Sapphiric God: - Dr. Wesley Muhammad

mythological patterns,” and that this might be explained by the type of pagan and Jewish syncretism as
took place in Greco-Roman Edessa. 191 Our study casts serious doubt on both of these suggestions. Such
texts as MRI, PisÈa, § 14 indicate that the trope is much earlier than what the Heikhalot literature might
suggest. In another writing I argue that the priestly redactor of the Pentateuch (‘P’) and Philo of Alexandria
give evidence of an ancient temple tradition of a sapphiric God. 192 It is therefore more likely that the
similarities between Mesopotamian and post-biblical Jewish descriptions of God evince not late antique
syncretism but an indeginous, at least an ancient, part of Israel’s mythic tradition, which she shares in
common with her neighbors in the ANE.
191 See above n. 84.
192 Forthcoming.
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