(1) I still don't see the connection to Easter.
(2) Herodotus does what many Greeks did - he syncretizes Greek deities to tribal deities elsewhere. But we should be careful not to imagine that Greek myths about gods were identical to other tribal myths about similar gods. Herodotus also identifies Aphrodite with Nephthys and Alilat. Greek myths about Aphrodite were not identical to Babylonian myths about Ishtar or Canaanite myths about Astarte. Just because Herodotus may syncretize Aphrodite with Ishtar does not mean that the two were actually identical. Nor should we imagine that a deity local to some region retained a stagnant identity through time. Ishtar in early Sumer and Mesopotamia may be different from Ishtar in later Babylonian periods. Nor do Aphrodite's identity and myths remain stagnant through time in Greece.
In any case, on this thread, we're interested in Ishtar specifically and her supposed origins for the Christian Easter.
-Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, K. Van Der Toorn
My interest was in correcting inaccuracies in Rachel's post, on the assumption that readers of that post, and perhaps Rachel, herself, might be interested in an accurate presentation.
Easter does not directly correlate with Ishtar. (correct) Easter does directly correlate with Oester
; a fertility Goddess, known as goddess of the East. The fertility goddess of the East can only be Astarte.
The Jewish Encyclopedia, a work of reputable scholarship definitely identifies Ishtar and Astarte as identical:
The unedited full-text of the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia
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ASTARTE WORSHIP AMONG THE HEBREWS:
Astarte as a Sphynx.(From Prisse d'Avennes, "Histoire de l'Art Egyptien.")
Astarte is the Phenician name of the primitive Semitic mother-goddess, out of which the most important of the Semitic deities were developed. She was known in Arabia as "Athtar," and inBabylonia as "Ishtar." Her name appears in the Old Testament (I Kings xi. 5; II Kings xxiii. 13) as "Ashtoreth," a distortion of "Ashtart," made after the analogy of "Bosheth" (compare Jastrow, in "Jour. Bibl. Lit." xiii. 28, note). Solomon is said to have built a high place to her near Jerusalem, which was removed during Josiah's reform (I Kings xi. 5, 33; II Kings xxiii. 12). Astarte is called in these passages "the abomination of the Zidonians," because, as the inscriptions of Tabnith and Eshmunazer show, she was the chief divinity of that city (see Hoffmann, "Phönizische Inschriften," 57, and "C. I. S." No. 3). In Phenician countries she was the female counterpart of Baal, and was no doubt worshiped with him by those Hebrews who at times became his devotees. This is proved by the fact that Baalim and Ashtaroth are used several times (Judges x. 6; I Sam. vii. 4, xii. 10) like the Assyrian "ilani u ishtarati" for "gods and goddesses."
Astarte as the Goddess of Love.(From Ball, "Light from the East.")
Astarte, wherever worshiped, was a goddess of fertility and sexual love. A trace of this among the Hebrews appears in Deut. vii. 13, xxviii. 4, 18, where the lambs are called the "ashtarot" of the flock. It is usually assumed that Astarte Worship was always a foreign cult among the Hebrews; but analogy with the development of other Semitic deities, like the Phenician Baal, would lead to the supposition that Astarte Worship before the days of the Prophets may have somewhat prejudiced that of Yhwh. The problem is a difficult one, the references to the cult in the Old Testament being so few and so vague. The reaction against Baal and Astarte, inaugurated by the Prophets, had a profound effect upon the moral life of Israel (see "Jour. Bibl. Lit." x. 72-91; Budde, "Religion of Israel," ch. ii-v.). Jeremiah (vii. 18; xliv. 17, 18) and Ezekiel (viii. 14) attest various forms of this worship in their time, which may refer to a direct importation from Babylonia. The sacrificial use of swine's blood (Isa. lxv. 4, lxvi. 3) may be a reference to a form of the cult similar to that known in Cyprus, where swine were sacred to Astarte ("Jour. Bibl. Lit." x. 74, and "Hebraica," x. 45, 47).
