.






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90 J. Philip Hyatt

There are only two or three of the gods and goddesses of Philo

which do not appear also in the pantheon of Rds Shamra.45

There are several deities, or appellatives of deities, in the Rds

Shamra pantheon which show theological speculation, or perhaps it

is better to say religious psychology, similar to that of bt'el, if the

latter is a deification of the temple of El. One of the deities is

dr'el, which is interpreted by some scholars as "the dwelling of

El" (D5r El).46 A clearer example is the name 'tr btl applied to

the goddess "Anatin the poem I AB col. ii, lines 9, 30. This term

means literally " shrine of Ba'al." Furthermore, the goddess 'trt

(Ashirtu, Ashirat) has the full name rbt 'atrt ym (rabbat 'atiratyam) in I AB col. i, line 53 (16). This name means literally " the

Lady, sanctuary of the sea." Formerly, one might have added

the name zbl bcl 'ars, a designation of 'Al'eyan Ba'al. Zbl was first

translated as "abode," but Ginsberg, Albright, and others have

offered a more convincing rendering as "the exalted one." "

With these historical considerationsand this comparisonof other

theological usages in Rds Shamra, we may with a high degree of

confidence assert that there was actually a deity Bethel in thepantheon of ancient ITgarit. Text 14 may very possibly contain

this deity, and the personal name bn ntbt'el very probably is a

theophorous formation with the name of the deity, as Bauer has

suggested.The origin of the god Bethel, therefore, is to be attributed to the

second millenium and, if not to the religion of Ugarit itself, to the

religion of the territory of Syria or Syria-Palestine which is best

representedto us by the Rds Shamra documents. The date of these

documents according to the excavators is the fourteenth century

B. C.4 Albright prefers a date about a century and a half earlier,

C. 1500.50 Whatever the exact date of the tablets, the mythology

and theology which they represent were not invented when the

tablets were written, but present the result of a development of

45Apparently the following: Melkathros (Heracles; Melqart?), SfUdukos

and possibly ledoud.

4'Bauer, ZAW 51 (1933) 82; Dussaud, RHR 104 (1931)360.

47Albright, JPOS 12 (1932) 192-194.48 Albright, JPOS 16 (1936) 17-18; cf. the interpretation of Graham,

Journal of Religion 14 (1934) 327.

'9Schaeffer, Syria 14 (1933) 112-114.

60 BASOR no. 63 (Oct. 1936) p. 26.






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several centuries, probably from the early part of the second mil-

lennium or the latter part of the third.

There must have been several stages in the development of thedeity Bethel. With the material now at our disposal, it is not pos-

sible to trace all the stages of this development, but we may con-

jecture that they were approximately as follows: In the firstinstance, bet 'el (or, 'eli) was used for "house of a god" or" temple." But the term would have been used especially for the

temple of El, who was one of the major gods in the Canaanitepantheon. In the ancient Orient, as also in many other parts of

the world, the temple or sanctuary of the deity was considered asvery sacred, and itself became an object of reverence. In time,then, "temple of El (or, god)" would be used for El, or perhapsanother god, the inhabitant of the temple.5" Then, finally, thetemple itself would be not only personified but even deified, and socould be conceived as a deity in the abstract sense, apart from its

being the abode of a specific god. When this final stage was

reached, Bethel was a deity that might be named in addition to

El, Ba'al and other divinities whom the people worshipped andpropitiated. Just when this stage was reached we cannot be sure,

but evidently by the time that the Rds Shamra documents werewritten, in the fourteenth or fifteenth century B. C., so that anindividual of Ugarit could be given a name which meant " Bethelrules."

The term may have been used in one of the early stages of de-

velopment as a circumlocution of El, but probably not for thereason that the Jews in the later period of their religion used

mdqom and other circumlocutions for Yahweh,-that is, becausethe name Yahweh was considered too sacred to be pronounced. Inthe Rds Shamra texts and in other religions where El was a deity,it does not seem that the pronunciation of the name was thus

feared; in the Rds Shamra poems, El is often named along withother deities. Bethel became a deity primarily because of the rever-ence felt for the sanctuary of El.

