El
Ēl (cognate to Akkadian: ilu) is a Northwest Semitic word meaning “deity”. Cognate forms are found throughout the Semitic languages. They include Ugaritic ʾil, pl. ʾlm; Phoenician ʾl pl. ʾlm; Hebrew ʾēl, pl. ʾēlîm; Aramaic ʾl; Akkadian ilu, pl. ilānu.
Elohim and Eloah ultimately derive from the root El, ‘strong’, possibly genericized from El (deity), as in the Ugaritic ’lhm (consonants only), meaning “children of El” (the ancient Near Eastern creator god in pre-Abrahamic tradition).
In the Canaanite religion, or Levantine religion as a whole, El or Il was a god also known as the Father of humanity and all creatures, and the husband of the goddess Asherah as recorded in the clay tablets of Ugarit (modern Ra′s Shamrā, Syria).
In northwest Semitic use, El was both a generic word for any god and the special name or title of a particular god who was distinguished from other gods as being “the god”. El is listed at the head of many pantheons. El is the Father God among the Canaanites.
However, because the word sometimes refers to a god other than the great god Ēl, it is frequently ambiguous as to whether Ēl followed by another name means the great god Ēl with a particular epithet applied or refers to another god entirely. For example, in the Ugaritic texts, ʾil mlk is understood to mean “Ēl the King” but ʾil hd as “the god Hadad”.
The bull was symbolic to El and his son Baʻal Hadad, and they both wore bull horns on their headdress. He may have been a desert god at some point, as the myths say that he had two wives and built a sanctuary with them and his new children in the desert. El had fathered many gods, but most important were Hadad, Yam, and Mot.
Baal-hamon
The worship of Baal-hamon flourished in the Phoenician colony of Carthage. Baal-hamon was the supreme god of the Carthaginians, and is believed that this supremacy dates back to the 5th century BC, apparently after a breaking off of relationships between Carthage and Tyre at the time of the Punic defeat in Himera.
He is generally identified by modern scholars either with the Northwest Semitic god El or with Dagon, and generally identified by the Greeks, by interpretatio Graeca with Greek Cronus and similarly by the Romans with Saturn.
The meaning of Hammon or Hamon is unclear. In the 19th century when Ernest Renan excavated the ruins of Hammon (Ḥammon), the modern Umm al-‘Awamid between Tyre and Acre, he found two Phoenician inscriptions dedicated to El-Hammon. Since El was normally identified with Cronus and Ba‘al Hammon was also identified with Cronus, it seemed possible they could be equated.
More often a connection with Hebrew/Phoenician ḥammān ‘brazier’ has been proposed, in the sense of “Baal (lord) of the brazier”. He has been therefore identified with a solar deity. Frank Moore Cross argued for a connection to Khamōn, the Ugaritic and Akkadian name for Mount Amanus, the great mountain separating Syria from Cilicia based on the occurrence of an Ugaritic description of El as the one of the Mountain Haman.
Classical sources relate how the Carthaginians burned their children as offerings to Baal-hamon. From the attributes of his Roman form, African Saturn, it is possible to conclude that Hammon was a fertility god.
Scholars tend to see Baal-hamon as more or less identical with the god El, who was also generally identified with Cronus and Saturn. However, Yigael Yadin thought him to be a moon god. Edward Lipinski identifies him with the god Dagon. Inscriptions about Punic deities tend to be rather uninformative.
In Carthage and North Africa Baal-hamon was especially associated with the ram and was worshiped also as Baal Karnaim (“Lord of Two Horns”) in an open-air sanctuary at Jebel Bu Kornein (“the two-horned hill”) across the bay from Carthage.
Baal-hamon’s female cult partner was Tanit (also called Tinnit and Tannou), a Punic and Phoenician goddess, the chief deity of Carthage alongside her consort Ba`al Hammon. The name appears to have originated in Carthage, though it does not appear in local theophorous names. She was also adopted by the Berber people.
She was equivalent to the moon-goddess Astarte, the Greek name of the Mesopotamian (i.e. Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian) Semitic goddess Ishtar known throughout the Near East and Eastern Mediterranean from the early Bronze Age to Classical times, and later worshipped in Roman Carthage in her Romanized form as Dea Caelestis, Juno Caelestis or simply Caelestis.
Ba`alat Gebal (“Lady of Byblos”), the goddess of the city of Byblos, Phoenicia, in ancient times, sometimes known to the Greeks as Baaltis or Atargatis, appears to have been generally identified with ‘Ashtart, although Sanchuniathon distinguishes the two.
In today’s Tunisia it is customary to invoke “Oumek Tannou” (Mother Tannou) the years of drought to bring rain; just as we speak of “Baali” farming, for non-irrigated farming, to say that it only depends on god Ba`al Hammon.
Asherah
Asherah in Semitic mythology is a mother goddess who appears in a number of ancient sources. She appears in Akkadian writings by the name of Ashratum/Ashratu, and among the Hittites this goddess appears as Asherdu(s) or Asertu(s), the consort of Elkunirsa (“El the Creator of Earth”) and mother of either 77 or 88 sons. Among the Amarna letters a King of the Amorites is named Abdi-Ashirta, “Servant of Asherah”.
