Gods in Translations: The Many Names of Ancient Semitic Gods

From a comparative perspective (Greek and West Semitic worlds), the MAP project takes into account “divine onomastic sequences”, that is to say combinations of various types of divine names or elements identifying a particular god (nouns, epithets, titles, appellatives, sentences, etc.). Applied on a large scale, in a long-term historical perspective, this perspective can help to better understand the complex strategies of interaction between humans and gods and the capacity to elaborate pragmatic and exploratory knowledge regarding the latter. Ancient gods are, indeed, multifaceted powers and the divine names are meant to provide a first and crucial access to their “theological” identity and to their cultic role. The large range of onomastic attributes, mobilized in ritual or narrative contexts, in specific spaces and times, sometimes reserved to one god, sometimes shared by several gods, conveys important information on the functions of the gods, on their appearance, origin and diffusion, on their modes of action.

Among the many possible declinations of the topic, the workshop focuses on the translatability of divine names and epithets in different religious systems (especially between polytheisms and monotheisms), in different languages or literary traditions (mainly North-Western Semitic languages and Greek) and in different media (in particular comparing texts and iconographies).