Egyptian and Canaanite Religious Convergence: The Mysterious “Queen of Heaven”

Since the publication of R. Patai‟s book The Hebrew Goddess in 1967, there has been an increasing flow of studies investigating the place of the goddess in Israelite religion. The reason for this attention paid to the goddess is not difficult to find: in the 1960s and 1970s there was a growing awareness that religions with only a single male deity maintained and reinforced the subservient position of women living under their impact. A little later, scholars of ancient Near Eastern religions, including that of Israel, began to pay particular attention to goddess-cults. The paper highlights the issues of Egyptian and Canaanite religious convergence which is visible from the first millennium BC and focuses on goddess-cult in the Old Testament. Analyzing the famous passages' prophet Jeremiah, the author of the article comes to the conclusion that the expression "the Queen of Heaven" contains the allegory. The author presumes that under the title of" the Queen of Heaven" could be hidden the Goddess Hathor, who was a „type‟ of Queen of Heaven and worshiped by Israelite women.