The religious psychology which produced the deification of the

temple was not confined to Ugarit or to Syria. Many examples ofit may be produced from other Semitic countries and many ages.Kittel has pointed out the parallel development of the goddess tWlp

51 Cf. the phrases discussed in note 42 above.






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92 J. Philip Hyatt

(Qadesh), and the deity CIMif the proper vocalization is :Iararm

" sanctuary,"rather than ierem (Hebrew, " ban n).52

In Mesopotamia,the temples were personifiedor virtually deified,as may be shown by a study of proper names given to individuals.

We often find that the name of a specific temple is used in a

proper name in the same place and with the same significance as a

divine name, the latter being, however, more often used. For

example, even in the period of the First Dynasty of Babylon, there

was a name Eanna-iddinnam, " Eanna has given to me (a child)." 3

The Assyrian form of Tiglathpileser is Tu1culti-apal-Egarra," My

strength (is) the son of Esarra." Names of this type became fre-quent in the Neo-Babylonian and Late Babylonian periods. To

give only a few examples: Eanna-s'um-ibni,54Eanna-bani-ahi,66

Eklur-zaleir,56anna-s'ar-usur,57 zida-s4um-utkn,58nd Esagila-zjr-

ibni.59 Some of these names may indeed be abbreviations; the last-

named may, for example, be an abbreviation for Ina-Esagila-zjr-

ibni,60but such an explanation does not fit all of these names. It

is more probable that the name of the temple was used in place of

the god worshippedat that particular temple.A similar usage of the name of the temple may be seen in a

phrase which occurs in some of the letters of the Harper corpus.

In a few of the letters the following sentence forms a part of the

introductory salutation: Uruickiu Eanna ana sar matati beliia

likrubftu, May Uruk and Eanna be gracious to the king of coun-

tries, my lord." 61 Usually in this formula the names of gods

occur, but here both the city Uruk and the temple of Eanna are

apparently used in place of a deity, probably Ishtar, the goddess

who was worshippedin Eanna.

2JBL 44 (1925) 125ff.

C8Ranke, Early Babylonian Personal Names (Philadelphia, 1905) 83.

c'Dougherty, Archives from Erech Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods

(Goucher College Cuneiform Inscriptions II) 102: 15.

""Ibid. 366: 16.

5o Tremayne, op. cit. 54: 5.

7Ibid. 89: 9, 14.

58Keiser, Letters and Contracts from Erech (BIN I) 109: 14.

C Strassmaier, Inschriften. von Nabonidus 633: 2. [Here may be added

the names with (A) yaku-" shrine." E. A. S.]IOTallquist, Neubabylonisches Namenbuch 60.I1 Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian Letters 266, 268, 269, 274, 277 (all

Babylonian letters).






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From these personal names and this epistolary formula we maysee that the name of the temple was used in Mesopotamia, evenfrom a very early period, in a personified sense. It would prob-ably be an exaggerationto say that the temple itself was deified, forthe determinative for deity is never used with these temple-names,but the step from personification to deification is very short.

Many other examples might be given, both from the ancientSemitic East and from other parts of the world, but these willsufficeto illustrate the religious psychology which led to the deifica-tion of the temple shown in the deity Bethel.

3.

If we may conclude, with a fair degree of assurance, that therewas a deity with the name Bethel in Syria in the second millenniumB. C.,-perhaps the middle of that millennium,-what bearing hasthis conclusion upon the Old Testament?

