Dictionary Of God And Godedesses

88 ElagabalKNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP700 BC.circa 2500 BC toSYNONYMS et elyon (most high god); et sadday (godof the mountain); et olam (everlasting god); etbetel (god of storms), IL [southern Arabian].CENTER(S) OF CULT Tirzah, Šamaria, Bethel,Dan and many local hill shrines.ART REFERENCES none extant other than fromlater artists.LITERARY SOURCES Vetus Testamentum; Qum’Ran texts.Modeled on the creator god of the Canaanites,Il, represented by the bull and revered by theHebrew tribes who settled northern Palestine.According to some Ugaritic (Ras Šamra) texts,not the original creator but the offspring of anolder principal, EL-EB (god of the father). InBiblical texts the word el comes to be used in adescriptive sense as a qualifying epithet meaning“lord.” Possibly El came to represent the sum ofall the creator spirits of the northern tribes.Israel was unwilling to part with the nameagainst pressure from the southern state of Judah(see YHWH), but the name fell into disuse aftersuppression of Israel by Tiglathpileser II(Assyria). The Hebrew term ELOHIM may denotean “upper tier” of great gods while ELIM appliesto a lower order of deities.NOTE: Biblical traditions were carried by thesouthern state of Judah. The impression is giventhat El is a distant, vaguely defined figure perceivedin human form—“he” is able to see, hear,walk and touch—though no images in humanform seem to have been created. El was apparentlysymbolized in Israel from circa 922 BCagain by the bull calf (I Kings 12), probablyemulating the Canaanite precedent. The voiceof El is said to be like thunder, the clouds are hischariot and he waters the mountains fromheaven.Elagabal (lord of the mountain)Local tutelary god. Syrian. Probably originatingas a mountain deity with strong solar links.His sacred animal is the eagle. His cult was basedon the town of Emesa [Homs], where he wasworshiped in the form of a dome-shaped, blackstone obelisk. His name became Hellenized asHeliogabalos.El’ebPrimordial god. Western Semitic (Canaanite).In some texts the god EL (IL) is not the originalbeing but is preceded by a father figure.EL-EB translates as “god the father.”See also YALDABAOTH.ElimCollective term for gods. Judaic. Found in theVetus Testamentum and distinguishing the lowerorder of gods from the great deities, ELOHIM.ElkunirsaCreator god. Western Semitic (Canaanite) andHittite. Allegedly borrowed and modified fromthe Canaanite god IL. His consort is Ašerdus(Canaanite: AŠERTU).Ellaman (lady of the boundary)Goddess of passage. Hindu-Dravidian (Tamil)[southern India]. A goddess guarding boundariesof villages and fields. One of the NAVASAKTI orastral deities. Also Ellaiyamman.EllelCreator god. Hittite and Hurrian. Derived fromthe Babylonian-Akkadian god ELLIL.