Shalim
Template:Infobox deityTemplate:Short description Template:Fertile Crescent myth (Levantine) Template:Middle Eastern deities Template:Multiple image Shalim (Šalām, Shalem, Template:Langx) is a god in Canaanite religion, mentioned in inscriptions found in Ugarit (now Ras Shamra, Syria).[1][2] William F. Albright identified Shalim as the god of the dusk and Shahar as the god of the dawn.[3] In the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, Venus is represented by Shalim as the Evening Star and Shahar as the Morning Star.[1] His name derives from the triconsonantal Semitic root Š-L-M ("whole, safe, sound, peace").
Ugaritic inscriptions
An Ugaritic myth known as The Gracious and Most Beautiful Gods describes Shalim and his brother Shahar as offspring of El through two women he meets at the seashore. They are both nursed by "The Lady", likely Asherah, and have appetites as large as "(one) lip to the earth and (one) lip to the heaven." In other Ugaritic texts, the two are associated with the sun goddess.[1]
Another inscription is a sentence repeated three times in a para-mythological text, "Let me invoke the gracious gods, the voracious gods of ym." Ym in most Semitic languages means "day," and Shalim and Shahar, twin deities of the dusk and dawn, were conceived of as its beginning and end.[4]
Shalim is also mentioned separately in the Ugaritic god lists and forms of his name also appear in personal names, perhaps as a divine name or epithet.[1]
Many scholars believe that the name of Shalim is preserved in the name of the city Jerusalem.[5][1][6][7][8] The god Shalim may have been associated with dusk and the evening star in the etymological senses of a "completion" of the day, "sunset" and "peace".[9]
See also
References
Bibliography
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 van der Toorn et al., 1999, pp. 755-6
- ↑ Golan, 2003, p. 82. "The name of the Canaanite deity of the setting sun Salim, or Salem, [...] The names [of Sahar and Salim] are rendered in modern scholarly texts as Shakhar and Shalim [...]"
- ↑ Template:Cite book; cf. the Akkadian word for sunset, šalām šamši.
- ↑ van der Toorn et al., 1999, p. 222.
- ↑ Template:Cite book
- ↑ N. Na'aman, Canaanite Jerusalem and its central hill country neighbours in the second millennium B.C.E., Ugarit-Forschungen Vol. 24 (1992), pp275-291.
- ↑ L. Grabbe, Ethnic groups in Jerusalem, in Jerusalem in Ancient History and Tradition (Clark International, 2003) pp145-163.
- ↑ John Day, Yahweh and the gods and goddesses of Canaan, Sheffield Academic Press 2002, p180
- ↑ Template:Cite book