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“The Horns of the Altar” and bulls?
#21
RE: “The Horns of the Altar” and bulls?
Francesca Stavrakopoulou does make a connection. Here's some of what she says:

Quote:Like many of his peers across south-west Asia, El was frequently titled ‘Bull’, and he quite naturally expected his divine children to inherit his horns of divinity: ‘May they have horns like bulls, and humps like steers!’ he cries when his two young wives go into labour with his offspring. His older children already bear the bull-horns of heaven. Anat’s are particularly praised by her brother Baal, who excitedly anoints and blesses them: ‘The horns of your power, Girl Anat, the horns of your power let Baal anoint!’ As a storm deity, Baal’s own horns are said to be especially radiant, and closely identified with the lightning bolts flashing about his head as he moves through the skies or thunders in his mountaintop temple. Images of both deities frequently show them wearing horns – as befitting any Levantine god, but especially those associated with the storm of war, or the rains of fertility.

It is no surprise, then, that in the older traditions embedded in the Hebrew Bible, God himself is not only portrayed as the divine Bull, equipped with horns, but fully expects his own progeny to inherit them.
...
God’s horns were remembered not only in ancient poems, but in the rituals and iconography of his temples, too. The prophet Zedekiah ben Chenaanah is said to have crafted a pair of iron horns to enact Yahweh’s promise to the kings of Israel and Judah that the neighbouring Aramaeans would be gored to death in battle.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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#22
RE: “The Horns of the Altar” and bulls?
(March 12, 2022 at 1:50 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: Francesca Stavrakopoulou does make a connection. Here's some of what she says:

Quote:Like many of his peers across south-west Asia, El was frequently titled ‘Bull’, and he quite naturally expected his divine children to inherit his horns of divinity: ‘May they have horns like bulls, and humps like steers!’ he cries when his two young wives go into labour with his offspring. His older children already bear the bull-horns of heaven. Anat’s are particularly praised by her brother Baal, who excitedly anoints and blesses them: ‘The horns of your power, Girl Anat, the horns of your power let Baal anoint!’ As a storm deity, Baal’s own horns are said to be especially radiant, and closely identified with the lightning bolts flashing about his head as he moves through the skies or thunders in his mountaintop temple. Images of both deities frequently show them wearing horns – as befitting any Levantine god, but especially those associated with the storm of war, or the rains of fertility.

It is no surprise, then, that in the older traditions embedded in the Hebrew Bible, God himself is not only portrayed as the divine Bull, equipped with horns, but fully expects his own progeny to inherit them.
...
God’s horns were remembered not only in ancient poems, but in the rituals and iconography of his temples, too. The prophet Zedekiah ben Chenaanah is said to have crafted a pair of iron horns to enact Yahweh’s promise to the kings of Israel and Judah that the neighbouring Aramaeans would be gored to death in battle.

Nope, she's not making the connection as specified in the OP, regardless of the credibility of what she's saying here.

The OP is referring to the horns on the altar as specified in Exodus and elsewhere in the Bible, and then they're pondering the connection from that to bulls of ANE religions. Not horns in general, but the horns that were on those altars.

Actually, OP, have you stumbled upon this one already?

https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/v...ntext=auss

Haven't fully read it, just skimmed. Give it a read and see what you get.
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#23
RE: “The Horns of the Altar” and bulls?
(March 12, 2022 at 2:30 am)GrandizerII Wrote: Nope, she's not making the connection as specified in the OP, regardless of the credibility of what she's saying here.

The OP is referring to the horns on the altar as specified in Exodus and elsewhere in the Bible, and then they're pondering the connection from that to bulls of ANE religions. Not horns in general, but the horns that were on those altars.

She did establish the connection between the bull and the El (Yahweh), so why would it then be unexplained that they use bull's horns to represent him on the altar devoted to him (bull god)?
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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#24
RE: “The Horns of the Altar” and bulls?
(March 12, 2022 at 2:30 am)GrandizerII Wrote:
(March 12, 2022 at 1:50 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: Francesca Stavrakopoulou does make a connection. Here's some of what she says:

Nope, she's not making the connection as specified in the OP, regardless of the credibility of what she's saying here.

The OP is referring to the horns on the altar as specified in Exodus and elsewhere in the Bible, and then they're pondering the connection from that to bulls of ANE religions. Not horns in general, but the horns that were on those altars.