Dussaud, in his book Les origines cananeenes du sacrifice israe-lite (Paris, 1921) pp. 231-243, has maintained that the deity ap-

pears many times in the Old Testament: Jer. 48: 13; Amos 3: 14;8: 14; Hosea 10: 8; Gen. 28: 17, 22; 31: 13, 53; 33: 20; 46: 3.Dussaud interpreted the god Bethel as a local form of the greatAmorite and Syrian deity iadad, who invariably accompanied abull or was simply represented by that animal. He thought thatBethel was the god of Isaac and Jacob-Israel, and that the Elohistin Gen. 31 and elsewheresought to legitimise the cult of that deityin the eyes of the Israelites. There were at least three appearances

of Bethel to Jacob: at the city Bethel (the name of which wasprobably originally Beth-Bethel, Gen. 28), at ilarran (Gen. 31),and at Mahanaim (Gen. 32). Jacob finally returned to the citywhere the deity first appeared to him and there fulfilled his vow bybuilding an altar to the god and naming the place El-Bethel (Gen.35). Dussaud summarized his theory as follows: ". . . si la tradi-tion judeene rattachait 'a Abraham et a Yahve les vieux sanctuaireslocaux, Sichem, Bethel, ll6bron, Beersabee, Jerusalem, I'anciennetradition ephraimite attribuait a ITsaac 'institution du culte duDieu Bethel a Beersabee, et a Jacob celle du meme culte a Bethel,Mahanaim et Sichem, la premiere capitale du Royaume duNord." 2

da See now Dussaud's more recent remarks in RHR 104 (1931) 360, note






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94 J. Philip Hyatt

Dussaud's theory regarding the deity, especially in the Genesis

passages, has found little acceptance among other scholars, chiefly

because it is based upon too thorough-going and too radical re-

constructions of the Hebrew text.63 The discussion has centered

mostly aroundtwo passages, Gen. 31: 13 and 35: 7. The Masoretic

text of Gen. 31: 13a is as follows: n tYM 'ItY11 '$M 1$:3

'il Mt 49 M13 'W$ irSr UV. The more natural translation

would seem to be: " I am the god, Bethel, where you anointed a

massibcih (and) where you vowed to me a vow." Such an apposi-

tional translation of beth-'Wts given by Dussaud who, however,

amends the text on the basis of the LXX to read: " I am the god,Bethel, who appeared to thee in the place where you anointed a

massebah" etc. He points to the parallel usage of ha-ze YIWI

in Is. 42: 5 and Ps. 85: 9. Dussaud has been followed by Gress-

mann.64 Baudissin and Kittel have objected strongly to this in-

terpretation. Baudissin places no reliance upon the LXX-text, but

objects upon grammatical grounds to the translation. He thinks

that the phrase hd-'jl beth-'el is an elision for he-'el 3 beth-j1."5

Kittel emends the text on the basis of the LXX to read: " I amthe god who appearedto thee in Bethel, where you anointed for me

a massibah," etc. He furthermore maintains that the translation

"the god, Bethel " is unhebrdisch.6"

The Masoretictext of Gen. 35: Tbreads tW-n4 N ?1= .

Dussaud sees in this also a reference to the god Bethel, and Jirku

says that it is "eine richtige Erinnerung an diese Gottheit."67

Again, this has been opposed by Baudissin, Kittel, and others. It

is noted that the Greek,Syriac, and Vulgate omit '31before beth-'_l.

But the more important objection is that it is clearly the place

which Jacob called El-Bethel, not the god.

Eissfeldt has objected to the interpretations of Dussaud on the

ground that the context in both cases requires that Bethel be a

place-name rather than a divine name (note especially the use of

3aser ... sam in the firstpassage).

1: "On voit maintenant que, dans les recits concernant Jacob, El et Betel

sont interchangeables et representent la meme entitk."

es See esp. the criticisms by Eissfeldt, op. cit. 6; Baudissin, Marti Fest-

schrift (Giessen, 1925) 1-11; Kittel, JBL 44 (1925) 138ff.

