Talk:Astarte/Archive 1

NW Semitic?
The article says that Astarte was a NW semitic god, cognate to the Eastern semitic Ishtar, but the same god, Astar, was worshipped in Ethiopia during Aksumite and pre-Aksumite times (as well as in Sabaean Yemen). The lack of the final t makes the name similar to the Eastern semitic god, but the "A" instead of "I" at the beginning is closer to the NW semitic god. Either way, both NW and Eastern Semitic languages are geographically far removed from South Semitic languages, and it wouldn't make more sense on a geographical basis to include Astar in one or the other. Astar seems to be a god, and not a goddess, though, later associated with the Greek god Zeus. What should be done? Is there a third article for South Semitic that I'm missing? Should a separate article be created for it, cognate to both NW and E Semitic? Yom 23:48, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

External Links?
The second external link (to the 'Asteroth Rising' Tarot deck) has almost nothing to do with the content of the article and seems like an advertisement. --Sgorton 02:31, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Ashtoreth not Asherah
"The name Asherah may also be confused with Ashtoreth, but is probably a different Goddess." -- okay... why? brain (talk) 17:23, 3 February 2008 (UTC)


 * For one thing, the word ‘Ashtart etc. began with a voiced pharyngeal consonant written by the letter `ayin ( ע ), while the word Asherah begin with a glottal stop consonant written by the letter aleph ( א ), and these were two completely separate and distinct sounds in early Semitic languages. AnonMoos (talk) 23:23, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Is Astarte cognate with Easter?
It is suggested on [| the talk page for Easter] (small relevant quote below) that Astarte is cognate or associated with Easter (which seems vaguely plausible), can anyone confirm or deny with extrenal references that Astre is Easter in old English? or make any other link, as it would allow links to the easter article to be added and perhaps that article to be tidied

Here is the relevant speculative quote from that talk page --"basing it on or confusing it with the Greek God Astarte. The word Eostre is obviously a take on the Latin word Oestrus; based on the Greek "oistros;" female sexual excitement. "Easter" in old English is "Astre". Given the pervasiveness of Astarte worship in the ancient world, is it that much of a stretch to suspect the worship spread to the Germanic tribes?"

Just found a discussion on the subject [| here]

EdwardLane (talk) 20:54, 4 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, the most substantive discussion (such as it is) is on Talk:Ishtar, and the brief answer is "no". All reputable linguistic sources point towards the word Easter being connected with an Indo-European root meaning "dawn". AnonMoos (talk) 23:04, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Ashtoreth
The text states that the Hebrew "Ashtoreth" is deliberately mangled by the scribe doing the pointing by replacing the last two vowels with those from the word for "abomination" and suggests the expected form (based, I assume, on backformation from the plural "Ashtaroth") to be Ashtereth. Why is it, therefore, that the article credulously and unqualifiedly uses "Ashtoreth" elsewhere? 86.8.136.75 (talk) 17:10, 8 June 2010 (UTC)


 * In the nineteenth century some scholars went to great lengths in claiming that names of pagan deities and corresponding theophoric names were altered in Jewish tradition to impose the vowels of the word bosheth "shame" on them. I'm a little skeptical of some of the remoter extensions of the bosheth-theory, but I'm not sure what the details of the current mainstream scholarly consensus are on this point... AnonMoos (talk) 01:19, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Asherah
I removed this para from the lead - it's based on Mark Smith's Early history of God, but doesn't give a page number. I looked through the book and couldn't find anything Astarte being an Iron Age "incarnation" od Asherah, but I may be wrong. Smith is a good source.


 * According to scholar Mark S. Smith, Astarte may be the Iron Age (after 1200 BC) incarnation of the Bronze Age (to 1200 BC) Asherah; however, note that the word ‘Ashtart etc. began with a voiced pharyngeal consonant written by the letter `ayin ( ע ), while the word Asherah begins with a glottal stop consonant written by the letter aleph ( א ), and these were two completely separate and distinct sounds in early Semitic languages.

