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Bible Encyclopedias
Ashteroth Karnaim
The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia
or A town east of the Jordan (Genesis 14:5; "Onomastica," ed. Lagarde, 209, 61, 213, 39); called simply "Karnaim" in Amos 6:13 (so Wellhausen, Nowack, and G. A. Smith, ad loc.), in I Macc. 5:43, and II Macc. 12:21,26. The first element in the name was derived from the goddess Ashtart, whose temple was situated in the town (II Macc. 12:26). The last part of the name has been variously explained. Stade ("Zeitschrift," 6:323) understands "the horned Astarte" to be a moon goddess, the horns referring to the crescent of the moon; Barton in 1894 ("Hebraica," 10:40) explained it as an Ashtart represented by some horned animal, a cow, bull, or ram; Moore ("Jour. Bibl. Lit." 16:155), on the basis of Baal-Karnaim, whose temple near Cartnage was on a mountain formed by two peaks separated by a gorge, interprets the name as "the goddess of the two-peaked mountain." This last is the probable solution.
The town was very old. It is mentioned by Thothmes III. (thirteenth century B.C.; compare W. Max Müller, "Asien und Europa," p. 162) and in the El-Amarna tablets (fourteenth century B.C.; compare Schrader, "K. B." , Nos. 142, 237; Sayce, "Patriarchal Palestine," pp. 133, 153). It has been identified by Dillmann (on Genesis 14:5) with the mound of Tell Ashtereh; by G. A. Smith ("Hist. Geog." map) with Tell Ashary; and by Buhl ("Geog." pp. 248 et seq.), whom Gunkel (on Genesis 14:5) follows, with El-Muzêrîb (see also Buhl, "Zur Topographie des Ostjordanlandes," pp. 13 et seq.; "Zeit. Deutsch. Paläst. Ver." vols. , ). The real site can not be determined until some of these mounds are excavated. See ASHTAROTH.
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Singer, Isidore, Ph.D, Projector and Managing Editor. Entry for 'Ashteroth Karnaim'. 1901 The Jewish Encyclopedia. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tje/a/ashteroth-karnaim.html. 1901.