Asherah is generally considered identical with the Ugaritic goddess ʼAṯirat. In the Ugaritic texts (before 1200 BCE) Athirat is almost always given her full title rbt ʼaṯrt ym, rabat ʼAṯirat yammi, ‘Lady Athirat of the Sea’ or as more fully translated ‘she who treads on the sea’. This occurs 12 times in the Baʿal Epic alone.
The name is understood by various translators and commentators to be from the Ugaritic root ʼaṯr ‘stride’, cognate with the Hebrew root ʼšr, of the same meaning. Her other main divine epithet was “qaniyatu ʾilhm”, which may be translated as “the creatrix of the Gods (Elohim)”. In those texts, Athirat is the consort of the god El; there is one reference to the 70 sons of Athirat, presumably the same as the 70 sons of El.
Athirat in Akkadian texts appears as Ashratum (Antu), the wife of Anu, the God of Heaven. Asherah is also called Elat (Ugaritic: ilt) (“Goddess”, the feminine form of El; compare Allat) and Qodesh, ‘holiness’ (Ugaritic: qdš). She is identified as the consort of the Sumerian god Anu and Ugaritic El, the oldest deities of their respective pantheons. This role gave her a similarly high rank in the Ugaritic pantheon.
The Canaanite goddess Asherah appears to be the earliest female deity that the ancient Israelites adapted to worship. This early period, in which Asherah was first worshipped, is following the arrival of the Israelite tribes in Canaan. The Hebrews worshipped her for about six centuries, until about 586 B.C. when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem.
Despite the bible’s anti-polytheistic attitude, there’s a hesitation by the writers to reveal any ritual detail of worship of deities other than Yahweh in Israel’s religious transgressions. However, it is from the bible that we know of three goddesses the Hebrews worshipped during the days of Babylonian exile. One of them being the Queen of Heaven; Asherah.
Starting from before Hebrew adaptation, its clear that Asherah is the chief Canaanite goddess by rich archeological evidence discovered in Ugarit. (Modern Ras Shamra) Here Asherah was the prominent wife of El, the chief god. Her name in its entirity was “Lady Asherah of the Sea”. As her husband’s domain was heaven, hers was the ocean. She was also referred to Elath or “Goddess”.
Her devotion to her husband was not unlike a Oriental queen to her master. When Baal wanted to have permission to build his house, he’d have his mother: Asherah, to intercede with El. When Baal dies, it is El that asks her to name one of sons to succeed him as king.
She was labeled as “the Progenitress of the Gods”, that is all other gods, numbering 70, were her children. This included Baal, Anath, and Mot. Asherah is a mother goddess whose maternal instinct goes so far as to be a wet-nurse to the gods. She suckled deserving humans as well, such as Yassib, the son of King Keret.
Not much is known about Asherah before the Urgaritic myths. A Sumerian inscription from ca. 1750 B.C. in honor of the Hammurabi, labels Asherah as Ashtratum and the bride of Anu. The Akkadian and Sumerian deity Anu bears a resemblance to the Canaanite El in being the god of heaven, so then it appears that Asherah may have been worshipped and held a chief or mother goddess position at least for three centuries prior to the Ugaritic period.
She was known in Southern Arabia from Ugarit tablets as “Atharath” and in letters from Canaanite chieftains to the pharaoh of Egypt the names “Astarte” and “Asherah” interchange. The same confusion between Astarte and Asherah is found in the Hebrew bible and has still persisted in the modern era among scholars.
Among the Hebrews we find biblical references to “Asherahs”. This seems to indicate the carved wooden images, which were set up by implanting their base into the ground. Thus the word “Asherah” in the bible can refer to the goddess herself or her images.
Because of the climate of Palestine, unfortunately none of these wooden objects survive. However, evidence of Asherah as a important household goddess does survive, which consists of small clay nude images of the goddess. They were discovered across Palestine and are dated from all ages of the Israelite period. They may have been clay counterparts to the Asherah poles.
The frequent occurrence of these figures that are independent of male deities gives us the idea of just how widely popular Asherah was in all segments of Hebrew society. This may have to do with belief that the goddess helped in childbirth and promoted fertility. A Hebrew incantation from Arslan Tarsh and dated 7th B.C. seeks the help of Asherah for a woman in childbirth.
In the biblical story of Elijah’s challenge to the Baal prophets of Mt. Carmel that ended in the defeat of a Canaanite deity and the victory of Yahweh, that Elijah did not accuse the people of abandoning Yahweh for outside gods, but rather for dividing attention among both.
It is in this contest between Elijah and Baal priests that it seems the priests of Asherah attended, but were never challenged. It would appear that Baal was considered a threatening rival to Yahweh, while Asherah was considered a inevitable, tolerable, female counterpart.
Shocking archeological evidence of Asherah’s consort role with the Hebrew Yahweh has been discovered. Two large pithoi (storage jars) were discovered, one of them had a inscription that read: “Amaryau said to my lord… may you be blessed by Yahweh and by his Asherah” Another inscription from the same site says ” I may have blessed you by Yahweh shmrn and his Asherah.”
The word “shmrn” has an unknown meaning, but it may refer to Shomon, that is Samaria. Nine miles west of Hebron, has a inscription that says: “Uriah the rich has caused it to be written: Blessed be uriah by Yahweh and by his Asherah; from his enemies he has saved them.”
These inscriptions would lead us to assume that the very popular Asherah was associated with Yahweh, probaly as his consort, and that they were the most popular divine couple.