-- 16:28, 28 June 2010 User:PiCo


 * The name Asherah is certainly etymologically unconnected with the name Ashtoreth/Astarte etc. Whether there there is any other substantial connection between the goddesses, I don't know... AnonMoos (talk) 16:55, 28 June 2010 (UTC)


 * On page 129 of The Early History Smith talks about Astarte (1st millennium Phoenicia/Egypt/Kition) taking on some of the titles and characteristics of Ugaritic Asherah, Asherah herself having been forgotten. But this isn't the same thing as saying she was the "incarnation" of Bronze Age Asherah. Maybe the Smith material could be worked into the relevant section, but I believe this paragraph misrepresents what Smith says. PiCo (talk) 10:01, 30 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I believe that everything after "however" was cautioning against assuming that the names Asherah and Ashtoreth are connected, and was not intended to be a summary of Smith's views. If we change "may be the incarnation of" to "took on many of the attributes of", and break the sentence into two sentences at the semicolon (i.e. before "however"), I see little reason why the paragraph could not be restored to the article... AnonMoos (talk) 14:17, 30 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Please check what I've done in the Astarte in Judah section (which I think is a better place for this materail). Please check my refs, as I'm not totally sure I've got it right. PiCo (talk) 08:37, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Ugartic fonts
I thought that Windows Vista supports Unicode, but obviously, this is not the case for old languages. What should I do to see the Akkadian, Etruscan or Ugartic characters? Sae1962 (talk) 10:32, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I suggest you ask at WP:Help desk or WP:Village pump (technical). I'm not technically-minded, and I don't know that anyone else is paying attention to this page. A. Parrot (talk) 18:27, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Esther/Mordecai
Is Esther a cognate to Ishtar whereas Mordecai is a cognate to Marduk ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.179.216.25 (talk) 16:54, 3 February 2012 (UTC)


 * There appears to be some connection between the name of Esther and and the name of Mesopotamian Ishtar (not Canaanite Ashtart -- if the connection were to the name of the Canaanite goddess, the name Esther would be spelled with ש instead of ס in Hebrew). AnonMoos (talk)

Phoenician
Inputting Phoenician doesn't work for me but the spelling in the article goes ʻrtšt instead of ʻštrt. 95.220.186.16 (talk) 14:52, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Greek association
If a citation cannot be found, I will remove the line:

"Astarte (Ishtar) was accepted by the Greeks under the name of Aphrodite or, alternatively, Artemis."

It seems very unlikely that the Greeks would associate Artemis (a virgin goddess) with Astarte (a mother goddess.)Emryn (talk) 22:14, 17 October 2014 (UTC)


 * I have a source: "A Reconsideration of the Aphrodite-Ashtart Syncretism" by Stephanie L. Budin, Numen 51 (2), 2004. I'll reword that sentence based on what she says. Levantine goddesses formed sort of a nexus of syncretism with each other, with Egyptian goddesses, and with Greek goddesses, and the whole thing is pretty complicated. I'll probably take a while to figure out how to describe that complexity in the article. And even then I can't cover the whole nexus, just some of it. A. Parrot (talk) 22:36, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Inanna
Why doesn't this article even mention Inanna? It claims Astarte is a Semitic goddess, but she is Sumerian, not Semitic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.234.170.125 (talk) 20:38, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Astarte is certainly Semitic. Astarte and Ishtar are different versions of a Semitic goddess, who developed in somewhat different directions. Astarte was worshipped in Syria and Canaan (by speakers of West Semitic languages), and Ishtar was worshipped by the Semitic-speaking peoples in Mesopotamia like the [[Akkadians (who spoke East Semitic languages). Inanna was a Sumerian goddess, but as the East Semitic peoples established themselves in Mesopotamia and absorbed Sumerian culture, Ishtar absorbed a lot of the traits and mythology that originally belonged to Inanna. My impression is that they came close to being synonymous with each other, like Aphrodite and Venus. Astarte, on the other hand, may not have been affected nearly as much by the original Sumerian beliefs about Inanna. If she was, Inanna's article is worth linking to, but if she wasn't, it doesn't strike me as necessary. I don't know which is the case, because I'm not an expert on Near Eastern religion; I just have a passing familiarity with it. A. Parrot (talk) 22:46, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Pronunciation
Aside from, there's no source given, the ones I see on cursory googling are not terribly for this sort of thing, and pronouncing it  is a little better than saying nothing* but isn't the actual  sound of her Greek name. (*And that's just the Greek name. Ignoring the e actually makes it closer to the original Semitic forms.) Hard to imagine scholars don't try to hew as close as possible to the original sounds. Google Scholar for Astarte and pronunciation doesn't turn up a half-anglicized convention but arguments on the reconstructions of the Semitic name. There isn't an established form to impose here; let people say it as they see it. — Llywelyn II   13:14, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Proposed Change to Page: COMBINING ALL INFORMATION and History ABOUT ASTAROTH aka ASTARTE.
ASTAROTH was a GODDESS until the NEW IDEA of HER being a Male Demon came about in 1458 it would be fitting to have ONE ARTICLE that covered both the GODDESS AND the NEW proposed idea of Astaroth being a Male Demon.

