A Second Temple Parallel to the Blessings from Kuntillet 'Ajrud

Author(s): JEFFREY H. TIGAY

Source: Israel Exploration Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2/3 (1990), p. 218
Published by: Israel Exploration Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27926185
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 A Second Temple Parallel to the Blessings
from Kuntillet 'Ajrud
JEFFREY H. TIGAY
University of Pennsylvania

In discussing the inscriptions from Kuntillet 'Ajrud, Z. Meshel and others have
held that in the blessings 'by YHWH of Samaria/ Teman and His/its asherah\
the term asherah refers to the cultic object of that name and not to the goddess
Asherah.1 The plausibility of this interpretation is, I believe, enhanced by a practice
of late Second Temple times in which YHWH and a personified cult object
were addressed in the same breath. According to Tannaitic sources, the altar was
addressed on the seventh day of Sukkoth: 'When they departed, what did they say?
"Praise to you, O Altar! Praise to you, O Altar!"' (Mishnah Suk. 4:5). According
to Rabbi Eliezer b. Jacob, they said 'To Yah and to you, O Altar! To Yah
and to you, O Altar!' (Tosefta Suk. 3:1 end).2
Rabbi Eliezer b. Jacob's version of the address apparently raised eyebrows in
Talmudic times, much as the Kuntillet 'Ajrud blessings have done in modern
times. The Babylonian Talmud asks whether the address does not violate the
prohibition on 'joining the name of the Lord with something else' ? that is,
treating something else as divine together with the Lord ? thus violating the
rabbinic understanding of Exod. 22:19b ('save for the Lord alone*). It answers that
the meaning is simply 'To Yah we give thanks and to you, O Altar, we give praise!'
(BT Suk. 45b).
Whether or not the Talmudic explanation represents the exact meaning of the
address, the address itself shows that people who were unquestionably monotheistic
did not hesitate to address YHWH and a personified cult object in a way which
seems to give comparable status to each. This is similar to what is done in
the blessings from Kuntillet 'Ajrud, according to the view that the asherah is
a personified cult object and not a goddess. The parallel thus lends plausibility to
this view.

1 For the text of the inscriptions and bibliography up to 1986, see the literature cited in J. Tigay:
You Shall Have No Other Gods: Israelite Religion in the Light of Hebrew Inscriptions (Harvard
Semitic Studies 31), Atlanta, 1986, pp. 26-29. Subsequent discussions include P. Kyle McCarter:
Aspects of the Religion of the Israelite Monarchy: Biblical and Epigraphic Data, and M.D. Coogan:
Canaanite Origins and Lineage: Reflections on the Religion of Ancient Israel, in P.D. Miller et
al. (eds.): Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross, Philadelphia, 1987,
pp. 143-149 and 118-119 respectively.
2 This passage also appears in some editions of the Mishnah, but it is not original there. See
J.N. Epstein: 27\wm nouV , Jerusalem-Tel Aviv, 1964, Vol. II, pp. 928-929; S. Lieberman:
Tosefta Kifshutah, Part 4 (Mo'ed), New York, 1962, p. 871; see also idem, fwV?p 0*?p, in
p; (S. Schocken Volume), Jerusalem, 1948-1952, p. 81, n. 33. Cf. Maimonides, Mishneh
Torah, Hilkhot Shevuot 11:2.

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