These finds have helped piece together a emendation of a difficult passage in Hosea, in which God is speaking. Pieced together the passage of 14:9 would be: “Ephraim, what have I to do any more with idols? I [Yahweh] am his Anath and Asherah, I am like a leafy cypress tree From me is thy fruit found”
Summarized from this passage in Hosea, coupled with the historical evidence, we have a picture of Asherah as the consort of Yahweh and who was a integral part of religious life until the reforms introduced by King Josiah in 621 B.C.
The Israelites took over the cult of the Canaanite mother goddess Asherah from the days of their first settlements. Wooden carvings of the goddess implanted into the ground and set next to a altar of Baal, and located on hilltops or under leafy trees were used in public worship of Asherah while popular private religious use consisted of clay figurines of Asherah, where she is depicted with emphasis on her fertility by making the gesture of holding her breasts.
During Ahab’s reign, his Sidonian wife, Jezebel convinced him to make a elaborate public statue of Asherah and it was made and set up in the city Samaria, making Ahab’s capital the center of the Asherah cult.
Asherah’s cult avoids the anti-Baal and Pro-Yahweh up surging led by Elijah, that took place under Ahab. Number of years later, the Asherah of Samaria escapes harm when Jehu destroys Baal’s temple and massacres Baalists, and her worship continued until the end of Israel monarchy when the Assyrians put a end to the kingdom.
Asherah/Yahweh
Between the 10th century BC and the beginning of their exile in 586 BC, polytheism was normal throughout Israel; it was only after the exile that worship of Yahweh alone became established, and possibly only as late as the time of the Maccabees (2nd century BC) that monotheism became universal among Jews.
The Book of Jeremiah, written circa 628 BC, possibly refers to Asherah when it uses the title “Queen of Heaven”, stating: “pray thou not for this people…the children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the Queen of Heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger”, in Jer 7:18 and Jer 44:17–19, 25.
Some biblical scholars believe that Asherah at one time was worshiped as the consort of Yahweh, the national God of Israel. There are references to the worship of numerous gods throughout Kings, Solomon builds temples to many gods and Josiah is reported as cutting down the statues of Asherah in the temple Solomon built for Yahweh.
Josiah’s grandfather Manasseh had erected this statue. (2 Kings 21:7) Further evidence includes, for example, an 8th-century combination of iconography and inscriptions discovered at Kuntillet Ajrud in the northern Sinai desert where a storage jar shows three anthropomorphic figures and an inscription that refers to “Yahweh … and his Asherah”.
The inscriptions found invoke not only Yahweh but El and Baal, and two include the phrases “Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah” and “Yahweh of Teman and his Asherah.” There is general agreement that Yahweh is being invoked in connection with Samaria (capital of the kingdom of Israel) and Teman (in Edom); this suggests that Yahweh had a temple in Samaria, and raises a question over the relationship between Yahweh and Kaus, the national god of Edom.
The “Asherah” is most likely a cultic object, although the relationship of this object (a stylised tree perhaps) to Yahweh and to the goddess Asherah, consort of El, is unclear. It has been suggested that the Israelites might consider Asherah as a consort of Baal due to the anti-Asherah ideology which was influenced by the Deuteronomistic History at the later period of Monarchy.
In another inscription called “Yahweh and his Asherah”, there appears a cow feeding it’s calf. If Asherah is to be associated with Hathor/Qudshu, it can then be assumed that the cow is what’s being referred to as Asherah. Further evidence includes the many female figurines unearthed in ancient Israel, supporting the view that Asherah functioned as a goddess and consort of Yahweh and was worshiped as the Queen of Heaven. Asherah poles, which were sacred trees or poles, are mentioned many times in the Bible.
A stele, now at the Louvre, discovered by Charles Huber in 1883 in the ancient oasis of Tema (modern Tayma), northwestern Arabia, and believed to date to the time of Nabonidus’s retirement there in 549 BC, bears an inscription in Aramaic which mentions Ṣalm of Maḥram and Shingala and Ashira as the gods of Tema.
This Ashira might be Athirat/Asherah. Since Aramaic has no way to indicate Arabic th, corresponding to the Ugaritic th (phonetically written as ṯ), if this is the same deity, it is not clear whether the name would be an Arabian reflex of the Ugaritic Athirat or a later borrowing of the Hebrew/Canaanite Asherah.
The Arabic root ʼṯr is similar in meaning to the Hebrew indicating “to tread” used as a basis to explain the name of Ashira as “lady of the sea”, specially that the Arabic root ymm also means “sea”.
It has also been recently suggested that the goddess name Athirat might be derived from the passive participle form, referring to ‘one followed by (the gods),’ that is, ‘pro-genitress or originatress’, corresponding with Asherah’s image as ‘the mother of the gods’ in Ugaritic literature.
Ashtart
Asherah/Aṯirat is clearly distinguished from ʿAshtart (better known in English as Astarte or Ashtoreth in the Bible) in the Ugaritic documents although in non-Ugaritic sources from later periods the distinction between the two goddesses can be blurred; either as a result of scribal error or through possible syncretism.
In any case, the two names begin with different consonants in the Semitic languages; Athirat/Asherah (Ugaritic: aṯrt) with an aleph or glottal stop consonant א and `Ashtart/`Ashtoreth (Ugaritic:ʿṯtrt) with an `ayin or voiced pharyngeal consonant ע), indicating the lack of any plausible etymological connection between the names.