Quote from Current Wikipedia Page: The name "Astaroth" as a male demon is first known from The Book of Abramelin, purportedly written in Hebrew c. 1458, and recurred in most occult grimoires of the following centuries. Astaroth also features as an archdemon associated with the qliphoth (adverse forces) according to later Kabbalistic texts.

SnowWhite21 (talk) 01:19, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Adding text just deleted here
This was deleted for lack of source: "She is clearly distinguished from ʿAshtart in the Ugaritic documents although in non-Ugaritic sources from later periods the distinction between the two goddesses can be blurred; either as a result of scribal error or through possible syncretism. In any case, the two names begin with different consonants in the Semitic languages; Athirat or Asherah with an aleph or glottal stop consonant (א) versus ʿAshtart or ʿAshtoreth with an ʿayin or voiced pharyngeal consonant (ע), indicating the lack of any plausible etymological connection between the names."

Doug Weller talk 19:34, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Proposed Change to TItle Section: Add ASTAROTH
ASTARte, ASTARoth, Asteroth.

It is a common misconception that 'ASTAROTH' is a MALE DEMON. However, ASTARoth is merely a manifestation of the Goddess Astarte, Ishtar, Inanna.

Astaroth is a GODDESS. Some of her many names include: Aphrodite, Anat, Artemeis, Ashteroth, Ashtoret, Astarte, Athtart, Hathor, Inanna, Ishtar, and Juno, Tanit-Ashtart.

"ancient Semetic goddess; Phoenician diety" "Probably for ashtrah; Ashtoreth, the Phoenician GODDESS of Love"

“The Sumerian goddess Inanna, better known by her Semitic name Ishtar, was worshipped all over the Western Lands under different local cultic names. To the Phoenicians and Philistines, she was Astarte; to the Canaanites she was Asherah. She appears in the Old Testament under these names as well as ASTORETH and Anat. These were all permutations of the name Ishtar, the fertility GODDESS and “Queen of Heaven” of the Semitic people.”

“The worship of Astarte was quite common among the Hebrews and appears in the form of ASTAROTH. In Joshua 24:33 (a verse which does not appear in the King James version but is found in the Hebrew text) she is called Astarte, the “majestic lady” or Astarten kai Astaroth. ASTAROTH is a plural form of majesty and it is OBVIOUS that the word applies to Astarte.”

“And it came to pass afterwards that Eleazar the high-priest the son of Aaron died, and was buried in Gabaar of Phinehas{gr.Phinees} his son, which he gave him in mount Ephraim. In that day the children of Israel took the ark of God, and carried it about among them; and Phinehas{gr.Phinees} exercised the priest's office in the room of Eleazar his father till he died, and he was buried in his own place Gabaar: but the children of Israel departed every one to their place, and to their own city: and the children of Israel worshipped Ashtaroth{gr.Astarte}, and Ashtaroth{gr.Astaroth}, and the gods of the nations round about them; and the Lord delivered them into the hands of Eglon{gr.Eglom} king of Moab and he ruled over them eighteen years.” Joshua 24:33 Septuagint

“A’ STAROTH, (the plural of Astarte) or Ashtaroth, or Ashtoreth, a GODDESS of the Sidonians. 1 Kings xi.5. Ashtaroth, in the Syrian language, signifies sheep; particularly ewes, when their dugs are turgid, and they give milk. From the fecundity of these animals, which in Syria continue to breed a long time, the Sidonians formed the notion of a deity, which they called ASTAROTH, or Astarte. Astarte, the singular number of ASTAROTH, a GODDESS of the Phoenicians. This deity is in Scripture (Jer. Xiv.18) called the QUEEN of Heaven…Solomon had many wives that were sorceresses, was prevailed upon them to introduce the worship of this GODDESS into Israel… ”

“Moreover, the universe of the ancient religion of Mesopotamia was conceived as being under the control of Baal, the Father God and ASTAROTH, the MOTHER GODDESS. Baal, the Sun-god, was a hot, active, light, immaterial and positive principle; ASTAROTH, the Moon-GODDESS, was cold, passive, heavy, material and negative.”

“Venus Anadyomene…Astaroth GODDESS of the Zidonians”

“ASTAROTH, or Astoreth, or Astarte, a celebrated Phoenician GODDESS….She was GODDESS of the woods, the celestial GODDESS, and was also called the “Queen of Heaven”

“Perhaps some light may be thrown upon its history by the observations of Adrichomius,* who speaks of the fane constructed by Solomon, upon the top of the Mount of Olives, for the worship of ASTAROTH, the idol of the Sidonians. The Venus of Paphos was represented by a symbol which had the peculiar form of this crypt; that is to say a eone; but the Phoenician ASTAROTH, and the Paphian GODDESS, were one and the same divinity.”

