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Baal (Deity) Texts As a King Enthroned Atop Mount Zaphon and Is Granted a Palace Upon His Triumph in His Battles I

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Baal (Deity) Texts As a King Enthroned Atop Mount Zaphon and Is Granted a Palace Upon His Triumph in His Battles I B Baal (Deity) texts as a king enthroned atop Mount Zaphon and is granted a palace upon his triumph in his battles I. Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible/Old Testament with the forces of Death (the god Mot) and chaos II. Judaism (cf. the deities Yamm [Sea], Lithan [Leviathan], and III. Islam Tannin). Along these same lines, the iconography IV. Literature of Ugarit and of the wider Levantine orbit portrays V. Visual Arts Baal-Haddu/Hadad as a warrior wielding a club of thunder and/or a spear of lightning (see fig. 6). In I. Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible/ other instances, Baal is depicted as slaying a ser- Old Testament pent. In the series of texts commonly designated the Baal Cycle, the theme of Baal’s kingship is domi- 1. Baal in the Ancient Near East. The Hebrew nant. As the victor over the powers of death and term baal is a common Semitic noun for “hus- chaos, he is the giver of life. It should be pointed band,” “owner,” or “lord,” but as early as the 3rd millennium BCE, the term was also employed to out, however, that this theme as depicted in Ugari- refer to a deity in a god-list from Abu Salabikh. The tic myth is associated exclusively with the deity’s term is also attested at Ebla in personal names and ability to provide rain and ensure agricultural fertil- toponyms. Yet, it is difficult at times to ascertain ity. Nowhere in the myth is this role of Baal explic- which of the possible uses of the term baal is in itly connected with human fertility, let alone some view. Thus, some scholars interpret references to bl supposed power to revive, grant immortality or re- hmn as an epithet for the god El (i.e., “[El,] Lord of store human life following death, as some scholars Hamon”) while others view bl hmn as the name of have conjectured (no doubt in some instances under the deity in (a construct) relationship with Hamon the influence of later Judeo-Christian notions of (i.e., the deity Baal, the patron god of Hamon, thus, the afterlife). “Baal of Hamon”). Furthermore, the frequent oc- To be sure, in 1st-millennium BCE Phoenician currence in the Bible of the plural form, be˘a¯ lîm, has texts, Baal’s role as king continued to be high- led some scholars to view the term as referring to lighted in royal inscriptions that recognize his an unspecified local deity or simply generically to power to grant kingship to humans. Yet, again, no- deities other than YHWH, thus, “lords.” With the where is any mention made of his granting immor- discovery of the alphabetic cuneiform texts from tality or resurrection to dead humans. Ugarit, however, Baal’s major role as a deity in the What seems less problematic is the notion that early religious traditions of ancient Syria and Ca- Baal is portrayed in Ugaritic myth as a god who naan has been much more firmly established. This himself did indeed die and then rise from the dead. is evident even if the term is employed as a title In the Ugaritic texts such as the Baal Cycle, the other for a god who went by another name (like Hadad/ deities, including El and Anath, mourn his death, Haddu) and even if the term was used on other oc- and its effects on nature are described at length. casions to refer to other deities as well. It is clear Baal then re-appears later in the mythic plot of the that at Ugarit the equation of “Baal” and the god Baal Cycle. By any reckoning, one must account for Hadad/Haddu (or Adad/Addu) is pervasive, though the reference in the preceding sections of the Baal admittedly this might not be representative of any Cycle to deified Death’s summoning of Baal to de- wider contemporary phenomena. scend to the netherworld, the mourning of his Through the frequent pairings of Baal and Ha- death by El and Anath, and the later description of dad in the Ugaritic texts, Baal was associated with El’s dream in which the renewal of the falling rains an otherwise well-known Syrian storm god of the convince El that Baal is once again alive. Moreover, 2nd millennium BCE, though by the 1st millen- there are problems with the proposal that Baal sim- nium BCE, Baal and Hadad appear as two distinct ply disappeared rather than died. In other such van- deities. In the Ugaritic god-lists, numerous Baals ishing-god traditions, the deity vanishes of his or are listed in a series, suggesting that there were sev- her own accord as an act of divine anger, and a de- eral local cults and