While Ashtart is believed to be linked to the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar who is sometimes portrayed as the daughter of Anu while in Ugaritic myth, Ashtart is one of the daughters of El, the West Semitic counterpart of Anu.
Kotharat
The Kotharat, or Kotharot, or Kathirat (various suggested pronunciations of Ugaritic ktrt), ‘the skilful ones’ were a group of northwest Semitic goddesses appearing in the Ugartic texts as divine midwives. They are the only Canaanite deities that only appear in a group, and are associated with the swallow.
In Nikkal (Ugaritic: nkl, full name Nikkal-wa-Ib), a goddess of Ugarit/Canaan and later of Phoenicia, and the Kotharat the Kotharat are first summoned to oversee the birth of a son to Yarikh the moon-god and the goddess Nikkal, and then summoned a second time to bless the human girl Prbkht for her forthcoming marriage.
Yarikh (also written as Jerah, Jarah, or Jorah, Hebrew spelling ירח) is a moon god in Canaanite religion whose epithets are “illuminator of the heavens”‘, “illuminator of the myriads of stars” and “lord of the sickle”.
The latter epithet may come from the appearance of the crescent moon. Yarikh was recognized as the provider of nightly dew, and married to the goddess Nikkal, his moisture causing her orchards to bloom in the desert. The city of Jericho bears his name.
Nikkal is a goddess of orchards, whose name means “Great Lady and Fruitful” and derives from Akkadian/West Semitic “´Ilat ´Inbi” meaning “Goddess of Fruit”. De Moor translates Ugaritic “ib” as “blossom” which survives in biblical Hebrew as and cites Canticles 6:11 as a survival of this usage.
She is daughter of Khirkhibi, the Summer’s King, and is married to the moon god Yarikh, who gave her necklaces of lapis-lazuli. Their marriage is lyrically described in the Ugaritic text “Nikkal and the Kathirat”. She may have been feted in late summer when tree fruits had been finally harvested. Her Sumerian equivalent is the goddess Ningal, the mother of Inanna and Ereshkigal.
The oldest incomplete annotated piece of ancient music is a Hurrian song, a hymn in Ugaritic cuneiform syllabic writing which was dedicated to Nikkal. This was published upon its discovery in Ugarit by Emmanuel Laroche, first in 1955 and then more fully in 1968, and has been the focus of many subsequent studies in palaeomusicology by, amongst others, Anne Draffkorn Kilmer, who gave it the title of “The Hymn to Nikkal” l.
Sanchuniathon refers to a group of seven daughters of El by ‘Ashtart whose Phoenician name is not given but who are called the Titanides or Artemides in Greek. That the Greek goddess Artemis was often worshipped as a birth goddess suggests these seven Artemides are so called because they were also birth goddesses. If so, they are probably identical to the Ugaritic Kotharat.
Qudshu
In Egypt, beginning in the 18th dynasty, a Semitic goddess named Qudshu (‘Holiness’) begins to appear prominently, equated with the native Egyptian goddess Hathor. Some think this is Athirat/Ashratu under her Ugaritic name, but Qudshu seems not to be either ʿAshtart or ʿAnat as both those goddesses appear under their own names and with quite different iconography and appear in at least one pictorial representation along with qudshu.
But in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman periods in Egypt there was a strong tendency towards syncretism of goddesses and Athirat/Ashrtum then seems to have disappeared, at least as a prominent Goddess under a recognizable name.
Dione
The name Dione, which like ‘Elat means “Goddess”, is clearly associated with Asherah in the Phoenician History of Sanchuniathon, because the same common epithet (‘Elat) of “the Goddess par excellence” was used to describe her at Ugarit.
Dione is the name of four women in ancient Greek mythology, and one in the Phoenician mythology of Sanchuniathon. Dione is translated as “Goddess”, and given the same etymological derivation as the names Zeus, Diana, et al. Very little information exists about these women or goddesses.
Dione is one of the Titanides or Titanesses. She is called a daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, hence an Oceanid, and otherwise a daughter of Gaia and either Uranus or Aether. She and Zeus are called the parents of Aphrodite by some ancient sources.
In the Phoenician History, a literary work attributed to Sanchuniathon, a daughter of Ouranos/Heaven and Ge/Earth is called Dione and also Baaltis. She is a sister of Kronos/Elus whom the latter made his wife after their father sent her, and her sisters, to kill Kronos/Elus. The latter gave the city Byblos to Dione.
The identity of this Dione is uncertain. From her name Baaltis she is taken to be Ba`alat Gebal. However, some scholars identify her with Asherah, proposing that Sanchuniathon merely uses Dione as a translation of Asherah’s epithet Elat. Other scholars propose that by Dione Sanchuniathon was identifying her with Dione the Titaness.
Dione is one of the Titanides or Titanesses. She is called a daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, hence an Oceanid, and otherwise a daughter of Gaia and either Uranus or Aether. She and Zeus are called the parents of Aphrodite by some ancient sources.
Allah/YHWH
The Semitic root ʾlh (Arabic ʾilāh, Aramaic ʾAlāh, ʾElāh, Hebrew ʾelōah) may be ʾl with a parasitic h, and ʾl may be an abbreviated form of ʾlh. In Ugaritic the plural form meaning “gods” is ʾilhm, equivalent to Hebrew ʾelōhîm “powers”. But in Hebrew this word is also regularly used for semantically singular “god”.
