**4. The Israelite Pantheon at Kuntillet** ޏ**Ajrud**

As noted at the beginning of the study, it is hard to overstate the importance of the inscriptions for understanding early Israelite religion. Taken together, the inscriptions contain references to the names of several gods, including El, Yahweh, Baal, and Asherah. The reflection of the Israelian pantheon evidenced by the inscriptions is consistent in certain ways with the biblical texts, as we will explain below. The difficulties involved in dating the biblical texts, however, highlights the significance of the inscriptions. The picture of the Israelian pantheon provided by the inscriptions can be dated securely to the late ninth and early eighth centuries. It may be assumed, however, that this picture was not invented at Kuntillet ޏAjrud. It was well-known poetry or liturgy that was merely used there. In this way, the inscriptions offer a chronological anchor of sorts for the development of the pantheon. As we will stress below, the secure date of the inscriptions confirms certain arguments that scholars have made about characteristics of the Israelian pantheon during the early Iron Age.

The plaster texts at Kuntillet ޏAjrud are the most significant for reconstructing the history of the pantheon at the site. The most substantive of the reconstructed plaster texts is KA 4.2 (4.1 in the Hebrew edition) (Ah. ituv et al. 2012, pp. 110–14; Ah. ituv et al. 2015, pp. 109–11).<sup>1</sup> This inscription was discovered on one of the plaster walls near the western entrance to the bench room of the main building. The text poses certain difficulties owning to its fragmentary state. However, it seems clear that it refers to the names of three deities and contains allusions to both a theophany and a theomachy. The English publication transcribes and translates the inscription as follows (Ah. ituv et al. 2012, p. 110):


Although many of these readings are tentative (see especially Blum 2013), several observations about the Israelian pantheon still arrive out of the inscription with some certainty. First, lines two and six refer to the divine name El. That the god El was worshipped in Israel and Judah in the early Iron Age is confirmed by both biblical and extrabiblical evidence (Smith 2002, pp. 32–43, 2001, p. 141; Cross 1973, pp. 44–75; Hermann 1999, pp. 278–79). Several biblical texts indicate that early in Israel's history, El stood in a hierarchical relationship to the god Yahweh. Most notably, 4QDeutj and the Septuagint describe Yahweh as one of the sons of El (see discussion in Smith 2004, pp. 108–9; Himbaza 2002):

When the Elyon gave to the nations their inheritance, When he separated humanity, He fixed the boundaries of the peoples According to the number of divine beings (ގ*lhym*). Indeed Yahweh's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.

As many studies have noted, the MT version of the end of v. 8b—which has "according to the number of the sons of Israel"—is difficult to understand (Joosten 2007, p. 549). The Qumran and Septuagint variants; however, provide a more convincing reading of the verse as "according to the number of divine beings (ގ*lhym*). This reading results in a description of Elyon allotting each people a territory and a deity.

Recently, Jan Joosten has made the compelling argument that the MT reading "sons of Israel" in v. 8b reflects a theological emendation to an original text that read *bny ´sr* ގ*l* "the sons of *Bull El".* (Joosten 2007, p. 551). Assuming that the noun *sr´* "Bull" appeared in the proto-Masoretic text explains how the MT ended up with "sons of Israel". The MT emended the phrase *sr´* ގ*l* "Bull of El" by adding one more *yod* taken from the end of the noun *bny* "sons of" and attaching it to the beginning of the

<sup>1</sup> Also note earlier translations of the text in Dobbs-Allsopp et al. (2004, pp. 234–36) and McCarter (2000, p. 173). The official publication now revised in a Hebrew edition (Ah. ituv et al. 2015, pp. 71–121). The revised Hebrew edition relies on alterative readings (some otherwise unpublished) by Erhard Blum (see Blum 2013, pp. 21–54).

noun *sr´* "Bull". This resulted in the sequence of words that would have looked very similar to the expression *bny y´sr*ގ*l* "sons of Israel". It would have also resulted in a reworking of the text that fit the larger theological understandings of the MT.

