Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible Online

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I. Name The common Semitic noun nšr, ‘eagle; vulture’, attested in the OT some 25 times, indicates a deity in pre-Islamic Arabic texts and inscriptions. In the Old Testament Yhwh’s caring love is sometimes compared with the attitude of an eagle toward its breed ( Exod. 19.4; Deut. 32.11). II. Identity The oldest attestation of the avian deity can be found in a Sabaic inscription from the vicinity of Mārib dating from the first part of the seventh century bce (YM 375 = YM 1064; TUAT II 628; Müller 1994:91–94). The inscription relates that a certain Yaśiq’il dedicates a person cal…

I. Name Earth (ארץ) is one of the most common words in the OT with more than 2500 occurrences. The word—and its etymological cognates—is widely attested in other Semitic languages, e. g. arṣ in Ugaritic and Phoenician, ʾr in Arabic, ʾrq or ʾrʿ in Aramaic and erṣetu in Akkadian. The Sumerian equivalent is ki or uraš; a corresponding Hittite word can be seen in daganzipa, while in Greek we find γή or γαῖα. II. Identity As is also the case with Heaven, references to Earth as a separate goddess receiving an elaborate cult, are rather limited. The main occurrences of a…

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I. Name As a deity, Edom is possibly attested in the Egyptian Leiden Magical Papyrus 343+345 V 7, otherwise only in personal names. ʿObed Edom (LXX Abdedom) 2 Sam. 6.10–12 (//1 Chr. 13.13–14; 1 Chr. 15.25) is a citizen of Philistine Gath—and the owner of an estate between Baalath-Jehudah and Jerusalem—who accommodated the ark for three months. In Chronicles, he is transformed into a Levite (1 Chr. 15.18, 1 Chr. 21, 1 Chr. 24; 1 Chr. 16.5, 1 Chr. 38) and the ancestor of a Levitical clan (1 Chr. 26.4, 1 Chr. 8, 1 Chr. 15). In Punic, ʾdm is attested in the personal names mlkʾdm and ʿbdʾdm (Benz 1972: 260…