The stem ʾl is found prominently in the earliest strata of east Semitic, northwest Semitic, and south Semitic groups. Personal names including the stem ʾl are found with similar patterns in both Amorite and South Arabic which indicates that probably already in Proto-Semitic ʾl was both a generic term for “god” and the common name or title of a single particular god.
As Hebrew and Arabic are closely related Semitic languages, it is commonly accepted that Allah (root, ilāh) and the Biblical Elohim are cognate derivations of same origin, as is Eloah, a Hebrew word which is used (e.g. in the Book of Job) to mean ‘(the) God’ and also ‘god or gods’ as is the case of Elohim.
Allah is the Arabic word for God (al ilāh, iliterally “the God”). The word has cognates in other Semitic languages, including Alah in Aramaic, ʾĒl in Canaanite and Elohim in Hebrew.
It is used mainly by Muslims to refer to God in Islam, but it has also been used by Arab Christians since pre-Islamic times. It is also often, albeit not exclusively, used by Bábists, Bahá’ís, Indonesian and Maltese Christians, and Mizrahi Jews.
Christians and Sikhs in West Malaysia also use and have used the word to refer to God. This has caused political and legal controversies there as the law in West Malaysia prohibited them from using it.
The term Allāh is derived from a contraction of the Arabic definite article al- “the” and ilāh “deity, god” to al-lāh meaning “the [sole] deity, God”. Cognates of the name “Allāh” exist in other Semitic languages, including Hebrew and Aramaic.
The corresponding Aramaic form is Alah, but its emphatic state is Alaha/Ĕlāhā in Biblical Aramaic and Alâhâ in Syriac as used by the Assyrian Church, both meaning simply “God”.
Biblical Hebrew mostly uses the plural (but functional singular) form Elohim, but more rarely it also uses the singular form Eloah. In the Sikh scripture of Guru Granth Sahib, the term Allah is used 37 times.
The name was previously used by pagan Meccans as a reference to a creator deity, possibly the supreme deity in pre-Islamic Arabia. The concepts associated with the term Allah (as a deity) differ among religious traditions.
In pre-Islamic Arabia amongst pagan Arabs, Allah was not considered the sole divinity, having associates and companions, sons and daughters–a concept that was deleted under the process of Islamization.
In Islam, the name Allah is the supreme and all-comprehensive divine name, and all other divine names are believed to refer back to Allah. Allah is unique, the only Deity, creator of the universe and omnipotent. Arab Christians today use terms such as Allāh al-Ab ‘God the Father’) to distinguish their usage from Muslim usage.
There are both similarities and differences between the concept of God as portrayed in the Quran and the Hebrew Bible. It has also been applied to certain living human beings as personifications of the term and concept.
The name Allah or Alla was found in the Epic of Atrahasis engraved on several tablets dating back to around 1700 BC in Babylon, which showed that he was being worshipped as a high deity among other gods who were considered to be his brothers but taking orders from him.
Many inscriptions containing the name Allah have been discovered in Northern and Southern Arabia as early as the 5th century B.C., including Lihyanitic, Thamudic and South Arabian inscriptions.
Dumuzid the Shepherd, a king of the 1st Dynasty of Uruk named on the Sumerian King List, was later over-venerated so that people started associating him with “Alla” and the Babylonian god Tammuz.
The name Allah was used by Nabataeans in compound names, such as “Abd Allah” (The Servant/Slave of Allah), “Aush Allah” (The Faith of Allah), “Amat Allah” (The She-Servant of Allah), “Hab Allah” (Beloved of Allah), “Han Allah” (Allah is gracious), “Shalm Allah” (Peace of Allah), while the name “Wahab Allah” (The Gift of Allah) was found throughout the entire region of the Nabataean kingdom.
From Nabataean inscriptions, Allah seems to have been regarded as a “High and Main God”, while other deities were considered to be mediators before Allah and of a second status, which was the same case of the worshipers at the Kaaba temple at Mecca.
Meccans worshipped him and Al-lāt, Al-‘Uzzá, Manāt as his daughters. Some Jews might considered Uzair to be his son. Christians and Hanifs used the term ‘Bismillah’, ‘in the name of Allah’ and the name Allah to refer to the supreme Deity in Arabic stone inscriptions centuries before Islam.
According to Islamic belief, Allah is the proper name of God, and humble submission to his will, divine ordinances and commandments is the pivot of the Muslim faith. “He is the only God, creator of the universe, and the judge of humankind.” “He is unique (wāḥid) and inherently one (aḥad), all-merciful and omnipotent.” The Qur’an declares “the reality of Allah, His inaccessible mystery, His various names, and His actions on behalf of His creatures.”
In Jewish scripture Elohim is used as a descriptive title for the God of the scriptures, whose personal name is YHWH, Elohim is also used for plural pagan gods. Yahweh was the national god of the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
The name may have originated as an epithet of the god El, head of the Bronze Age Canaanite pantheon (“El who is present, who makes himself manifest”), and appears to have been unique to Israel and Judah, although Yahweh may have been worshiped south of the Dead Sea at least three centuries before the emergence of Israel according to the Kenite hypothesis.
Origin of YAWHE
Early worship of Yahweh likely originated in southern Canaan during the Late Bronze Age. It is probable that Yahu or Yahweh was worshipped in southern Canaan (Edom, Moab, Midian) from the 14th century BC, and that this cult was transmitted northwards due to the Kenites.
