Queen of Heaven (antiquity)
Queen of Heaven was a title given to a number of ancient
Inanna
Inanna was the Sumerian goddess of love and war. Despite her association with mating and fertility of humans and animals, Inanna was not a mother goddess and is rarely associated with childbirth.[1] Inanna was also associated with rain and storms and with the planet Venus.[2] The Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa, believed to have been compiled around the mid-seventeenth century BCE,[3] referred to the planet Venus in the tablet as the "bright queen of the sky" or "bright Queen of Heaven".[4][5][6][7][8][9]
Although the title of Queen of Heaven was often applied to many different goddesses throughout antiquity, Inanna is the one to whom the title is given the most number of times. In fact, Inanna's name is commonly derived from Nin-anna which literally means "Queen of Heaven" in
In several myths, Inanna is described as being the daughter of
The view that there was a
I am Inanna, Queen of Heaven,
On my way to the East
Her cult was deeply embedded in Mesopotamia and among the Canaanites to the west. F. F. Bruce describes a transformation from a Venus as a male deity to Ishtar, a female goddess by the Akkadians. He links
Astarte and Asherah
The goddess, the Queen of Heaven, whose worship Jeremiah so vehemently opposed, may have been possibly Astarte. Astarte is the name of a
Astarte was connected with
According to scholar Mark S. Smith, Astarte may be the Iron Age (after 1200 BC) incarnation of the Bronze Age (to 1200 BC) Asherah.[19] Asherah was worshipped in ancient Israel as the consort of El and in Judah as the consort of Yahweh and Queen of Heaven.[20]
Hebrew Bible references
The "Queen of Heaven" is mentioned in the Bible and has been associated with a number of different goddesses by different scholars, including: Anat, Astarte or Ishtar, Ashtoreth, or as a composite figure.[21] The worship of a "Queen of Heaven" (Hebrew: מלכת השמים, Malkath haShamayim) is recorded in the Book of Jeremiah, in the context of the Prophet condemning such religious worship and it being the cause of God declaring that He would remove His people from the land.[22][23]
Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes of bread for the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger.
Then all the men who knew that their wives were burning incense to other gods, along with all the women who were present—a large assembly—and all the people living in Lower and Upper Egypt, said to Jeremiah, "We will not listen to the message you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD! We will certainly do everything we said we would: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and will pour out drink offerings to her just as we and our fathers, our kings and our officials did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food and were well off and suffered no harm. But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine."
There was a temple of
The goddesses Asherah, Anat, and Astarte first appear as distinct and separate deities in the tablets discovered in the ruins of the library of Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra, Syria). Most biblical scholars[19][20] tend to regard these goddesses as one, especially under the title "Queen of heaven".
Isis
Isis was venerated first in Egypt. As per the Greek historian Herodotus, writing in the fifth century BC, Isis was the only goddess worshiped by all Egyptians alike,[27] and whose influence was so widespread by that point, that she had become syncretic with the Greek goddess Demeter.[28] It is after the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great, and the Hellenization of the Egyptian culture initiated by Ptolemy I Soter, that she eventually became known as 'Queen of Heaven'.[29] Apuleius confirms this in Book 11, Chap 47 of his novel, The Golden Ass, in which his character prays to the "Queen of Heaven". The goddess herself responds to his prayer, delivering a lengthy monologue in which she explicitly identifies herself as both the Queen of Heaven and Isis.
Then with a weeping countenance, I made this orison to the puissant Goddess, saying: O blessed Queen of Heaven...
Thus the divine shape breathing out the pleasant spice of fertile Arabia, disdained not with her divine voice to utter these words unto me: Behold Lucius I am come, thy weeping and prayers has moved me to succor thee. I am she that is the natural mother of all things, mistress and governess of all the elements, the initial progeny of worlds, chief of powers divine, Queen of Heaven... and the Egyptians which are excellent in all kind of ancient doctrine, and by their proper ceremonies accustomed to worship me, do call me Queen Isis.[30]
See also
- Astrotheology – Theological discipline
- Doumu – Goddess in Chinese religion and Taoism
- Heavenly Mother – Mormon deity
- Mazu, also commonly known as the "Empress of Heaven".
- Mother Goddess– Goddess who represents, or is a personification of nature, motherhood, fertility, creation
- Nuit, also known as "Lady of the Starry Heaven".
References
- ^ Fiore, Silvestro. Voices From the Clay: the development of Assyro-Babylonian Literature. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1965.
- ^ Jacobsen, Thorkild. The Treasures of Darkness: a History of Mesopotamian Religion. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1976.
- ^ Hobson, Russell (2009). The Exact Transmission of Texts in the First Millennium B.C.E. (PDF) (Ph.D.). University of Sydney, Department of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies.
- ISBN 978-90-01-93103-2. Retrieved 10 January 2011.
- ISBN 9781107152748. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
- ISBN 0801409616.
- ISBN 1591021758.
- ISBN 978-1847252142.
- ^ Dilmun Culture. National Council of Culture and the Arts. 1992. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
- ^ Wolkstein, Diane and Noah Kramer, Samuel, "Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth" - a modern, poetic reinterpretation of Inanna myths
- ^ Wolkstein, Diane, and Samuel Noah Kramer. Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer. Harper &Row, Publishers, 1983, New York.
- ^ "Inana's descent to the nether world: Translation".
- ^ "Inana and Enki: Translation".
- ^ "Inana and Ebih: Translation".
- ^ Harris, Rivkah (1991), "Inanna-Ishtar as Paradox and a Coincidence of Opposites" (History of Religions, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Feb., 1991)), pp. 261-278
- ^ Rubio, Gonzalo (1999), "On the Alleged "Pre-Sumerian Substratum" (Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 51, 1999 (1999)), pp. 1-16
- ^ Wolkstein, Diane and Samuel Noah Kramer. Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer. Harper and Row, Publishers, 1983, New York. (Page 55)
- ^ Bruce, F. F. (1941), "Babylon and Rome" (The Evangelical Quarterly, Vol. 13, (Oct. 15, 1941)), pp. 241-261
- ^ ISBN 0-8028-3972-X
- ^ .
- ISBN 978-0-310-58869-6.
- ^ Biblegateway, Jeremiah 7, 17.
- ISBN 978-0-8028-2530-8.
- ^ Biblegateway, Jeremiah 44.
- ISBN 978-1-4514-0519-4.
- ^ Dr. Raphael Patai: "The Hebrew Goddess": Duke University Press: third edition
- ^ Histories 2.42
- ^ Histories 2.156
- ISBN 0-8018-5642-6
- ^ "The Golden Asse of Apuleius: The Eleventh Booke: The Forty-seventh Chapter". Sacred-texts.com. Retrieved 2014-02-13.