4 OLZ 1922 cols. 455-458.Il Op. cit. 1-11.Il Op. cit. 140 ff. 7 ZAW 39 (1921) 158 f.






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From this brief summary, it is clear that Bethel in these pas-

sages is more likely to be the name of the place rather than thename of the god, although it must be admitted that the evidence

is not entirely conclusive for either interpretation. Here it mayonly be pointed out that, if the god Bethel was known in Ugarit in

the middle of the second millennium, it is entirely possible that such

a deity was known also in Palestine in the patriarchal period, espe-

cially if we accept the date of c. 1500 B. o. maintained by Bdhl forAbraham.68 From the present evidence we cannot determine

whether the deity was first known in Ugarit and then its cult car-

ried into Palestine, or whether both Syria and Palestine receivedthe cult from an older Semitic source; to the present writer theformer alternative seems more probable, at least on the basis of the

extant sources.The discussion of the deity in the pre-Israelite period cannot be

separatedfrom a discussion of the city Bethel. The Old Testamentrepresents it as having been occupied in the patriarchal era, al-though its earlier name had been LiUz (Gen. 28: 19; 35: 6; 48: 3;

Judges 1: 23). The campaign of the Kyle Memorial Excavation atBethel has shown that the city was first occupied near the end ofthe Early Bronze Age, not later than the twenty-first century, andthat it was occupied during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, fall-ing into Israelite hands in the thirteenth century.69 We do notknow when the name was changed from Liz to Bethel. Albrighthas mentioned a theory once advanced (but never published) byAlt, that Liz (or Loz) was originally the name of Ai (et-Tell)and that Bethel was the old Canaanite name of the city under con-

sideration.70 It is known that the fortunes of Bethel and Ai werebound together; Ai was not occupied after its destruction in thelate Early Bronze Age (preceding the foundation of Bethel) untilthe twelfth century. The biblical account of the fall of Ai prob-ably applies really to Bethel.

This theory is attractive, but cannot be definitely proved or dis-proved. It would seem more probablethat the name Lizz was firstattached to Bethel and that some time in the second millennium the

name was changed-by the Canaanites, not by Jacob, in all prob-

88 Das Zeitalter Abrahams (Der Alte Orient 29, 1, 1931) 19.69Albright, BASOR no. 56 (Dec. 1934) pp. 2-15.

70Ibid. 11.






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96 J. Philip h1yatt

ability-to Bethel. This name has usually been interpreted to

mean "House of El." But Baudissin has maintained that the

name must be an abbreviationfor either "the place of the bethel

(sacred stone)" or "the place of the god Bethel." Since I shall

attempt to show later that the term beth-'l was not applied to the

stone but only to the place (or the god), the former interpretation

is excluded. We may consider it highly probable that the town

was renamed for the god Bethel, because of the cult of the deity

there, and that its early name may really have been Beth-Bethel, as

Dussaud suggested. Dussaud pointed out the parallel of Batal-

Me'on as an abbreviation for Beth-Ba'al-Melon71 (Nu. 32: 38;Jos. 13: 17, etc.; cf. Mesha Inscription, 1. 30). Beth-Bethel is

a name which would very readily be shortened to simply Bethel.

Eissfeldt has maintained that the name of the deity is to be

found in Amos 3: 14b; 5: 5; and losea 10: 8, 15; 12: 5. He sup-

ports his position with a number of arguments based upon gram-

matical usage and upon religious history. As he says, one of the

reasons for the great opposition of the eighth-century prophets to

the cult of the city of Bethel and the religious practices of thenorthern kingdom was that they knew the god honoured under the

appearance of Yahweh was fundamentally a non-Yahwistic deity,

the old Canaanite god Bethel.

One passage in the Old Testament where almost all scholarshave

agreed that the deity Bethel, rather than the city, occurs is Jere-

miah 48: 13.72 This passages is as follows:

"And Moab shall be ashamed of Kemosh,

As the house of Israel was ashamedof Bethel, their confidence."Here the parallelism of the lines requires that Bethel be considered

as the god of Israel (the northern kingdom), just as Kemosh was

the god of Moab.73

Finally, the god Bethel occurs in a theophorous name in Zech-

ariah 7: 2, Bethel-sar-eser. I have elsewhere discussed this verse

and pointed out a Neo-Babylonian parallel to the name.7

71 Les origines cananeenes 234.72 Baudissin, op. cit. 3; Dussaud, Les origines cananeenes 234; Eissfeldt,

op. cit. 10-12; Kittel, op. cit. 139.

73This passage is usually considered as post-exilic, but Eissfeldt has

offered convincing proof for a date between 722 and 586.