The “Kenite hypothesis” supposes that the Hebrews adopted the cult of Yahweh from the Midianites via the “Kenites.” This hypothesis was originally suggested by Cornelius Tiele in 1872 and remains the standard view among modern scholars.
In its classical form suggested by Tiele, the “Kenite hypothesis” assumes that Moses was a historical Midianite who brought the cult of Yahweh north to Israel. This idea is based on an old tradition (recorded in Judges 1:16, 4:11) that Moses’ father-in-law was a Midianite priest of Yahweh, as it were preserving a memory of the Midianite origin of the god.
According to Exodus 2, however, Moses was not a Midianite himself, but a Hebrew from the tribe of Levi. While the role of the Kenites in the transmission of the cult is widely accepted, the historical role of Moses finds less support in modern scholarship.
The “Kenite hypothesis” supposes that the Hebrews adopted the cult of Yahweh from the Midianites via the Kenites. This view, first proposed by F. W. Ghillany, afterward independently by Cornelis Petrus Tiele (1872), and more fully by Stade, has been more completely worked out by Karl Budde; it is accepted by H. Guthe, Gerrit Wildeboer, H. P. Smith, and G. A. Barton.
Scholars agree that the archaeological evidence suggests that the Israelites arose peacefully and internally in the highlands of Canaan. In the words of archaeologist William Dever, “most of those who came to call themselves Israelites … were or had been indigenous Canaanites.”
What distinguished Israel from other emerging Iron Age Canaanite societies was the belief in Yahweh as the national god, rather than, for example, Chemosh, the god of Moab, or Milcom, the god of the Ammonites. This would require that the Transjordanian Yahweh worshipers not be identified with Israelites, but perhaps with Edomite tribes who introduced Yahweh to Israel.
One longstanding hypothesis is that Yahweh originated as a warrior-god in the region of Edom and Midian, south of Judah, and was introduced into the northern and central highlands by southern tribes such as the Kenites; Karel van der Toorn has suggested that his rise to prominence in Israel was due to the influence of Saul, Israel’s first king, who was of Edomite background.
Yahweh was eventually hypostatized with El. Several pieces of evidence have led scholars to the conclusion that El was the original “God of Israel”—for example, the word “Israel” is based on the name of El rather than on that of Yahweh. Names of the oldest characters in the Torah further show reverence towards El without similar displays towards Yahweh. Most importantly, Yahweh reveals to Moses that though he was not known previously as El, he has, in fact, been El all along.
El was the head of the Canaanite pantheon, with Asherah as his consort and Baal and other deities making up the pantheon. With his rise, Asherah became Yahweh’s consort, and Yahweh and Baal at first co-existed and later competed within the popular religion.
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Kenites or Cinites were a nomadic clan in the ancient Levant, sent under Jethro a priest in the land of Midian. They played an important role in the history of ancient Israel.
The Kenites were coppersmiths and metalworkers. Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, was a shepherd and a priest in the land of Midian. Judges 1:16 says that Moses had a father-in-law who was a Kenite, but it is not clear from the passage if this refers to Jethro.
Certain groups of Kenites settled among the Israelite population, including the descendants of Moses’ brother-in-law, though the Kenites descended from Rechab, maintained a distinct, nomadic lifestyle for some time. Moses apparently identified Jethro’s concept of God, El Shaddai, with Yahweh, the Israelites’ God.
According to the Kenite hypothesis, Yahweh was historically a Midian deity, and the association of Moses’ father-in-law being associated with Midian reflects the historical adoption of the Midianite cult by the Hebrews.
“Kenite” is a rendition of Hebrew Qeyniy. According to Gesenius, the name is derived from the name Cain. According to A. H. Sayce, the name `Kenite’, Qéní, is identical an Aramaic word meaning `a smith’, which in its turn is a cognate of Hebrew Qayin, with the meaning `a lance’.
Midian/Madian is a geographical place and a people mentioned in the Bible and in the Qur’an. Scholars generally consider it to have been located in the “northwest Arabian Peninsula, on the east shore of the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea”, and have long associated it with the region of Modiana reported in that same area by Ptolemy.
Hadad the Edomite is specifically stated in 1 Kg 11:17-18 to have passed through Midian and Paran while fleeing from Edom to Egypt. Even so, some scholars have claimed Midian was not a geographical area but a league of tribes.
The Midianites were the descendants of Midian, who was a son of Abraham through his wife Keturah: “. . . again Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah. And she bare him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah.” (Genesis 25:1-2, King James Version).
The Midianites are also thought to be related to the Qenites (or Kenites), since they are used interchangeably in the Hebrew Bible. Moses brother-in-law or father-in-law are Qenites.
The Midianites through their apparent religio-political connection with the Moabites are thought to have worshipped a multitude of gods, including Baal-peor and the Queen of Heaven, Ashteroth. The Midianites may have worshiped Yahweh, the god Moses encountered at the burning bush at the far end of Midian’s wilderness. It is uncertain, however, which deities the Midianites worshiped. Michael Homan points out that the Midianite tent-shrine at Timna is one of the closest parallels to the biblical Tabernacle.
Midianite pottery, also called Qurayyah Painted Ware (QPW), is found at numerous sites stretching from the southern Levant to NW Saudi Arabia, the Hejaz; Qurayyah in NW Saudi Arabia is thought to be its original location of manufacture.
