Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1940)

Baity lot) Baity lia, and Zeus Betylos 891

Diphilianus, to his national god Zeus Betylos. And the lettering of
the inscription points to a date early in the third century A.D. But
whether the appellative implies that the Greek Zeus was here
worshipped under the form of a baitylos, or that he had succeeded
to the position of some Semitic deity of the -bethel-type1, is not
clear2. Sanchouniathon's personified Baitylos3 is hardly decisive.

It is commonly assumed as self-evident that the Greek word
battylos is an approximate transliteration of the Hebrew Bethel,
' House of God.' But the equation is not free from difficulties. My
colleague Mr H. St J. Hart points out to me that in Scripture the
name Bethel is attached to two quite distinct places. The better
known one, twelve miles north of Jerusalem, is in Hebrew Bethel,
in Greek Baithel\ The other, in the Negeb or ' Dry' plateau of
Judah, is variously spelled—not only as Hebrew Bethel = Greek
BaitMl6, but also as Hebrew Bethid= Greek Bathoiil6 and Hebrew
Bethuel= Greek Bathouel1. It may therefore be argued that the
Hebrew Bethel had an alternative form Bethuel, which gave rise to
the Greek baitylos, betylos*. Failing that, we are driven to posit
some dialect (Phoenician?) in which the same connective ?<-sound
occurred.

Whether Jacob's stone at Bethel was an ordinary Massebhah,
as I have supposed9, or a meteoric block, as Mr G. A. Wainwright
thinks possible10, is a further problem. The name Bethel is intelligible
°n either hypothesis. But to cite11 in support of the latter view
certain neo-Babylonian cylinders on which appear shield-shaped
objects marked with a ladder and set upright on divine seats
(figs. 722—724)12 is, I fear, to explain ignotum per ignotius.

1 See in primis O. Eissfeldt 'Der Gott Bethel' in the Archiv f. Rel. 1930 xxviii.
30.

H. Seyrig loc. cit. p. 71. 3 Supra p. 887.

I- Benzinger in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. iii. 363.

1 Sam. 30. 27. 6 Jos. 19. 4.

1 Chron. 4. 30. Cp. also the man's name Hebrew Bethuel=Greek Bathouel (Gen.
iJ- »a.f.}.

E. Meyer in Roscher Lex. Myth. i. 1224, followed by K. Tiimpel in Pauly—
Wissowa Real-Enc. ii. 2780, cp. 'Ain-El 'Eye of God' = Aii<iAos or 'EvvXos (Arrian. 2.
,0- 1) king of Byblos.

■Supra ii. 127 n. 7. 10 Supra p. 884 n. o.

As is done by G. A. Wainwright in Palestine Exploration Fund: Quarterly State-
ment for /RJ^ p. ^ fig> f< Cp_ g_ A Co(jk T//e Reiigion 0f Ancient Palestine in the light

^1uueloSy London 1930 p. 24 pi. 5 figs. 1—3.

W. H. Ward The Seal Cylinders of Western Asia Washington 1910 pp. 193—195

%s

544. 546—549i 550 ( = my fig. 724), 550" ( = my fig. 722), 552 ( = my fig. 723), 555,

s»°: The irregular oval object resting on the divine seats, and surmounted by a star or
descent, is not easy to explain, but it is not itself important except as the support for