Astarte

Astarte or Ashtoreth (Greek: Ἀστάρτη, Astártē) is the Hellenized form of the Middle Eastern goddess Ishtar, worshipped from the Bronze Age through classical antiquity. The name is particularly associated with her worship in the ancient Levant among the Canaanites and Phoenicians. She was also celebrated in Egypt following the importation of Levantine cults there. The name Astarte is sometimes also applied to her cults in Mesopotamian cultures like Assyria and Babylonia.

Astarte is one of a number of names associated with the chief goddess or female divinity of those peoples. She is recorded in Akkadian as As-dar-tu, the masculine form of Ishtar. The name appears in Ugaritic as ʻAthtart or ʻAṭtart, in Phoenician as Ashtart or Aštart, in Hebrew as Ashtoret (עשתרת). The Hebrews also referred to the Ashtarot or “Astartes” in the plural. The Etruscan Pyrgi Tablets record the name Uni-Astre.

Astarte was connected with fertility, sexuality, and war. Her symbols were the lion, the horse, the sphinx, the dove, and a star within a circle indicating the planet Venus. Pictorial representations often show her naked. She has been known as the deified morning and/or evening star. The deity takes on many names and forms among different cultures and according to Canaanite mythology, is one and the same as the Assyro-Babylonian goddess Ištar, taken from the third millennium BC Sumerian goddess Inanna, the first primordial goddess of the planet Venus. Inanna was also known by the Aramaic people as the god Attar, whose myth was construed in a different manner by the people of Greece to align with their own cultural myths and legends, when the Canaanite merchants took the First papyrus from Byblos (the Phoenician city of Gebal) to Greece sometime before the 8th century by a Phoenician called Cadmus the first King of Thebes.

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Author: Wikipedia

Keywords: Astarte, Ishtar, Ashtoret, Ashtarot, Ashtaroth, Ashtoreth, Goddess of the Zidonians, Goddess of fertility, Goddess, Fertility cult, Fertility, False god, Idol, Idolatry

Bible reference(s): Judges 2:13, Judges 10:6, 1 Samuel 7:3, 1 Samuel 7:4, 1 Samuel 12:10, 1 Samuel 31:10, 1 Kings 11:5, 1 Kings 11:33, 2 Kings 23:13

Source: This article uses material from the Wikipedia article “Astarte,” which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

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