The pottery is bichrome / polychrome style and it dates as early as the 13th century B.C.E; its many geometric, human, and animal motifs are painted in browns and dark reds on a pinkish-tan slip. “Midianite” pottery is found in its largest quantities at metallurgical sites in the southern Levant, especially Timna.
Because of the Mycenaean motifs on Midianite pottery, some scholars including George Mendenhall, Peter Parr, and Beno Rothenberg have suggested that the Midianites were originally Sea Peoples who migrated from the Aegean region and imposed themselves on a pre-existing Semitic stratum. The question of the origin of the Midianites still remains open.
The earliest reference to a deity called “Yahweh” appears in Egyptian texts of the 13th century BC that place him among the Shasu-Bedu of southern Transjordan.
In the oldest biblical literature (12th–11th centuries BC), Yahweh is a typical ancient Near Eastern “divine warrior” who leads the heavenly army against Israel’s enemies; he and Israel are bound by a covenant under which Yahweh will protect Israel and, in turn, Israel will not worship other gods.
At a later period, Yahweh functioned as the dynastic cult (the god of the royal house) with the royal courts promoting him as the supreme god over all others in the pantheon (notably Baal, El, and Asherah (who is thought by some scholars to have been his consort).
Over time, Yahwism became increasingly intolerant of rivals, and the royal court and temple promoted Yahweh as the god of the entire cosmos, possessing all the positive qualities previously attributed to the other gods and goddesses.
With the work of Second Isaiah (the theoretical author of the second part of the Book of Isaiah) towards the end of the Babylonian exile (6th century BC), the very existence of foreign gods was denied, and Yahweh was proclaimed as the creator of the cosmos and the true god of all the world.
By early post-biblical times, the name of Yahweh had ceased to be pronounced. In modern Judaism, it is replaced with the word Adonai, meaning Lord, and is understood to be God’s proper name and to denote his mercy. Many Christian Bibles follow the Jewish custom and replace it with “the LORD”.
The Greek Adōnis, an annually-renewed, ever-youthful vegetation god, a life-death-rebirth deity whose nature is tied to the calendar, was a borrowing from the Canaanite / Phoenician language word ʼadōn, meaning “lord”, which is related to Adonai, one of the names used to refer to the god of the Hebrew Bible and still used in Judaism to the present day.
Syrian Adonis is Gauas or Aos, akin to Egyptian Osiris, the Semitic Tammuz and Baal Hadad, the Etruscan Atunis and the Phrygian Attis, all of whom are deities of rebirth and vegetation.
Jehovah is a Latinization of the Hebrew יְהֹוָה, a vocalization of the Tetragrammaton יהוה (YHWH), the proper name of the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible, which has also been transcribed as “Yehowah” or “Yahweh”.
יְהֹוָה appears 6,518 times in the traditional Masoretic Text, in addition to 305 instances of יֱהֹוִה (Jehovih). The earliest available Latin text to use a vocalization similar to Jehovah dates from the 13th century.
Most scholars believe “Jehovah” to be a late (c. 1100 CE) hybrid form derived by combining the Latin letters JHVH with the vowels of Adonai, but there is some evidence that it may already have been in use in Late Antiquity (5th century).
The consensus among scholars is that the historical vocalization of the Tetragrammaton at the time of the redaction of the Torah (6th century BCE) is most likely Yahweh, however there is disagreement.
The historical vocalization was lost because in Second Temple Judaism, during the 3rd to 2nd centuries BCE, the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton came to be avoided, being substituted with Adonai (“my Lord”).
Dagon
Dagon was originally an East Semitic Mesopotamian (Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian) fertility god who evolved into a major Northwest Semitic god, reportedly of grain (as symbol of fertility) and fish and/or fishing (as symbol of multiplying).
He was worshipped by the early Amorites and by the inhabitants of the cities of Ebla (modern Tell Mardikh, Syria) and Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra, Syria). He was also a major member, or perhaps head, of the pantheon of the Philistines.
His name is perhaps related to the Middle Hebrew and Jewish Aramaic word dgnʾ ‘be cut open’ or to Arabic dagn (دجن) ‘rain-(cloud)’. In Ugaritic, the root dgn also means grain: in Hebrew dāgān, Samaritan dīgan, is an archaic word for grain. The Phoenician author Sanchuniathon also says Dagon means siton, that being the Greek word for grain.
Sanchuniathon further explains: “And Dagon, after he discovered grain and the plough, was called Zeus Arotrios.” The word arotrios means “ploughman”, “pertaining to agriculture” (confer ἄροτρον “plow”).
The theory relating the name to Hebrew dāg/dâg, ‘fish’, is based solely upon a reading of 1 Samuel 5:2–7. According to this etymology: Middle English Dagon < Late Latin (Ec.) Dagon < Late Greek (Ec.) Δάγων < Heb דגן dāgān, “grain (hence the god of agriculture), corn.”
The god Dagon first appears in extant records about 2500 BC in the Mari texts and in personal Amorite names in which the Mesopotamian gods Ilu (Ēl), Dagan, and Adad are especially common.
At Ebla (Tell Mardikh), from at least 2300 BC, Dagan was the head of the city pantheon comprising some 200 deities and bore the titles BE-DINGIR-DINGIR, “Lord of the gods” and Bekalam, “Lord of the land”.