Astarte with Dove.(From a Phenician terra-cotta in the Musee du Louvre, Paris.)
Bibliography:
E. Meyer, Astarte, in Roscher, Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie;
Barton, in Hebraica, ix. 133-165, x. 1-74;
idem, Semitic Origins, ch. vii.;
W. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, Index.
See also Ashtoreth.
Astarte has been associated with both Aphrodite/Venus, and with Artemis/Diana:
Goddess in the Spotlight
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line drawing of a gold pendant from 1500 BCE with Goddess Astarte and animals
Gold pendant,
possibly Astarte. Ugarit. 1500-1200/1150 BCE.
Drawing © Stéphane Beaulieu, after Toorn 1998:86, #31 Used with permission. (larger image)
Astarte
Goddess of Fertility, Beauty, War, and Love
Known in the ancient Levant as Ashtart and in the Hebrew Bible as Ashtereth, the beautiful Astarte may owe many of her characteristics to Mesopotamian Ishtar, as the similarity in their names proclaims. Like Ishtar, Astarte seems to have had strong connections with both war and love/sexuality. In historical times, she received offerings in ancient Ugarit in Syria; her name appears forty-six times in texts from that city. One of her main centers was Byblos, where she was identified with Egyptian goddesses Hathor and Isis. In the second millennium BCE, Astarte was, like Anat, a war goddess of the Egyptians (Patai 1990:56). Large numbers of ancient Israelites revered her, and versions of her name occur at least nine times in the Hebrew Bible. She was also an important deity of the Phoenician towns of Tyre and Sidon, whence she and her veneration spread with Phoenician merchants throughout the Mediterranean (Patai 1990:55-66).
The Ugaritic poems present Astarte as a model of beauty and usually associate her closely with Baal, the storm god, for she consistently supports his cause (Coogan 1978:61, 65, 74, 89, 116). On at least five occasions the mythic material pairs her with Anat, perhaps an indication that the two goddesses were already beginning to meld into one another. Yet, since Astarte's name occurs quite often in offering and deity lists, it is clear that she had an important, if not central place in ritual and sacrifice (Olmo Lete 1999:71). An enormous number of female images originated from the excavations at Ugarit, and scholars have labeled many of them as Astarte. However, to date, no one has been able to demonstrate that they actually represent Astarte.
The Hebrew form of Astarte's name ashtereth, which occurs only three times in the Hebrew Bible, resulted from the deliberate replacement of the vowels in the last two syllables of the goddess's name with the vowels from the Hebrew noun bosheth, "shame" (Day 2000:128; Buttrick 1990:I,255). According to Patai, the "original meaning of the name Astarte was 'womb' or 'that which issues from the womb,'" an appropriate title for a fertility goddess (Patai 1990:57). In statements about Syro-Canaanite religion, the Biblical texts often couple the ashteroth, "the Astartes," with the baalim, "the Baals," an indication that the writers knew that many local versions of these deities existed. However, this repeated connection of Astarte and Baal has led some scholars to conclude that the Hebrew Bible understood Astarte to be Baal's consort (Day 2000:131; Patai 1990:57). If she were his consort, she too should have associations with fertility.
Astarte's name also occurs in the Hebrew Bible as part of a place name, Ashteroth Karnaim, karnaim meaning "of the two horns" (Genesis 14:5). Ashteroth Karnaim, perhaps the "full old name of the city," (Patai 1990:57), was probably a temple center where Astarte was worshipped as a two-horned deity. In support of this suggestion, Patai points to a mold from a shrine in Israel depicting a goddess with two horns. Dated between the eighteenth and the sixteenth centuries BCE, the mold shows a naked goddess in a high, conical hat. She has two horns, one on each side of her head (Patai 1990:57, Plate 9).
