The Hebrew Names of the Seven Planets

Abstract

THE traditional Hebrew names of the seven planets known in the ancient world are first attested in the Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 156a), but there is also contemporary evidence for another set of names utilized by the Jews of the Later Roman Empire. The source for the latter is Epiphanius, the Bishop of Constantia (Salamis) in Cyprus from A.D. 367 until his death in A.D. 402. Epiphanius was born to Jewish parents at Bezanduca in the district of Eleutheropolis (Beit Jibrin) in Palestine. He was a polyglot known as a pentagl5ssos since he was acquainted with Hebrew, Syriac, Egyptian, Greek, and Latin. His transcriptions of the Hebrew names for the signs of the zodiac are the earliest recorded and are most accurate,' a fact which is now known from the various ancient synagogue mosaic-floors in Israel which have preserved these names in Hebrew. He also listed in his Panarion 15.2 (written about A.D. 377) the Hebrew names for the seven planets, some of which are unknown to us, while others correspond exactly to the Talmudic terms. Because of this partial correspondence and the accuracy of the zodiac-sign names as preserved by Epiphanius, there seems to be little reason to doubt the overall accuracy of his Hebrew planetname list.