Conference Diary: Cristina Barcina Perez on „Iron Age Perspective on Conceptualizing the Divine in the Levant“

Deities in Aram, Israel, and Phoenicia: an Iron Age perspective on conceptualizing the divine in the Levant

March 21-23, 2018 in Helsinki, Finland

Organised by Centre of Excellence in ‘Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions’

(CSTT) at the University of Helsinki, team ‘Society and Religion in the Ancient Near East’ in collaboration with the Finnish Institute in the Middle East (FIME).

Website of the conference

As a first year doctoral student this conference taught me about different approaches, how research varies according to perspective and how both Old Testament and Assyriological discourses benefit from perspectives from different fields. The general topic grouping all talks seemed to be "monotheism and polytheism", or perhaps "monotheism within polytheism" or even "monotheism or monotheisms?".

Mark S. Smith from Princeton Theological Seminary opened the conference with his lecture “The Three Bodies of God”, conceptualizing three types of divine bodies discernible in the religion of Ancient Israel (based on his analysis of different scales, locations and settings), guest lectures were also given by Elizabeth Bloch-Smith (Princeton Theological Seminary) “Where the Deity was Manifest: Identifying Israelite Sacred Space”, Fabio Porzia (University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès), Hadi Ghantous from Lebanon gave a lecture on “The Diminishing of the Baalistic Image of YHWH in Elijah’s Journey from Carmel to Horeb (1 Kings 17-19)” and Herbert Niehr from the university of Tübingen presented “From Phoenicia via Aram to Israel: Outlines of the History of the God Ba’alšamem/Ba’alšamayin”.

A range of very interesting papers was also presented by the Helsinki team. Sebastian Fink gave a talk titled “The divine world: exploring divine agency in ancient Mesopotamia”, related to the specific nature of the kalutu literature (Emesal prayers/lamentations), denoting less anthropomorphism than in other genres, and its presence in neo-Assyrian cult. Gina Kontantopoulos presented “Wandering Monsters: Tracking the Westward Movement of Demons from Mesopotamia through the Levant”, mostly focusing on the Sebetti and paying special attention to the iconography. Lauri Laine used Cognitive Science of Religion approach to study the (universal) image of the “Rider of the Clouds” associated with storm gods in Mesopotamia, Ugarit and the Hebrew Bible, whereas Joanna Työräänvuori explored the iconographic and textual conceptualization of the Sea as a deity in West-Semitic mythologies and its transmission into some Hebrew Bible texts. Andreas Nõmmik presented “Transformation of the Early Iron Age cultic practices in the Southern Levant”, focusing on the material and archaeological culture, especially figurines, illuminating the 12th and 11th centuries B.C. (Egyptian, Canaanite and Aegean-Cypriot components).

Last, but not least, Izaak J. de Hulster closed the conference with “YHWH and his enemies in I & II Kings”, exploring the reasons why names of foreign deities may have been often left out of confrontation narratives.

I am very grateful for the welcoming generosity of organizers Isaac J. de Hulster and Martti Nissinen, the Helsinki team, Mark S. Smith and Liz Bloch-Smith, and all the participants.

Cristina Barcina Perez is a doctoral student at the School of Theology and Religious Studies

April 2, 2018

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