This dissertation examines ancient conceptions of Near Eastern deities whosenames consistently included geographic epithets, which functioned like last names. InNeo-Assyrian (ca. 900-630 B.C.E.) texts, Ištar-of-Nineveh and Ištar-of-Arbela are oftenincluded as divine witnesses or enforcers of curses along with several other deitieswhose names lack any geographic epithets. Similarly, in second-millennium Ugaritictexts, Baal-of-Ugarit and Baal-of-Aleppo received separate offerings in cultic ritualsalong with several other deities whose names lack geographic epithets, and in firstmillenniumAramaic, Phoenician, and Punic texts, Baal-of-Ṣapān, Baal-of-Šamêm, andseveral other Baal-named deities are contrasted with each other in the same way thatthey are contrasted with other deities. The exploration of these Ištar and Baal divinenames as first names suggests that the scribes of the ancient Near East considered eachIštar and Baal who was explicitly associated with a unique geographic last name to be aunique deity. In fact, the geographic epithets that follow the divine names should beviewed as an essential part of these deities’ names. Neo-Assyrian scribes thought ofIštar-of-Nineveh as distinct from Ištar-of-Arbela just as they thought of her as distinctfrom any other deity whose name was not Ištar. Likewise Ugaritic, Aramaic, Phoenician, and Punic scribes thought of Baal-of-Ṣapān as distinct from Baal-of-Aleppo and any other Baal-named deity just as they thought of him as distinct from anyother deity whose name was not Baal. These analyses are pertinent to biblical studiesbecause inscriptions from the eastern Sinai (ca. 800 B.C.E.) invoke a Yahweh-of-Samaria and a Yahweh-of-Teman in blessings. Unlike, the Ištar and Baal divine namesthat are contrasted with each other in the same texts, however, these two Yahwehdivine names do not appear together in the same texts and were not necessarilycontrasted with each other. For this reason, it could not be determined whether or notIsraelites who encountered the Yahweh-named deities recognized them as distinct andindependent deities. They might have known the names Yahweh-of-Samaria andYahweh-of-Teman, but there is nothing in the inscriptional or biblical evidence tosuggest that they necessarily thought of these as different Yahwehs