Joosten's argument reinforces the view of some scholars that Deuteronomy 32 reflects a view of the Israelite pantheon that reckons El and Yahweh as separate deities (Smith 2002, pp. 48–49; Eissfeldt 1956, p. 29). According to this view, vv. 8–9 describe Elyon as the deity at the top of the pantheon who apportioned the nations their inheritance. In verse 8, El assigns the nations different gods "according to the number of divine beings". The use of the particle *kî* at the beginning of v. 9 is best understood as emphatic, conveying the sense of "indeed" or "and lo" (Tigay 1996, p. 303). The particle serves to introduce and reinforce the statement in v. 9 that Yahweh was one of the sons of Elyon who came from a region outside of the land of Canaan (i.e., Edom/Teman).

Genesis 49 reflects a similar view of the Israelite pantheon in the early Iron Age. The poem describes the last words of Israel's ancestor Jacob to his sons. Given the difficulties involved in its interpretation, we quote an extended part of it here,

<sup>18</sup> I wait for your salvation, O Yahweh.

... <sup>24</sup> Yet his bow remained taut, and his arms were made agile by the hands of the Bull of Jacob, by the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel, <sup>25</sup> by El, your father, who will help you, by the Shadday who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb. <sup>26</sup> The blessings of Father, Hero, Almighty, the blessings of the eternal mountains, the bounties of the everlasting hills; may they be on the head of Joseph, on the crown of him of the chosen of his brothers.

Following several studies on this text, we understand these verses to describe the god El as a deity distinct from Yahweh (Freedman 1987, pp. 324–25; Cross 1973, pp. 54–56; Smith 2002, pp. 32, 48–49). Verse 18 alludes to a petition for help from the god Yahweh as part of the description of the tribe of Dan (see vv. 16–18). Several verses later, the description of the tribe of Joseph repeats several epithets for the god El (vv. 22–26): "Mighty One" (ގ*byr*) (v. 24), El (ގ*l*) (v. 25), Shadday (*šdy*) (v. 25) (Cross and Freedman 1975, pp. 95–96; Smith 2002, p. 49). For reasons that we describe in more detail below, it is noteworthy that the description of El in these verses connect the god to "eternal mountains" and "the everlasting hills".

The descriptions of the pantheon in these poetic biblical texts frame an understanding of the descriptions of El and Yahweh in the plaster inscription. Whereas Deuteronomy 32 and Genesis 49 reckon El and Yahweh as distinct gods, the plaster text may be interpreted as converging them by placing their names in parallel lines (see Ah. ituv et al. 2012, p. 133; 2014, p. 36). To be sure, there are difficulties involved in reconstructing the verb preceding the name El in line two and this argument must remain very tentative. It would appear, however, that the end of the line contains a reference to Yahweh (Ah. ituv et al. 2012, pp. 110–11). This would mean that the two lines attest to the process whereby El's name was identified with the god Yahweh (Ah. ituv et al. 2012, p. 130). This is not surprising, given that several biblical texts dating later than the poems described above converge El's name and characteristics with the god Yahweh. The identification of the name El and El epithets with

Yahweh is particularly noticeable in the first two verses of Psalm 91: "You who live in the shelter of *Elyon*, who abide in the shadow of *Shadday*, will say to *Yahweh*, "My refuge and my fortress; *my God* (ގ*lhy*)". The identification of El with Yahweh also occurs in a variety of biblical texts that render the name El into a noun in construct with *elohim* in the expression "God of gods is Yahweh" (cf. Ex. 6:2–3; Josh 22:22; Smith 2002, pp. 33–35).

The plaster inscription is unique; however, in the way that it parallels El and Yahweh in what appears to be a description of divine theophany or divine-warrior march. While it is difficult to reconstruct the language of line two, line three refers to the "mountains melting" and the "hills crushing". The beginning of line four may continue this imagery if the reconstruction of the word "land" or "earth" is correct. The expression "the mountains melt" recalls similar imagery in several biblical texts where the context is also a divine-warrior theophany (cf. Micah 1:4; Ps. 97:5; see Ah. ituv et al. 2012, p. 111).

