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Updated: June 24, 2025
Again, they interpose the difficulty: "How could the Ninevites give credence to a man who was not a servant of Ashur?" Without presenting the multiplied difficulties that rationalism has supposedly discovered, they may be summed up in their statement substantially, that the book of Jonah is not historical. Whatever else it may be, whether legend, myth or allegory, it is not history.
I.e., he is the greatest scion of the reigning dynasty. 'Lord of the court' a title of Ashur. As a protection, just as Jahwe appears in a pillar of cloud to protect his people. IVR. 2d Ed. 61, col. vi. 47-52. See I Kings, xxii. 23. Strong, Beiträge zur Assyriologie, ii. 628, 629. Published and translated by S. A. Strong, Transactions of the Ninth International Oriental Congress , ii. 199-208.
From this extract it will be seen that Shalmaneser gives us, in Ushpia or Aushpia, the name of a very early Assyrian viceroy, who in his belief was the founder of the great temple of the god Ashur. He also tells us that 159 years separated Erishu from a viceroy named Shamshi-Adad, and that 580 years separated Shamshi-Adad from his own time.
He loves, too, to vary the style of his inscriptions by naming various groups of deities in pairs: now Ashur and Shamash, again Ashur and Nin-ib, or Ashur and Bel; then Shamash and Ramman, or a group of three deities, Ashur, Shamash, and Ramman, or Sin, Anu, and Ramman. His successors imitate this example, though each one chooses his own combinations.
Again, the appearance of the new moon was anxiously looked for each month, and the king is informed whether or not it was seen on the 29th or 30th day of the month. A watch we kept On the twenty-ninth day, The moon we saw. May Nabu and Marduk Be gracious to the king, my lord. From Nabuâ of the city of Ashur.
So Ramman-nirari I. invokes the curse of Ashur, Anu, Bel, Ea, and Ishtar, together with the Igigi and Anunnaki; but, what is more important, already at an early period the triad disappears altogether from the pantheon, except for the artificial attempts of Sargon to revive interest in them.
Similarly, the eagle, which becomes the special symbol of Ashur, appears prominently on the monuments of Entemena and other ancient rulers, centuries before the Ashur cult comes into prominence.
At the same time, we observe the same tendency towards concentration of power in this pantheon as we have seen was the case in the pantheon of the upper world . As in Babylonia there are practically only a few gods, Marduk, Nabu, Ishtar, Shamash, and Sin, who exercised considerable control; and, as in Assyria we find this tendency still more accentuated in the supreme rank accorded to Ashur, so in the lower world Nergal and Allatu are the real rulers.
The position of Ashur in the Assyrian pantheon accounts for the general tendencies manifested by the religion of the northern empire, and upon a clear conception of the character of Ashur depends our understanding of the special points that distinguish the other gods from what we have learned of their character and traits in the southern states.
Sargon, too, who manifests a great fondness for reviving ancient cults, erects sanctuaries to Sin along with a quantity of other gods in his official residence at Khorsabad and beyond the northeastern confines of Assyria at Magganubba. But when invoked by the kings, Sin shows traces of the influence which the conceptions current about Ashur exerted upon his fellow deities.
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