Anat-Yahu and the Jews at Elephantine

Abstract

Important Aramaic papyri documents have been discovered at the fortified city on the island of Elephantine in the Nile River. These documents describe, inter alia, the lives of a group of Jewish mercenaries and their families who lived there during the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E. They probably originated from the former kingdom of northern Israel. Documents attest to an excavated Jewish temple where sacrifices were offered to YHW. The inhabitants of the seventh century B.C.E. northern Israel consisted mainly of Israelites and Aramaeans. They worshipped many deities or forms of divine manifestation. This religious pluralism was presumably carried over to Elephantine. Several of these papyri contain references to YHW, the most significant being an oath in the name of Anat-Yahu. The aim of this article is to illustrate that the possible veneration of Anat-Yahu by the Jews at Elephantine could support the much-debated theory that the Israelites believed that Yahweh had a consort.