The appearance of the expression "the Holy One" in line four also provides an important window into the Israelian pantheon in the ninth-eighth centuries. While it seems reasonably clear that the line reads "the Holy One" it is less certain that the clause that follows this divine epithet is to be reconstructed as "over the gods". If we are correct that the phrase should be reconstructed as "the Holy One over the gods," then we may have a text that reflects the emergence of Yahweh to the top of the Israelian pantheon. Ah. ituv, Eshel, and Meshel suggest that the expression may "refer to the defeat of the gods by YHWH (Ah. ituv et al. 2012, p. 133). Alternative readings, however, are possible (Blum 2013, pp. 26–27; Ah. ituv et al. 2015, p. 109). The expression is reminiscent of those biblical texts that focus upon the incomparability of the gods to Yahweh (e.g., Ps. 29:1; 89:7). Read as part of the following two lines, the expression may describe Yahweh's dominion over Baal and the name of El.

Alternatively, *b*ޏ*l* here may be taken as the noun "lord" rather than a proper noun. Admittedly, it is difficult to decide between these options. The fact that the noun stands in parallel to the phrase "the name of El" would seem to support the view that the text understands the names as hypostases of Yahweh, or at least that the text is identifying the gods with Yahweh (Ah. ituv et al. 2012, p. 133; see also Dobbs-Allsopp et al. 2004, p. 236). According to this view, the inscription might be interpreted to reflect the convergence of not only El and Yahweh but also Baal and Yahweh.

The identification of Baal with Yahweh in this plaster text is consistent with the picture of the pantheon preserved in several biblical texts. Again, it is the collection of poetic texts in the biblical literature that provide us the best glimpses of the process by which Baal imagery was applied to Yahweh. Psalm 18 is particularly relevant because it conflates imagery of El, Baal, and Yahweh (Smith 2002, pp. 55–56):

Yahweh also thundered in the heavens, and Elyon uttered his voice, hailstones and coals of fire. And he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; he flashed forth lightnings. and routed them Then the channels of the sea were seen . . .

In this text, Yahweh is the subject of the thundering in the heavens and the deity is paired with the epithet Elyon, one of the names associated with the god El (Smith 2002, p. 56). The verbs thundering, uttering, and flashing in the verses recall storm imagery associated with Baal. If we are correct that this plaster inscription conflates Yahweh with Baal and El, then we have an inscription that stands close to what scholars have suggested happened in the period of the early Israelite monarchy, namely, that much of Baal's imagery was applied to the god Yahweh. This is particularly the case with the so-called divine march poems in the biblical literature. The imagery of the divine march and theophany would have held an especially significant import for the monarchies of Israel and Judah. The application of

Baal imagery, especially warrior and divine march imagery, to Yahweh would have been important for the emergence of the image of Yahweh as the divine patron of Israelite and Judahite kings. Our plaster text takes on added meaning against the background of this development. The inscription appears to reflect the practice of conflating Yahweh and Baal in the composition of a hymn that would have had wide resonance within Israelian royal ideology and practice. Describing Yahweh as the Holy One over Baal and the name of El reflected the emergence of the Israelian polity within the southern Levant during the ninth-eighth centuries.

A reference to Baal also appears in a fragment of a plaster text discovered near the entrance to the Western Storeroom (4.4.1). The location of the discovery of this fragment led the excavators to suggest that it may formed part of a larger text written on the doorposts of the entrance (Ah. ituv et al. 2012, p. 117). Only two words of the fragment can be read with any certainty:

]*b*ޏ*l.bql*[

] Baal in voice [

In the Hebrew edition, Ah. ituv, Eshel, and Meshel offer a different reading of the fragment (Ah. ituv et al. 2015, p. 117):

