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Bel in Mandaic texts (1)

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01 Religious and ideological doctrines and imagery
01 Religious and ideological doctrines and imagery




 		Keywords
Bel
Marduk
Period
Roman Empire 		Channel
Mandean culture

Text
The god Marduk appears in Mandaic texts under his popular name Bel. He is the highest celestial god or the most important planet Jupiter. Otherwise is Bel in the Mandaic texts an earthly demon, who lives in Babylon: “I am Bel, the great god of Babylon” (DC 40.680). “Bel from Babil” is also referred to in some Mandaic incantations, where Bel appears as one of the most important deities. His epithet is once “lord of the gods” (mˀryˀ ˀlˀhyˀ), which reminds Akkadian bēl ilāni with the same meaning. On an Aramaic magic bowl that has no Mandaic background, Bel is called “lord of people, lord of gods and demons.”

Source (list of abbreviations)
DC 40.680

Bibliography

Drower and Macuch 1963, 60Drower, E. S. and R. Macuch. A Mandaic Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1963.
Kessler and Müller-Kessler 1999, 67Kessler, Karlheinz and Christa Müller-Kessler. “Spätbabylonische Gottheiten in Spätantiken mandäischen Texten.” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 89 (1999) 65-87.

Amar Annus


URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0001445.php

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