ASTARTE. - It is the Greek name of the principal goddess of the Chaldeans. In the Hebrew text of the Old Testament she is called 'Aštoreth instead of 'Aštereth, with a tendentious pronunciation based on the word bōšeth "shame," in order to express contempt for her. The plural is 'Aštāroth. The Vulgate uses the name in 1 Kings 11:5, 33. The plural is found in Judg. 2:13; 3:7, etc., and is explained analogously to the plural of Baal. The name A. is another form of the name of the Babylonian goddess Ishtar, of the Aramaic goddess 'Attar (Atargatis) and of the Arab god 'Attar.
A. was worshiped especially by the Phoenicians, so that in the Old Testament she is called the goddess of the Sidonians (1 Kings 11:5, 33; 2 Kings 23:13). In Phoenicia many figures of her were found, and she had temples there; the name of A. also appears in proper names, such as Abdastart, Bodastart, Amastart, and the kings of the Phoenicians were called priests of A. From the homeland the cult spread to the colonies, as many inscriptions found on the island of Cyprus at Larnaca, in Malta, in Sicily, in Sardinia and at Carthage show. The Philistines too paid cult to the goddess, as the temple of A. at Beth-shan demonstrates, in which the weapons of Saul, killed in the battle of Gilboa, were placed (1 Sam. 31:10). She was also worshiped among the Moabites, as is gathered from the stele of King Mesha, in which (line 17) the name 'Aštart-Kemof occurs. Other traces of the cult of A. are found in Syria, namely at Hierapolis, at Heliopolis, and also in Harran.
The Israelites, as soon as they entered Palestine, began to pay to Baal and to A. (Judg. 2:13; 10:6; 1 Sam. 12:10) a cult that lasted until the last times of the two Israelite kingdoms; even King Solomon in his last years erected a temple to A. (1 Kings 11:5, 33). Eradicated by Solomon's third successor, King Asa (1 Kings 15:12-13), the cult of A. developed in the northern kingdom of Israel, since King Ahab married Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, who introduced into her new homeland the cult of Baal and of A. (1 Kings 16:31-33; 18:19). Jezebel's daughter, Athaliah, who became the wife of Jehoram, king of Judah, introduced anew into Jerusalem the cult of the goddess (2 Kings 8:18; 2 Chron. 24:7, 18), where it then remained until the times of Jeremiah, that is, until the collapse of the kingdom of Judah; and even then the Hebrew women offered cakes and libations to A. (Jer. 7:18; 44:17-19, 25).
As many of the cited passages of the Old Testament show, A. was worshiped together with Baal and also together with the host of heaven (2 Kings 23:4), that is, with the stars, and her worshipers called her "queen of heaven" (Jer., loc. cit.). She, like the Ishtar of the Babylonians, was identified with the planet Venus and thus had an astral character. Like Baal, she represents the force of nature and is the female principle, passive, productive, maternal. The dove and the pillar were sacred to her; she was the goddess of fertility, but also of war and destruction. Therefore her cult was obscene and also cruel, and human sacrifices and prostitution were attached to it.
In many cited passages of the Old Testament in the Hebrew text the 'Ašterah is named, a word that the Septuagint translates ἄλσος and the Vulgate: nemus or lucus, (grove), as in Judg. 6:25, 30; 2 Kings 21:3; 23:4; 2 Chron. 33:3. This translation, however, cannot be justified, since in almost all the passages the word 'Ašterah is found together with other words that signify divinities or their images; one reads moreover often that one must not make an 'Ašterah, set it up, fashion it, and that it must be removed and burned, etc.; phrases that do not suit a grove, but rather an image. Then in many passages the 'Ašerāh is named together with Baal (Judg. 3:7; 1 Kings 18:19; 2 Kings 23:4), which demonstrates that it is a divinity. Commonly the 'Ašerāh is identified with A., and rightly so, because the names are used interchangeably in the Bible; thus (Judg. 2:13; 10:6; 1 Sam. 7:4; 12:10) the god Baal is named together with A. (Judg. 3:7) together with 'Ašerāh. The ancient versions not rarely put 'Ašerāh in place of A. The image of 'Ašerāh was a wooden pillar, which the Canaanites placed beside the altars of Baal (Ex. 34:13; Deut. 7:5; Judg. 6:25, etc.). Like A., 'Ašerāh was the female principle, conceiving, the mother of life and the goddess of love, like the Aphrodite of the Greeks and the Venus of the Romans.
Bibliography3 works
Arduino Kleinhans