The Names of the Gods in Ancient Mediterranean Religions

From Greece to Palmyra, Tyre or Babylon, the names of the gods, like 'Thundering Zeus', 'Three-faced Moon', 'Baal of the Force' or the enigmatic YHWH, reveal their history, family ties, fields of competence and capacity for action. Shared or specific, these names bring to light networks of gods: the Saviour gods, the Ancestral gods, the gods of a city or a family. Names tell stories about the relationship between men and gods, gods and places, places and cultures and so on. They show how gods travel and spread, how they appear and disappear, how they participate in the political, social, intellectual history of each community. Through the study of divine names, the twelve chapters of this book unfold a gallery of portraits that reveal the changing aspects of the divine throughout the ancient Mediterranean.

從希臘到巴爾米拉、泰爾或巴比倫，諸如「雷神宙斯」、「三面月亮」、「力量之巴力」或神秘的「耶和華」等神的名字揭示了它們的歷史、家族關係、專業領域和行動能力。這些名字可以是共享的或特定的，它們揭示了神的網絡：救世神、祖先神、城市或家族的神。名字講述了人與神、神與地方、地方與文化之間的關係故事等等。它們展示了神如何旅行和傳播，如何出現和消失，如何參與每個社區的政治、社會和知識歷史。通過對神聖名字的研究，本書的十二章展示了古代地中海地區神祇不斷變化的面貌。