Die G[ddot{o}]ttin I[check{s}]hara: Ein Beitrag zur altorientalischen Religions-geschichte & Asherah: Goddesses in Ugarit, Israel and the Old Testament.

M. ROBERTS, J. J.

Die Gottin Ishara: Ein Beitrag zur altorientalischen Religions-geschichte. By DORIS PRECHE. Abhanlungen zur Literatur Alt-Syrien-Palastinas und Mesopotamiens, vol. 11. Munster: UGARIT-VERLAG, 1996. Pp. xii + 248. DM 102.

Asherah: Goddesses in Ugarit, Israel and the Old Testament. By TILDE BINGER. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series, no. 232; Copenhagen International Seminar, vol. 2. Sheffield: SHEFFIELD ACADEMIC PRESS, 1997. Pp. 190. 35 [pounds sterling], $57.50.

The volume by Doris Prechel presents a very thorough and sober analysis of the material presently available for a study of the goddess Ishara. After a brief introduction, Prechel begins with a synchronic presentation of the evidence for Ishara at different sites in the various historical periods where Ishara is attested. Prechel arranges this discussion under six main periods from Pre-Sargonic to Neo-Assyrian. Following this extended survey of the evidence, there is a much shorter diachronic treatment of the goddess in which Prechel discusses suggested etymologies for the name Ishara, Ishara's place in the godlists, the geographical and temporal extent of her worship, local manifestations of the goddess, and cult functionaries associated with her. The book concludes with a helpful summarizing chapter on the essence and cult of the goddess Ishara. There are also useful appendices, including editions and translations of the Autumn and Spring Festival in her honor in Kizzuwatna (Hittite) and the kissu-Festival for her and NIN.URTA at Emar (Emar Akkadian).

According to Prechel, the distinctive epithets of Ishara stress her functions as a goddess of the oath, the oracle, and the extispicy. She is also assigned the task of insuring human offspring. In astrological texts Ishara, identified with the constellation Scorpion, is clearly distinguished from Istar, who is regularly identified with Venus. Two symbols of Ishara are known: the snake (Old Babylonian) and the scorpion (Middle Babylonian). She belongs to the Enlil circle and in some texts is clearly identified as an underworld deity, but in the absence of any significant mythological texts about her, it is hard to be more specific about her family connections. These conclusions are convincing, even if modest and not particularly surprising, because they are based on a very careful and meticulous treatment of the sources.

The same cannot be said about the work by Tilde Binger. She begins her work with three brief chapters on method, definitions, and source material. Then she has three major chapters on Asherah in Ugarit, Asherah in Israel (where she treats the nonbiblical epigraphic evidence), and Asherah in the Old Testament. This is followed by a summary chapter and two appendices. Binger concludes that Asherah is the name of a goddess in all three of her collections, but not the same goddess: "The goddess Asherah, in Ugarit, 'Israel' and the Old Testament is not one goddess, but is rather the number one goddess in the relevant cultures" (pp. 147-48).

Despite the structural concern for method, however, there is little evidence of critical methodology in any of the major chapters. The argumentation is ad hoc, sometimes ridiculous, and never more than superficial. I will cite only one example from each section. Binger identifies El as the son of Asherah, arguing that ilm cannot refer to "the gods" as the children of Asherah, because, in CTA 6.i.40-41, the children of Asherah are rejoicing at a time when at least one of the ilm, Baal, is dead (p. 52). This leads to the further conclusion that Asherah as El's mother is the one with the real authority to give permission for Baal to build his palace. Yet Binger never explains, if this were true, why Asherah need approach El on the subject at all (p. 81).

In the epigraphic section, in trying to explain the anomalous suffix on the form srth, which she takes to be the proper name of the goddess Asherah, Binger argues that the final -h on Yhwh is analogous, that it originated as a suffix on the original divine name Yhw to distinguish a local Yhw from any others (p. 107). The improbability of her suggestion and the general superficiality of her discussion of the form srth is only heightened when one contrasts her treatment to Kyle McCarter's far more sophisticated analysis of Asherah in the Israelite sources ("The Religion of the Israelite Monarchy," in Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross, ed. P. D. Miller, P D. Hanson, and S. D. McBride [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987], 143-49). Binger either does not know McCarter's work or has chosen to ignore it.

In the Old Testament section, Binger argues that when zonah is used of Tamar in the Tamar-Judah narrative it merely portrays her as a foreigner rather than a whore (p. 119). She bases this claim on an old suggestion by H. Winckler, cited in the second edition of L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner's Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1958), 261, that the root znh originally meant "that the husband does not live in his wife's tribe." This supposedly original meaning of the word is never attested in any actual text, however, and the third edition of Koehler-Baumgartner wisely omits any reference to Winclder's hypothesis (Hebraisches und aramaisches Lexikon zum Alten Testament [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1967], 263-64). Binger's reliance on such an outdated suggestion as though it were a lexical fact betrays a lack of method almost as bad as her exegetical refusal to take the narrative seriously as a narrative.

In fact, the only methods discernible in Binger's work are an uncritical adoption of an idiosyncratic reconstruction of Israelite history practiced in Copenhagen and in Sheffield and an equally uncritical assumption that the bias of scholars with religious commitments makes them poor scholars while the irreligious are presumably free of bias and therefore better scholars (pp. 38, 108, 109). Thus Binger can dismiss J. Naveh's and D. Biran's treatment of the Tell Dan inscription as bordering on fundamentalism (p. 38, n. 32). Apart from demonstrating a lack of discernment about fundamentalism, Binger makes the dubious claim that a multitude of non-Israelite names can end in the theophoric ending -ihu (sic). The claim depends on a very uncritical reading of S. Dalley's work, "Yahweh in Hamath in the Eighth Century B.C.: Cuneiform Material and Historical Deductions" (VT40 [1990]: 21-32). Dalley's suggestion that in the late eighth century Yahweh was worshipped as a major god in Hamath and its vicinity (p. 28) is based on a total of three personal names, two of which are problematic. The nationality of the Azriyau of Tiglath-Pileser III's inscription is not indicated in the text, and contrary to Dalley's claim (p. 23), the chronology of the Judean kings in the middle of the eighth century is too uncertain to rule out identifying this figure with Azariah/Uzziah of Judah. The name of the son of Toi, king of Hamath, is transmitted as Joram in 2 Sam 8:10, but as Hadoram in 1 Chron 18:10. Given the tendency in the MT of 2 Samuel to alter offensive divine elements in personal names (Ish-boshet for Ish-baal [2:8, passim], Mephiboshet for Meri-baal [9:6, passim]), one should at least be suspicious of the reading Joram. The remaining name, Yau-bi di, a ruler of Hamath, does appear to be Yahwistic, but he could be an Israelite who rose to prominence in Hamath. At any rate, one personal name is a very flimsy foundation for claiming that Yahweh was worshipped as a major god in Hamath. Dalley's further claim that 2 Kings 17:34 and Isa 36:19 "imply that, up until 720 and 740 B.C. Hamath and Arpad respectively had depended on Yahweh for their deliverance, and he had failed them" (p. 29) is simply bad exegesis. The text in no way implies that the gods (note the plural!) of Hamath and Arpad were to be identified with Yahweh.

J.J.M. ROBERTS PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY