ASHTEROTH KARNAIM (Jewish Encyclopedia)

From BibleWiki

A town east of the Jordan (Gen 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 1Macc 5:43, and 2 Macc 12:21ff. The first element in the name was derived from the goddess Ashtart, whose temple was situated in the town (2 Macc 12:26). The last part of the name has been variously explained. Stade ("Zeitschrift," vi. 323) understands "the horned Astarte" to be a moon goddess, the horns referring to the crescent of the moon; Barton in 1894 ("Hebraica," x. 40) explained it as an Ashtart represented by some horned animal, a cow, bull, or ram; Moore ("Jour. Bibl. Lit." xvi. 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." v., Nos. 142, 237; Sayce, "Patriarchal Palestine," pp. 133, 153). It has been identified by Dillmann (on Gen 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 Gen 14:5) follows, with El-Muzêrîb (see also Buhl, "Zur Topographie des Ostjordanlandes," pp. 13 et seq.; "Zeit. Deutsch. Paläst. Ver." vols. xiii., xv.). The real site can not be determined until some of these mounds are excavated. See Ashtaroth.