]*p*ޏ*l bq*◦[

We maintain that the reconstruction *b*ޏ*l bql* is the better one, and that the phrase should be translated "Baal with (his) voice". The letter *peh* in the reconstruction *p*ޏ*l* is poorly preserved. However, *peh* as a Hebrew letter is rather infrequent in contrast with *bet*, and in this respect its reconstruction here is less probable. The traces certainly could fit the *bet*, as the editors originally read the text. Likewise, the *lamed* in *bql* is tentative, but certainly a possible reading. To be sure, it is a tentative reconstruction, but, in our estimation, a plausible reconstruction that has much more contextual merit. Indeed, a reference to Baal's voice here would recall imagery in the Ugaritic Baal myth. Perhaps most relevant here is the description of Baal's voice thundering as part of the theophany associated with his taking up residence in his palace (KTU 1.4 VII 25–31; Smith 1994, p. 110)

He opens a window in this house, window in the midst of the pala[ce]. Baal open[s] a break in the [clou]ds, Ba[al g]ives his holy voice (*qhl qdš*) Baal repeats the is[sue of?] his [li?]ps, His ho[ly?] voice, the earth [sha?]kes.

Similar imagery appears with Yahweh in a variety of biblical texts. Most notably, Psalm 29 repeats the expression "the voice of Yahweh" as part of a description of divine theophany (see Schniedewind 2017). As studies have noted, the description of Yahweh's voice in this text is highly reminiscent of Baal's thundering in his temple in the Ugaritic Baal myth (Smith 2001, p. 75; Cross 1950, pp. 19–21; Pardee and Pardee 2000, pp. 115–28). The *qol* is also a metaphor for the sound of earthquakes, as we see in biblical texts such as Exodus 19 and Psalm 18. In this respect, the metaphor works especially nicely in the context of Kuntillet ޏAjrud's proximity to the earthquake faults along the Rift Valley. Since we understand Baal as originally a storm god, then the use of *qol* "voice" to refer to earthquakes illustrates another way that Israelian scribes re-appropriated language and imagery.

Another important aspect of the inscriptions is the way that they reflect an understanding of the local manifestations of Yahweh (Smith 2016, pp. 91–92; Sommer 2009, p. 39; Hutton 2010, p. 177–210). As noted above, several of the blessings refer to "Yahweh of Shomron (Samaria)" and "Yahweh of Teman" (Ah. ituv et al. 2012, p. 130). These expressions draw attention to the various local manifestations of different gods in the early Israelite pantheon. The pairing of certain gods with toponyms is a common feature of West Semitic literature, indicating that the deity was regarded as the lord over or owner

of the city or region (McCarter 1987, p. 140–41). Indeed, as Jeremy Hutton argues, the fact that the inscriptions connect Yahweh with two different locales—Samaria and Teiman—may reflect competition between different sites associated with the deity (Hutton 2010, p. 178). In this way, the inscriptions provide an important window into the different places to which Yahweh's presence was connected before the rise of the Deuteronomic movement in the late Judean monarchy (Ah. ituv et al. 2012, p. 130; cp. Deut. 12).

The expression "Yahweh and his ގ*asherah*" appears in two of the inscriptions at the site, as described above. The difficulties involved in understanding the expression—particularly the word "his ގ*asherah*"—deserve some further discussion here. The expression stands close to another epigraphic find from Khirbet el-Qom, which also contains a blessing that refers to Yahweh and his ގ*asherah* (Zevit 1984, pp. 39–47, 2001, p. 361). The main problem involved in interpreting the expression at Kuntillet ޏAjrud has to do with the presence of the possessive suffix "his" on the noun ގ*šrth* (Dever 1984, pp. 21–37, 1999, pp. 9\*–15\*; Hadley 1987, pp. 50–62; Tropper 2001, pp. 81–106). This grammatical form has resulted in two lines of interpretation. First, several studies argue that the presence of the suffix on the deity's name means that the expression refers not to the goddess but to a cultic object (Olyan 1988, pp. 33–35; Miller 1986, p. 247; McCarter 1987, p. 143). Support for this line of argumentation also comes from the fact that we do not have any evidence for the goddess on Phoenician, Israelian, or Judean inscriptions in the first millennium (Keel and Uehlinger 1998, p. 229). The biblical texts also may be interpreted to support the conclusion that by the eighth century the term ގ*asherah* did not refer to a goddess, but instead to a cultic object. For example, several biblical texts place a definite article on ގ*asherah*, indicating that some type of religious object and not a proper name is meant (1 Kgs 15:13; 18:19; 2 Kgs 21:7; 23:4,7; see Keel and Uehlinger 1998, p. 231).