manifestations of the deity. Else- scent to the netherworld as part and parcel of that where at Ugarit, Baal is described as the son of El disappearance or vanishing is not mentioned (cf. and the son of Dagan. He is portrayed in the mythic the Hittite god, Telepinu). Finally, while storm Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception vol. 3 Authenticated | [email protected] © Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, 2011 Download Date | 2/4/19 12:16 PM 197 Baal (Deity) 198 gods may not be portrayed as those who typically connection between a myth and a ritual. In sum, die and rise, it might be the case with the instance the biblical writers’ polemic against Baal had to do of Baal’s dying and rising in Ugaritic myth that an with the role of Baal and YHWH as the deities re- innovation had taken place at Ugarit, one perhaps sponsible for sustaining life on earth, which for the influenced by the myth of Dumuzi’s descent in ancient Canaanites and Israelites did not include Mesopotamian tradition (so Mettinger), but one too the revivification or restoration back to life of the late to make any impact on the Ugaritic ritual texts. human dead. Whether or not Baal’s dying and rising (as op- 2. Baal in the Bible. A comparison of the religious posed to the mythic texts) was celebrated in a sea- practices and beliefs associated with Baal as pre- sonal ritual festival at Ugarit is also problematic, served in the Bible with those reflective of Canaan- but many opine that there remains some associa- ite practice and belief attested at Ugarit and at other tion between Baal’s death and rejuvenation and the Levantine sites illustrates both the distinctive as- seasonal cycle in early Syrian tradition. In this view, pects as well as the several similarities shared by the the seasonal attachments of the Baal myth are given prior, broader Canaanite storm-god traditions and expression in the portion of the Baal Cycle wherein those in the Israelite religious traditions that the goddess Anath annihilates Mot, deified Death, emerged from those Canaanite traditions. In fact, after which Baal returns to life. For those interpret- there is growing recognition that Israel’s earliest re- ers so inclined, the death of Baal here occurs at the ligious and cultural traditions possess extensive Ca- beginning of the summer and is followed by his naanite origins, as is indicated by recent archaeo- return in the fall. logical and anthropological research that situates There remains the related question: If Baal were Israel’s Late Bronze age emergence primarily, if not understood as a dying and rising god, what impact exclusively, within a Canaanite cultural milieu. or relationship might this tradition have as regards This has in turn impacted how scholars view the the death and revivification of humans in the ritual portrayal of Canaanite religion depicted in the Bible cult? One proposal is that Baal served as the patron and its close historical relationship with early Isra- god of the royal ancestor cult at Ugarit and, by im- elite religion, despite the biblical polemics. The lit- plication, continued in such a role well into the 1st erary depiction of disjunction was in fact an histori- millennium BCE. Accordingly, such a cult is pre- cal conjunction. served in a ritual text from Ugarit KTU 1.161, The deities Baal and YHWH, two of the major where in this view, Baal is portrayed as descending gods in Canaanite and Israelite religions, are por- to the netherworld following his invocation in the trayed in their respective literary traditions as temple cult, only to bring up from the world below storm and fertility gods (Job 38, Ps 29) and as war- the ghosts of the deceased kings who were genea- rior gods who can “ride the clouds” (Ps 18 : 10 = logically related to the living king, so that they may 2 Sam 22 : 11; Ps 68 : 5). Both face as their arch-nem- dine in splendor with the king and his courtiers eses the cosmic chaotic forces personified in the fig- and offer their blessings on the king, thereby reaf- ures of Yamm, or Sea (Ps 89 : 9), and his mythic firming his right to the throne. monsters, Lithan in Ugaritic and Leviathan in He- The problems with this interpretation are nu- brew (Ps 74 : 14, Job 3 : 8, 41 : 1) and Tannin (Ps merous. Conventional literary and phraseological 74 : 13, Job 7 : 12). Moreover, both deities appar- parallels found in mythic texts say nothing about ently possessed as their consort or wife the goddess the ritual realities that one should derive from such Asherah (cf. e.g., Judg 3 : 7 and Kuntillet Ajrud in- language, since it is often the case that language scriptions that mention YHWH and Asherah as a like this is stereotypical.
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