“ASTAROTH, or Ashtaroth, in antiquity, a GODDESS of the Sidonians.“ “Astarte, the Singular of ASHTAROTH, a GODDESS of the Sidonians, and called, in scripture, the Queen of Heaven.”

“GODDESS known as Ester, Esther, Ishtar and/or ASTAROTH”

“Ashtaroth, and (once) ASTAROTH a city on the E of Jordan…doubtlessly so called from being a seat of the worship of the GODDESS of the same name."

“Ashtoreth, [and once ASTARTE, (aka ASTAROTH)] the principal FEMALE divinity of the Phoenicians, as Baal was the principal MALE divinity….In the earlier books of the o.t. only the plural, Ashtaroth occurs, and it is not till the time of Solomon, who introduced the worship of the Sidonian Astarte, and only in reference to that particular GODDESS, Ashtoreth of the Sidonians, that the singular is found in the O.T.”

“In later Jewish mythology, she [Astarte] became a female demon of lust; for what seems to be the use of the Hebrew plural form of ʻAštārōṯ in this sense, see Astaroth).

“The term Astaroth is derived from the name of the Semitic Goddess Astarte, a goddess who appears in Ugaritic, Phoenician, and Akkadian sources. She is a cognate of the Babylonian goddess Ishtar. Because she is connected with forbidden things in the bible, namely with religions that were viewed as false and heretical by the ancient Israelites, Astarte cum Astaroth was demonized along with a host of other foreign deities. She, now a he, has remained a demon ever since – at least as far as most of Western civilization is concerned.”

“A good example is the Babylonian mother goddess, Ishtar. A beneficent deity of a very loving and generous nature, Ishtar, also seen as a moon goddess, first became Astarte, then ASTAROTH, one of the fallen angels and one of the highest demons in the hierarchy of hell.”

“She [Venus, the Goddess of Love] was generally worshipped in the territories of Israel by the name of Astarte, or ASTAROTH, or Asterah, or the Goddess of the Groves.”

"Juno, therefore, a translation of the Greek Hera, chief of the Goddesses in Greco-Roman pantheon, was the Roman equivelant of the Phoenician supreme GODDESS, ASTAROTH, known to us by the Greek name of ASTARTE, the goddess of fertility for the Semitic peoples."

“Evidently, the adaptation of the roles and statutes of divine figures extends over time and space, and across the entire spectrum of deities, whose fate at the hands of popular belief and official doctrine cannot be predicted. Astarte is one case in point of a goddess who has managed to keep a hold on the minds of man from roughly the fifteenth century BC right through to the Middle Ages and beyond: (s)he will be highly instrumental in the destruction of Alexander VI in The Devil’s Charter. The name is found in Ugaritic (‘ttrt for Athtart[u]), Phoenician (‘štrt for Ashtart), Hebrew (Aštōret), Egyptian (‘strt, ‘strt, or istrt) and Greek (Astartē), and consequently related to, and the counterpart of, the Akkadian Aš-tar-[tum?] for Ishtar, the goddess of love and war. She appears to be the Evening Star, Venus, deified. In Ugarit, as well as in Egypt, she is seen as an armed consort of Baal, although she does not seem to have had a relationship with him. In Egypt, where Seth and Baal are conflated, Seth takes the daughters of Re, namely Anat and Astarte, as his wives. Here, Astarte is a war-goddess. She was also an important female deity in Phoenicia. The goddess further extends her mighty arms into various other Mediterranean cultures: “she became assimilated with the Egyptian deities Isis and Hathor, and in the Greco-Roman world with Aphrodite, Artemis, and Juno, all aspects of the Great Mother.” The Aramaic goddess Atargatis also takes on traits of Ashtart, who retains a life of her own, too. As she is a rival deity to Yahweh, it does not come as a surprise that the Hebrews did not flatter her greatly: Hebrew scholars now feel that the GODDESS Ashtoreth mentioned so often in the bible is a deliberate conflation of the Greek name Astarte and the Hebrew word boshet, “shame,” indicating the Hebrew contempt for HER cult. Ashtaroth, the plural form of the goddess’s name in Hebrew became a general term denoting GODDESSES and paganism.” “It is in this latter form that the name eventually reappears as the one of one of the principal, now male, demons frequently found in occult literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.


 * I have just added Talkref to the foot of this section to keep this list of 18(!) reference to the appropriate section, rather than defaulting to the bottom of the page.

--Thnidu (talk) 13:53, 31 October 2019 (UTC)