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Sunday, December 22nd, 2024
the Fourth Week of Advent
Bible Encyclopedias
Atargatis
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
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a -tar´ga -tis ( Ἀταργάτις , Atargátis ; the Revised Version (British and American) wrongly ATERGATIS ): Is stated in 2 Macc 12:26 to have been worshipped at Karnion, the Ashtaroth-Karnaim of the Old Testament (compare Ant , XII , viii, 4). The name is found on coins of Membij as עתר־עתה , ‛atar -‛atah , where ‛Atar (i.e. Ashtoreth) is identified with the goddess ‛Atah , whose name is sometimes written עתי , ‛Átı̄ . ‛Atah or ‛Ati was also worshipped at Palmyra, and (according to Melito) in Adiabene. The compound Atargatis, often corrupted by the Greeks into Derketo, had her chief temples at Membij (Hierapolis) and Ashkelon where she was represented with the body of a woman and the tail of a fish, fish being sacred to her. Herodotus made her the Aphrodite Urania of the Greeks. ‛Ati may have been originally a Hittite goddess with whom the Assyrian Ishtar (‛Atar ) came afterward to be identified.
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Bibliography Information
Orr, James, M.A., D.D. General Editor. Entry for 'Atargatis'. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/isb/a/atargatis.html. 1915.