74JBL 56 (1937) 387-394.






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4.

In conclusion, a few words should be added on the relationshipbetween the foregoing and the familiar baetyls of Greekand Latinwriters. This is a subject which one would like to avoid, for it isa very complex and confusing one. I shall confine myself to a veryfew remarks.

As long ago as 1903, the late Professor George F. Moore devotedan article to the " Baetylia " in The American Journal of Archae-ology 7. 198-208. According to him, the earliest mention of the

/3astvAot or favnrXa is in Philo Byblius, who called them ALOovg,uoxovs. Moore pointed out that the proper meaning of this term

is stones " endowed with the power of self-motion." After a fairlyexhaustive study of the occurrences in Philo, Damascius, the Ety-mologicum Magnum, and other sources, he concluded: " the name

l3al-rvAotwas appropriated to certain small stones of peculiar char-

acter, to which various daemonic-or, as we might say, magical-properties were ascribed; they moved about, talked, or otherwiseanswered questions, and afforded a powerful protection to theirpossessors. There is no evidence that the name was anywhere ap-plied to the ordinary holy stones,-cones, pillars, omphaloi, orthe like." Furthermore, he said, " in no Semitic language is theword bith-il or its equivalent used to designate the rude standingstones, pillars, obelisks, and the like which were found at everyplace of worship."

The latter statement leads us to the observation-very signifi-cant, but usually overlooked-that even in the legends of Jacob,

the name beth-'el is never applied strictly to the stone which heerectedand anointed. It is appliedalwaysto the place (1|),75

which in view of the statement in Gen. 28: 19b is probably to beinterpreted as meaning the city (u18V;1). The nearest approach to

calling the stone beth-'el is in Gen. 28: 22. At the conclusion ofhis vow, in which Jacob asks that the god shall be with him,protect him in his way, give him bread and clothing, and allowhim to return to his father's house in peace, Jacob promises that

if the god grants him these blessings, then he (Jacob) will takethe god for his own and, as vs. 22 reads, nI-NX nts' 7nllnts etII= MM, : "and this stone which I have set up as a

75Gen. 28: 19; 35: 7, 15; etc.

7






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98 J. Philip Hyatt

massibah shall become a beth 'elohim." The last clause is most

naturally interpreted as a vow that Jacob will make of the massjbdh

(which is the correctname for the stone!) a temple or sanctuary-

a vow which he did fulfill, according to Gen. 35: 1-7, where we read

that he returned to Bethel and there built an altar.76

In view of these facts, Eissfeldt is justified when he affirmsthat

the baetyls of the Greek writers are an independent, parallel de-

velopment.77 This is not to deny that the word may be of Semitic

origin, and that the baetyl may have had its origin among the

Phoenicians. But it is necessary to make a distinction between the

god Bethel and the name applied to these stones which had a specialcharacter.78

7 The words b.~th 'elohim (or beth hI-'el6him) are not frequently used

with the meaning " temple " until late (especially in Chronicles), but

beth h4-'el6him is used in Judges 18: 31 of the shrine at Shiloh, possibly

pointing to an early usage.

It is now known, from archaeological remains, that there were temples

in Palestine in all phases of the Bronze Age (espcially the Late Bronze),

many of which included masseb6th as cult objects; see Watzinger, Denk-

mdiler Paldstinas I (Leipzig, 1933) 64-67 and Albright, JPOS 16 (1936)

53-54.77 Op. cit. 24-29. It should be noted, however, that Eissfeldt's reasons

for this conclusion are somewhat different from those given above, and

that his theory of the origin of the god is different from the present writer's.

8 On the nature of the masseb6th in general, see Burrows JPOS 14

(1934) 42-51. He concludes that the function of the massobah "is usually

if not always, in part at least, to commemorate a person or an event," but

notes that Jacob's stone has a somewhat special character. Wainwright,

Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement 1934, pp. 32-44, attempts

to prove that Jacob's stone was " a sacred meteorite, or an omphalos its

substitute." The biblical evidence does not seem to the present writer to

support this theory.

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