Two passages in the Book of Jeremiah (7.17-18 and 44.15-19) refer to ancient Israelite worship of a "Queen of Heaven." These passages provide a very rare glimpse into ritual practices of Judahite popular religion. Around the turn of the seventh century BCE, Jeremiah preaches to Israelite exiles in Egypt. To his horror whole families, with women in the lead, were making offerings to a goddess. They poured libations, built fires, and baked "cakes [kawwanim] for the Queen of Heaven" (Jer.7:18). The scholarly literature presents a number of theories about who the "Queen of Heaven" was (Toorn 1998:83-88; Patai 1990:64). However, since "Queen of Heaven" was one of the many titles of the Mesopotamian goddess Inanna-Ishtar, for whom worshippers also made cakes [kamanu], it is possible that the goddess in the Jeremiah passages was Astarte (Toorn and Horst 1999:678-679; Patai 1990:64).
line drawing of a clay cult stand from the 9th century GCE with Goddess Astarte and animals
Clay cult stand.
Taanach, Israel.
Late ninth century BCE.
Drawing © Stéphane Beaulieu, after Gadon 1989:174, #97. Used with permission. (larger image)
An elaborate terra-cotta cult stand from ancient Taanach in northern Israel may have been used in the worship of Astarte (Gadon 1989:174, Figure 97). Just over twenty-one inches in height, it dates to the tenth century BCE, during the period when the Israelites were establishing themselves in the land (Hadley 2000:169). In the center of the bottom level, as if underpinning everything, stands a naked goddess controlling two flanking lions. The second register contains an empty, door-like space flanked by winged sphinxes wearing goddess locks. On the next level, two ibexes nibble at a sacred tree, a scene which is flanked by lions. The top register is occupied by a quadruped, either a bull calf or a young horse, which strides between two door posts. Above it is a rayed or winged sun disc.
Explanations of the stand vary from understanding it as totally Canaanite to its being an Israelite cult object dedicated to the Israelite deity and a consort (Hadley 2000:169-176). There is, however, general agreement that the piece models a temple to the deities or deity depicted on the façade, with the tiers displaying temple scenes (Hadley 2000:171-172).
Interpreted strictly as a Canaanite cult object, the Taanach stand depicts either important Canaanite deities, female and male; or goddesses alone; or even a single goddess. In these views, the bottom level shows the naked goddess and the third level from the bottom her symbol, the sacred tree. The empty space on level two is a doorway into the shrine, and the door posts on level four frame either a temple entrance or the "holy of holies" (Hadley 2000:172). Between these posts, either the Canaanite god El or the storm god Baal Hadad manifests himself in the form of a bull calf (Hadley 2000:172-173).
Since a goddess is central to the symbolism of the Taanach stand, I would argue that a goddess is there also in the door on level two and the animal on level four. The symbolism of the cult stand suggests that this Levantine goddess is very similar to the Mesopotamian great goddess Inanna-Ishtar (Stuckey 2001:92-94). The female figure on the bottom register underpins everything; she is the foundation of all and so queen of heaven, earth, and underworld. She is both life and death, the latter present in the menacing lions which she controls. Above her, there looms both the door to her shrine and the mystic entrance to her realm both on earth and in the underworld. More important, it is the symbol of her essential nature: like Sumerian Inanna, she embodies change (Stuckey 2001:95). To enter into her realm is to undergo transformation, whether by dying on the battlefield, being born, falling in love, engaging in sexual activity, or leaving the ordinary and, through ritual, entering sacred time and space.
The tree on level three is yet another statement of the goddess's presence, and, like her, it has its branches in the heavens, its trunk on the earth, and its roots reaching toward the world beneath the earth (Stuckey 2001:101). The animal on the fourth level, which I think may be a bull calf, probably represents her consort, the storm god, whose function it is to bring rain to fertilize the earth so that the life cycle can go on. Given what we know about Canaanite religion in the first millennium BCE, I would assign the Taanach stand tentatively to Astarte, who seems, at that time, to have been consort of the storm god Baal (Patai 1990:56-57).
