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I. Name The name Hēra (the form of her name in Mycenaean Greek is Era), perhaps a feminine form of the Greek noun hērōs (‘hero’, meaning ‘master’), or hōra (‘season’, see Pausanias 2.13.3), was genealogically linked with other Greek deities as the daughter of Kronos and Rhea (Hesiod, Th. 454), and sister of Zeus. While the name Hera itself does not occur in either the Bible or the Apocrypha, nevertheless the theophoric name Herakles (Heracles) does occur in 2 Macc. 2.19–20. This name is composed of two elements, ‘Hera’ and ‘-kles’. Though the -a-is problematic, since t…

I. Name Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love whose sacred animal is the dove (Pirenne-Delforge 1994). The Greeks derived her name from ἀφρός “foam”, and explained it from her birth myth (Hesiod Th. 191). Modern etymologies found no general consent, be it the rare Indo-Europaean ones or those deriving her name from a Semitic language (Burkert 1977:240 n.18). The goddess was identified with several Oriental goddesses, from Egyptian Nephthys to Phoenician Astarte, Assyrian Ishtar and Arabian Alilat (Herodot. 3, 8. 131; M. Höfner, WbMyth. I/1, 423; Mora 1985:86–90). The Romans id…