Reading akkadian PRayeRs & Hymns An Introduction

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READING AKKADIAN PRAYERS AND HYMNS: AN INTRODUCTION
Netherworld, Agushaya) or, mostly in lyrical compositions, as beloved of Dumuzi.
7 Ishtar is often associated with lions.
In both prayers addressed to her that are part of this volume (Ishtar 2 and
24), her astral and warlike aspects are particularly stressed. Especially in Ishtar
2, she is the great and omnipotent goddess whose competence is universal and
who can save from the realm of chaos and death. She is the high goddess, the
addressee in case of problems with the personal protective deities (see Ishtar
2:85, 86 on page 275). This coincides with the fact that there is only dubious
evidence that she was anyone’s personal deity herself, though her minister Ninshubur
is known in this function. 8
Both prayers, and especially their invocations, cannot be read as “dogmatic
treatises” of Ishtar’s characteristics. Rather, they emphasize those aspects that
are important for the intention of the text: the supplicant wants something,
therefore they stress, on the one hand, the characteristics appealed to, and, on
the other, traits that they experience and interpret them in a positive way.
Ishtar is related to the levantine Astarte9 and is one of the probable candidates
for the identification of the “queen of heaven” (םימשׁה תכלמ) in Jer 7:18;
44:17–19, 25. 10 In addition, the name Esther (רתֵּ סְ א) ֶ has been discussed as
possibly derived from Ishtar. 11
THE PRAYER: 12
The text of the prayer is transmitted with small variants in six manuscripts.
As none of them is unbroken, though three of them transmit the prayer in its
entirety, the text given here is eclectic and usually follows the majority of the
manuscripts.
The prayer is transmitted in different ritual contexts. The editions of Farber
and Schwemer both publish manuscripts in which it forms part of a ritual addressed
to Ishtar and Dumuzi. The supplicant is suffering because magical rites
have been performed against them; figurines of them have been buried in a
grave. The ritual aims at liberating the supplicant from the netherworld while
sending the sorcerers into it. The mythical background for the ritual is Ishtar’s
descent into the netherworld. 13 The prayer is the first spoken part of the ritual
7 Wilcke, 82–85.
8 Karel van der Toorn, Familiy Religion in Babylonia, Syria and Israel: Continuity and Change in the
Forms of Religious Life (SHCANE 7; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 80–81. Nevertheless, her name is prominent
in the onomasticon; see Wilcke, 86.
9 Selz, 32–33.
10 Abusch, 455; Selz, 38–39.
11 Abusch, 455.
12 [Ed. note: The author does not agree with the use of the conventional designation “incantation-prayer”
tentatively adopted by the editor of this volume. In the interest of consistency, she
has graciously allowed the word to stand in the title of this treatment.]
13 Schwemer, Rituale, 215–17; see also Farber, 218–21.