IN I'ALESTINE IN RELATION TO THE BIBLE. 



233 



kissing of the devout. This was the primitive l>eta-el," the 

 dweUing-place of the local god. Gradually, it may be surmised, 

 other stones were added, until the perfect number (seven) was 

 reached— it is quite clear that the eighth stone was added at a 

 considerably later period. At the outset this idea of the 

 presence of a deity in the stone was tlie one which made the 

 place sacred ; it is one common to the most primitive stages of 

 stone worship among the Semites. Later on, but still at a time 

 of remote antiquity, a new idea arose, and the pillars came to be 

 viewed as phallic images. This, though it might be inferred by the 

 shape of some of the older unhewn stones, is made much more 

 proliable through the enormous number of roughly shaped 

 phallic emblems, mostly natural size, found scattered through 

 the d(5bris all around the Temple area. There is no possibility 

 of mistaking these objects, and the connection of these with 

 the masschoth is clear ; in the immediate neighbourhood of the 

 pillars they are specially plentiful. 



Here we have indubitable evidence of the character of the 

 religious ideas which came gradually to be associated with the 

 Temple. When the eighth pillar was erected its form is so 

 pronounced that all can see it was deliberately fashioned to be 

 a simulacrum priajn. Now scattered about the Temple and 

 elsewhere in the city, specially in the fourth stratum, are found 

 numbers of earthenware plaques representing a nude figure 

 of Ashtarte, the Babylonian Istar — the goddess of fertility. At 

 Tell Ta'cmnk, similar plaques of Ashtarte were found in 

 considerable numbers in the later " Amorite " city — during the 

 Hebrew occupation a new type seems to have hei'e come in. 

 These plaques were most in use in tlie land about IGOO B.C. 

 Similar figures are found in Babylonia, Susiana, Phccnicia and 

 Cyprus. The most interesting of all those found at Gezer are 

 those in which the goddess is supplied with two horns (one of 

 the figures is of metal and the horns are indisputable) ; this is 

 no doubt the representation of the much-discussed " Ashteroth 

 Karnain " or Ashteroth (Ashtarte) of the two-horns — a place- 

 name in Gen. xiv, 5. Most of the plaques are found broken 

 across the middle; indeed so constantly was this the case, that 

 it has been suggested that they have been broken purposely 

 — ritually. The character of the figure on these plaques is in 

 most cases of such a nature as by rude exaggeration to make the 

 sexual element pronounced, and it is im})()ssible to refrain from 

 associating them with the Temple ritual, which seems at this 

 very period to have been concerned with worship of the pro- 

 creative powers. Now this opens up the (juestion wiiether the 



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