Devotion to Astarte was prolonged by the Phoenicians, descendants of the Canaanites, who occupied a small territory on the coast of Syria and Lebanon in the first millennium BCE. From cities such as Byblos, Tyre, and Sidon, they set forth by sea on long trading expeditions, and, venturing far into the western Mediterranean, they even reached Cornwall in England (Tubbs 1998:140-141). Wherever they went, they established trading posts and founded colonies, the best known of which was in North Africa: Carthage, the rival of Rome in the third and second centuries BCE (Tubbs 1998:142-145). Of course they took their deities with them. Hence, Astarte became much more important in the first millennium BCE than she had been in the second millennium BCE (Patai 1990:56-57). In Cyprus, where the Phoenicians arrived in the ninth century BCE, they built temples to Astarte, and it was on Cyprus that she was first identified with Greek Aphrodite (Friedrich 1978).
The Greco-Roman period saw another great Levantine goddess called Atargatis being worshipped in the Levant and elsewhere. Her name seems to have come from a combining of the names Astarte and Anat. On the other hand, it may have resulted from a fusion of the names of all three Levantine great goddesses (Toorn and Horst 1999: 111). To the second century of our era is dated a Greek account of the "Syrian" Goddess"; the work is traditionally attributed to the satirical writer Lucian. Though the writer gives Greek names for the deities he describes, the goddess of the title is clearly Atargatis (Lucian 1976:4). The worship of Atargatis spread from Syria across the Mediterranean and lasted well into the third century of our era (Godwin 1981:150-152, 158 #124). Thus, long after she lost her independent identity, Astarte lived on in a composite "Syrian Goddess."
References & Suggested Readings
+ Buttrick, George A., ed. 1991. The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible: An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Nashville, TN: Abingdon
Coogan, Michael D., tr. 1978. Stories from Ancient Canaan. Louisville, KY: Westminster
+ Day, John 2000. Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series 265
+ Friedrich, Paul 1978. The Meaning of Aphrodite. Chicago: University of Chicago
+ Gadon, Elinor 1989. The Once and Future Goddess: A Symbol for Our Time. San Francisco: Harper and Row
+ Godwin, Joscelyn 1981. Mystery Religions in the Ancient World. London: Thames and Hudson
+ Hadley, Judith M. 2000. The Cult of Asherah in Ancient Israel and Judah: Evidence for a Hebrew Goddess. Cambridge: Cambridge University
+ Houtman, C. 1999. "Queen of Heaven...," 678-680 in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible DDD. Second Extensively Revised Edition, ed. K. van der Toorn, B. Becking, and P. W. van der Horst. Leiden: Brill
+ Lucian 1976. The Syrian Goddess (De Dea Syria) Attributed to Lucian. Ed. H.W. Attridge and R.A. Oden. Missoula, MT: Society of Biblical Literature/Scholars
+ Olmo Lete, Gregorio del 1999. Canaanite Religion According to the Liturgical Texts of Ugarit. Bethesda, MD: CDL
+ Patai, Raphael 1990 (1978). The Hebrew Goddess: Third Enlarged Edition. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University
+ Stuckey, Johanna H. 2002. ""The Great Goddesses of the Levant," Bulletin of the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies 37:27-48
+ Stuckey, Johanna H. 2001. "`Inanna and the Huluppu Tree': An Ancient Mesopotamian Narrative of Goddess Demotion," 91-105, in Feminist Poetics of the Sacred: Creative Suspicions, ed. F. Devlin-Glass and L. McCredden. Oxford: Oxford University
+ Toorn, Karel van der 1998. "Goddesses in Early Israelite Religion," 83-97, in Ancient Goddesses: The Myths and the Evidence, ed. L. Goodison and C. Morris. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin
+ Tubb, Jonathan N. 1998. Canaanites. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma
+ Wyatt, Nicolas 1999. "Astarte...," 109-114, in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, ed. K. van der Toorn, B. Becking, and P.W. van der Horst. Leiden: Brill
