Editing Dionysus (section)

===Sabazios and Yahweh===
[[File:HandOfSabazius.JPG|thumb|Bronze hand used in the worship of Sabazios ([[British Museum]]).<ref name="britishmuseum">{{cite web|url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=463786&partId=1&people=94919&peoA=94919-1-9&page=1|publisher=britishmuseum.org|title= British Museum Collection |access-date=6 March 2017}}</ref> Roman first–second century AD. Hands decorated with religious symbols were designed to stand in sanctuaries or, like this one, were attached to poles for processional use.<ref name="britishmuseum2">{{cite web|url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=465292&partId=1&people=94919&peoA=94919-1-9&page=1|website=Britishmuseum.org|title= British Museum Collection |access-date=6 March 2017}}</ref>]]
The [[Phrygia]]n god [[Sabazios]] was alternately identified with Zeus or with Dionysus. The Byzantine Greek encyclopedia, ''[[Suda]]'' (c. tenth century), stated:<ref>Sudas, under "Sabazios", "saboi"; Sider, David. "Notes on Two Epigrams of Philodemus". ''The American Journal of Philology'', '''103'''.2 (Summer 1982:208–213) pp. 209ff.</ref> <blockquote>Sabazios&nbsp;... is the same as Dionysos. He acquired this form of address from the rite pertaining to him; for the barbarians call the bacchic cry "sabazein". Hence some of the Greeks too follow suit and call the cry "sabasmos"; thereby Dionysos [becomes] Sabazios. They also used to call "saboi" those places that had been dedicated to him and his [[Bacchantes]]&nbsp;... Demosthenes [in the speech] "On Behalf of Ktesiphon" [mentions them]. Some say that Saboi is the term for those who are dedicated to Sabazios, that is to Dionysos, just as those [dedicated] to Bakkhos [are] Bakkhoi. They say that Sabazios and Dionysos are the same. Thus some also say that the Greeks call the Bakkhoi Saboi.</blockquote>

[[Strabo]], in the first century, linked Sabazios with Zagreus among Phrygian ministers and attendants of the sacred rites of Rhea and Dionysos.<ref>Strabo, ''Geography'', 10.3.15.</ref> Strabo's Sicilian contemporary, [[Diodorus Siculus]], conflated Sabazios with the secret Dionysus, born of Zeus and Persephone,<ref>[[Diodorus Siculus]], 4.4.1.</ref> However, this connection is not supported by any surviving inscriptions, which are entirely to ''Zeus Sabazios''.<ref>E.N. Lane has taken pains to dismiss this widespread conflation: Lane, "Towards a definition of the iconography of Sabazios", ''Numen'' '''27''' (1980:9–33), and ''Corpus Cultis Jovis Sabazii:'', in ''Études Préliminaires aux Religions Orientales dans l'Empire Romain: Conclusions'' '''100'''.3 (Leiden, etc: Brill) 1989.</ref>

Several ancient sources record an apparently widespread belief in the classical world that the god worshiped by the [[Judaism|Jewish]] people, [[Yahweh]], was identifiable as Dionysus or [[Liber]] via his identification with Sabazios. Tacitus, Lydus, Cornelius Labeo, and Plutarch all either made this association, or discussed it as an extant belief (though some, like Tacitus, specifically brought it up in order to reject it). According to Plutarch, one of the reasons for the identification is that Jews were reported to hail their god with the words "Euoe" and "Sabi", a cry typically associated with the worship of Sabazius. According to scholar [[Sean M. McDonough]], it is possible that Plutarch's sources had confused the cry of "Iao Sabaoth" (typically used by Greek speakers in reference to Yahweh) with the Sabazian cry of "Euoe Saboe", originating the confusion and conflation of the two deities. The cry of "Sabi" could also have been conflated with the Jewish term "sabbath", adding to the evidence the ancients saw that Yahweh and Dionysus/Sabazius were the same deity. Further bolstering this connection would have been coins used by the [[Maccabees]] that included imagery linked to the worship of Dionysus such as grapes, vine leaves, and cups. However the belief that the Jewish god was identical with Dionysus/Sabazius was widespread enough that a coin dated to 55 BC depicting a kneeling king was labelled "Bacchus Judaeus" (''BACCHIVS IVDAEVS''), and in 139 BC praetor Cornelius Scipio Hispalus deported Jewish people for attempting to "infect the Roman customs with the cult of Jupiter Sabazius".<ref>McDonough 1999, pp. 88–90</ref>