Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Robert Newman" <rob AT designceramics.co.uk>]

I am reading a book by David Noel Freedman 'The Nine Commandments'.  He
mentioned about idols. 'In Mesopotamia the  bull-god Sin was warshiped ...'
I have read in 'The Miracles of Exodus' by C.J. Humphreys, it says Sin was
moon-god.

Are they referring to the same god?

Oun Kwon.

Hello,

The moon God was called Sin (Akkadian), also (in Sumerian) called Suen or 
Nanna or both Nanna-Suen.

The book Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia, an illustrated 
dictionary (British Museum Press) says under the entry 'bull'

"A bull's head on early historic painted pottery has been thought to 
symbolise a storm god, but without definite proof. From the Old Babylonian 
period onwards, however, the bull is usally associated with a god whose 
attribute of lightning confirms his identity as a storm god. Thunderclouds 
are refered to as the 'bull-calves' of the storm god Adad (Iskur). In the old 
Babylonian period, the bull can also be an attribute of the moon god 
Nanna-Suen, since it is associated with the cresent on seals. On astronomical 
tablets, the depiction of a bull represents the constellation Taurus."

Under the heading Nann-Suen the association is mentioned again, the entry 
reads in part:

"A symbol of Nanna was a recumbent crescent moon. His beast was a bull or a 
lion-dragon."

An illustraton of Sin from a cylinder seal of the Neo-Babylonian period, 
shows a figure standing on a crescent with a staff in hand. The figure wears 
a hat with what very much look like a bull's horns on top.

So whilst the bull was associated with the moon god Sin, it does not seem 
correct to speak of the 'bull-god Sin' after all the bull is also associated 
with the storm god Adad. Additionary a bull is associated with a winged gate 
symol of uncertain meaning, and a bull-man is sometimes an attendent of the 
sun god, and then there are the huge winged bulls with humans heads that 
flanked the entrances to Assyrian palaces.

hope all this helps
Robert Newman
>From kwrandolph AT gmail.com  Sat Jul  8 17:38:33 2006
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Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 14:38:32 -0700
From: "K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] bara vs' bero in Genesis 1:1
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Whether or not the words are cognates are irrelevant to the Hebrew
understanding. In Hebrew, it is merely a reference to a physical
object.

As for it being deified in Babylonian, there are many examples of
objects being deified in many cultures, so just because it was deified
in Babylon does not make it deified in the Biblical reference.

Karl W. Randolph.

On 7/8/06, JAMES CHRISTIAN READ <JCR128 AT student.apu.ac.uk> wrote:
> Yitzhak wrote:
> *tiha:m; "sea"; Akk. tamtum, tia:mat, Arab taham "land sloping down by the
> sea", tiha:mat "(geographical name for a coastal plain)"; Heb thom; Sy
> thoma (loanword); Ug taha:matu
> END QUOTE
>
> JCR: Thanks for showing how they could be cognates. My
> difficulty lied in accounting for the 'h' of tehom and
> you seem to have adequately done so and shown similar
> patterns which I have omitted in my reply for brevities
> sake. I can now see what you were saying.
>