United States or Canada ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


In the Tel el-Amarna tablets the god of Jerusalem is identified with the warlike Sun-god of Babylonia, Nin-ip, and there was a sanctuary of the same divinity further north, in Phoenicia. Foremost among the deities whose first home was on the banks of the Euphrates were Arm and Anat, and Rimmon.

In the one case Ebed-Tob will state explicitly that the god of Jerusalem, whom he identifies with the Babylonian Nin-ip, is Salim or Sulman, the god of peace, and that his temple stood on "the mountain of Jerusalem"; in the other case there will be no mention of Salim, and it will be left doubtful whether or not the city of Beth-Nin-ip was included within the walls of the capital.

Zimmern, so that according to his copy the passage must be translated: "the city of the mountain of Jerusalem, the city of the temple of the god Nin-ip is its name, the city of the king."

The temple of the Most High God El Elyôn probably stood on Mount Moriah where the temple of the God of Israel was afterwards to be erected. It will be remembered that among the letters sent by Ebed-Tob, the king of Jerusalem, to the Egyptian Pharaoh is one in which he speaks of "the city of the Mountain of Jerusalem, whose name is the city of the temple of the god Nin-ip."

Thus a circle, plain or crossed, designates the Sun-god, San or Shamas; a six-rayed or eight-rayed star the Sun-goddess, Gula or Anunit; a double or triple thunderbolt the Atmospheric god, Vul; a serpent probably Hoa; a naked female form Nana or Ishtar; a fish Bar or Nin-ip. But besides these assignable symbols, there are a vast number with regard to which we are still wholly in the dark.

Sikkuth and Chiun are the Babylonian Sakkut and Kaivan, a name given to the planet Saturn. Sakkut was a title of the god Nin-ip, and we gather from Amos that it also represented Malik "the king." Zelem, "the image," was another Babylonian deity, and originally denoted "the image" or disk of the sun.

Salim or "Peace" is almost certainly the native name of the god who was identified with the Babylonian Nin-ip, and perhaps Isaiah that student of the older history of his country is alluding to the fact when he declares that one of the titles of the Messiah shall be "the Prince of Peace."

The Canaanitish Moloch is the Babylonian Malik, and Dagon was one of the oldest of Chaldæan divinities and the associate of Anu. We have seen how ready Ebed-Tob was to identify the god he worshipped with the Babylonian Nin-ip, and among the Canaanites mentioned in the letters of Tel el-Amarna there is more than one whose name is compounded with that of a Babylonian god.