Actually, OP, have you stumbled upon this one already?

https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/v...ntext=auss

Haven't fully read it, just skimmed. Give it a read and see what you get.

Ah! This looks like a great resource! Thanks for the link! I’m reading it now.
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#25
RE: “The Horns of the Altar” and bulls?
(March 12, 2022 at 2:58 am)Fake Messiah Wrote:
(March 12, 2022 at 2:30 am)GrandizerII Wrote: Nope, she's not making the connection as specified in the OP, regardless of the credibility of what she's saying here.

The OP is referring to the horns on the altar as specified in Exodus and elsewhere in the Bible, and then they're pondering the connection from that to bulls of ANE religions. Not horns in general, but the horns that were on those altars.

She did establish the connection between the bull and the El (Yahweh), so why would it then be unexplained that they use bull's horns to represent him on the altar devoted to him (bull god)?

Establish is too strong a word here, but again put that aside. Who said the horns on the altars described in Exodus and elsewhere were bull horns? Why not ram horns instead? Or goat horns?
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#26
RE: “The Horns of the Altar” and bulls?
Or shoe horns.
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#27
RE: “The Horns of the Altar” and bulls?
So far an interesting read, but one thing she mentions seems outdated to me. “North Syrian seals with their bull motifs may give evidence of a probable Moloch cult” seems outdated because IIRC, current scholarship is of the position that there is little to no evidence of any deity called “Moloch” in the ANE. Rather it is possible the word “molek” (possible cognates of “molk”, or “mulk”) refers to a specific type of sacrificial ritual that would become outlawed in Israel and Judah. But so far that’s the only thing that’s stuck out to me as questionable in her paper.
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#28
RE: “The Horns of the Altar” and bulls?
Quote:Moloch (also rendered as Molech or Molekh, from the Hebrew מלך mlk) is a Canaanite god in the Old Testament associated with human sacrifice. Some scholars have suggested that the term refers to a particular kind of sacrifice carried out by the Phoenicians and their neighbors rather than a specific god, though this theory has been widely rejected.
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/moloch

I don't think you'll find much on the subject of the op, btw - beyond the simple fact that the people who wrote the ot also employed bovine imagery and thought, as many people thought, horns were somehow magically important - hence their supposed inclusion in the construction of a ritual object like an altar in an establishment myth. Beyond that, it was very much the business of the ot "prophets" to distinguish themselves from other beliefs common in their demographic at the time. All that other stuff was why the bad thing happened, in their retelling of events.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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#29
RE: “The Horns of the Altar” and bulls?
(March 12, 2022 at 3:19 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote:
Quote:Moloch (also rendered as Molech or Molekh, from the Hebrew מלך mlk) is a Canaanite god in the Old Testament associated with human sacrifice. Some scholars have suggested that the term refers to a particular kind of sacrifice carried out by the Phoenicians and their neighbors rather than a specific god, though this theory has been widely rejected.
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/moloch

I don't think you'll find much on the subject of the op, btw - beyond the simple fact that the people who wrote the ot also employed bovine imagery and thought, as many people thought, horns were somehow magically important - hence their supposed inclusion in the construction of a ritual object like an altar in an establishment myth. Beyond that, it was very much the business of the ot "prophets" to distinguish themselves from other beliefs common in their demographic at the time. All that other stuff was why the bad thing happened, in their retelling of events.

Interesting. I thought the consensus was moving away from “Molech” being seen as a deity in Canaan. I must be misremembering that.
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#30
RE: “The Horns of the Altar” and bulls?
There's alot of speculation about the specific name used in the ot, yeah. It's probably a bastardization - it may be intentional (like calling the bulls calves) or it may be incidental. It may refer to some god with a similar sounding name - just one (relatively unimportant) detail that the ot authors got wrong in a vast sea of things they got wrong. Or maybe it refers to some god that the authors community thought other canaanites believed in - like any number of contemporary conspiracy theories about people today from the religiously afflicted. Just as people would famously butcher their own beliefs later, ultimately leading to christianity (beliefs which would themselves be butchered by romans in the retelling).

As always, the first trick is understanding who the authors were, and what the text is not. They were not historians, it is not a history. They weren't ethnographers or anthropologists. The OT is political propaganda.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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