The other option is that Asherah here refers to the name of an independent goddess and the consort of Yahweh. Studies have also argued that the problem of the suffix on the noun may be explained by the fact that the term ގ*asherah* in the inscriptions stands for the idea of consort more than the personal name Asherah (Margalit 1990; Meshel 1979; Dever 2005, pp. 165–66). Given the fact that the inscriptions at Kuntillet ޏAjrud do not contain any actual description of A/asherah, it is difficult to choose between the options presented here. We might note in conclusion, however, that the verb *brk* in both inscriptions is formulated in the singular. This indicates that, regardless of how we understand ގ*šrth* here, the blessing conveys that it is the god Yahweh who gives the blessing (Sommer 2009, pp. 47–48).

More recently, it has been proposed that ގ*šrth* at Kuntillet ޏAjrud (as well as Kh. el-Qom) may not refer to the deity or a cult object, but rather to a "temple". Sass (2014), for example, argues that a goddess Asherah in the West Semitic pantheon is largely based on reconstructions. Moreover, he points out that many of the supposed biblical references to Asherah never use this name. Thus, we find "the Queen of Heaven" and not Asherah (e.g., Jer 44:15–19). Sass does not, however, discuss the important example in Deut 16:21: ˃ʩʤʓ ˄ʠʎ ʤʥʤʕ ʩʍ ʧˎʔʦʍ ʮʑ ʬʶʓ ʠʒ ʵˆʚʬ ʒ ˗ʕ ʤʸʕˇʒ ʠʏ ˃ʬʍ ʲ˔ʔ ʺʚʠ ʑ ʖʬ"you shall not set up for yourself an *A/asherah* —any sacred pole— beside the altar of the LORD your God". The reference to "Yahweh and ގ*šrth*" at Kuntillet ޏAjrud (as well as Kh. el-Qom) seems to echo an element of this prohibition. Here, an interpretation of "temple" or "shrine" cannot be made to fit. The indiscernibility of a goddess Asherah in the biblical text is much more likely the work of biblical editors (see Olyan 1988, pp. 1–22). In addition, texts like Deut 16:21 seem intent on demoting the goddess into a mere cultic object. Could this already be going on at Kuntillet ޏAjrud? In this case, we might be able to explain the unusual form of ގ*šrh* with a suffix.

The comparisons between these biblical texts and the plaster text at Kuntillet ޏAjrud described here raise an intriguing question. Where do these texts come from? It is unlikely that these texts were *composed* by the scribes at Kuntillet ޏAjrud. More likely, they were known compositions that were copied. If we take advanced cuneiform literature as a model, students copied well-known texts as a means of learning (see Robson 2001). Thus, the *edubba* borrowed literary and liturgical texts for use with students. At Kuntillet ޏAjrud we can assume something similar was happening. These were literary and liturgical texts used in daily life that were borrowed as school exercises. The parallels in religious and literary themes and language that we can identify with texts like Psalm 18, Genesis 49, Habakkuk 3, or Deuteronomy 32 suggest that the ideas were not unique to the plaster wall texts. Indeed, the texts were chosen because they reflected well-known religious ideas as well as often-used literary techniques. The close parallels that this plaster text shares with the biblical poetic texts about divine theophany and the pantheon suggest that we have here exercises taken from known Israelian liturgical texts. It seems likely that these texts were both memorized and copied (see Carr 2005, pp. 27–28, 71–74). This literature is largely lost since the biblical canon was collected and edited in Jerusalem by Judean scribes. Nevertheless, hints remain of some of the common religious themes and literary tropes. If we are correct that the plaster texts reflect the training of scribes in memorizing and perhaps copying literary texts, then the site also provides a unique glimpse into the function that such poetic texts held in scribalism. Practicing the composition of texts about divine theophany and theomachy would have been relevant to the situation of a soldier scribe at a fortress like Kuntillet ޏAjrud.