His consort was known only as Belatu, “Lady”. Both were worshipped in a large temple complex called E-Mul, “House of the Star”. One entire quarter of Ebla and one of its gates were named after Dagan. Dagan is called ti-lu ma-tim, “dew of the land” and Be-ka-na-na, possibly “Lord of Canaan”. He was called lord of many cities: of Tuttul, Irim, Ma-Ne, Zarad, Uguash, Siwad, and Sipishu.
An interesting early reference to Dagan occurs in a letter to King Zimri-Lim of Mari, 18th century BC, written by Itur-Asduu an official in the court of Mari and governor of Nahur (the Biblical city of Nahor) (ANET, p. 623).
It relates a dream of a “man from Shaka” in which Dagan appeared. In the dream, Dagan blamed Zimri-Lim’s failure to subdue the King of the Yaminites upon Zimri-Lim’s failure to bring a report of his deeds to Dagan in Terqa. Dagan promises that when Zimri-Lim has done so: “I will have the kings of the Yaminites [coo]ked on a fisherman’s spit, and I will lay them before you.”
In Ugarit around 1300 BC, Dagon had a large temple and was listed third in the pantheon following a father-god and Ēl, and preceding Baīl Ṣapān (that is the god Haddu or Hadad/Adad).
Joseph Fontenrose first demonstrated that, whatever their deep origins, at Ugarit Dagon was identified with El, explaining why Dagan, who had an important temple at Ugarit is so neglected in the Ras Shamra mythological texts, where Dagon is mentioned solely in passing as the father of the god Hadad, but Anat, El’s daughter, is Baal’s sister, and why no temple of El has appeared at Ugarit.
There are differences between the Ugaritic pantheon and that of Phoenicia centuries later: according to the third-hand Greek and Christian reports of Sanchuniathon, the Phoenician mythographer would have Dagon the brother of Ēl/Cronus and like him son of Sky/Uranus and Earth, but not truly Hadad’s father.
Hadad was begotten by “Sky” on a concubine before Sky was castrated by his son Ēl, whereupon the pregnant concubine was given to Dagon. Accordingly, Dagon in this version is Hadad’s half-brother and stepfather. The Byzantine Etymologicon Magnum says that Dagon was Cronus in Phoenicia. Otherwise, with the disappearance of Phoenician literary texts, Dagon has practically no surviving mythology.
Dagan is mentioned occasionally in early Sumerian texts, but becomes prominent only in later Assyro-Babylonian inscriptions as a powerful and warlike protector, sometimes equated with Enlil.
Dagan’s wife was in some sources the goddess Shala (also named as wife of Adad and sometimes identified with Ninlil). In other texts, his wife is Ishara. In the preface to his famous law code, King Hammurabi, the founder of the Babylonian empire, calls himself “the subduer of the settlements along the Euphrates with the help of Dagan, his creator”.
An inscription about an expedition of Naram-Sin to the Cedar Mountain relates (ANET, p. 268): “Naram-Sin slew Arman and Ibla with the ‘weapon’ of the god Dagan who aggrandizes his kingdom.”
The stele of the 9th century BC Assyrian emperor Ashurnasirpal II (ANET, p. 558) refers to Ashurnasirpal as the favorite of Anu and of Dagan. In an Assyrian poem, Dagan appears beside Nergal and Misharu as a judge of the dead. A late Babylonian text makes him the underworld prison warder of the seven children of the god Emmesharra.
The Phoenician inscription on the sarcophagus of King Eshmunʿazar of Sidon (5th century BC) relates (ANET, p. 662): “Furthermore, the Lord of Kings gave us Dor and Joppa, the mighty lands of Dagon, which are in the Plain of Sharon, in accordance with the important deeds which I did.”
Fish god tradition
In the 11th century, Jewish bible commentator Rashi writes of a Biblical tradition that the name Dāgôn is related to Hebrew dāg/dâg ‘fish’ and that Dagon was imagined in the shape of a fish: compare the Babylonian fish-god Oannes.
In the 13th century David Kimhi interpreted the odd sentence in 1 Samuel 5.2–7 that “only Dagon was left to him” to mean “only the form of a fish was left”, adding: “It is said that Dagon, from his navel down, had the form of a fish (whence his name, Dagon), and from his navel up, the form of a man, as it is said, his two hands were cut off.” The Septuagint text of 1 Samuel 5.2–7 says that both the hands and the head of the image of Dagon were broken off.
Schmökel asserted in 1928 that Dagon was never originally a fish-god, but once he became an important god of those maritime Canaanites, the Phoenicians, the folk-etymological connection with dâg would have ineluctably affected his iconography.
The fish form may be considered as a phallic symbol as seen in the story of the Egyptian grain god Osiris, whose penis was eaten by (conflated with) fish in the Nile after he was attacked by the Typhonic beast Set.
Likewise, in the tale depicting the origin of the constellation Capricornus, the Greek god of nature Pan became a fish from the waist down when he jumped into the same river after being attacked by Typhon. Enki’s symbols included a goat and a fish, which later combined into a single beast, the goat Capricorn, recognised as the Zodiacal constellation Capricornus.
Various 19th century scholars, such as Julius Wellhausen and William Robertson Smith, believed the tradition to have been validated from the occasional occurrence of a merman motif found in Assyrian and Phoenician art, including coins from Ashdod and Arvad.
Baal
Baal, also rendered Baʿal, is a North-West Semitic title and honorific meaning “master” or “lord” that is used for various gods who were patrons of cities in the Levant and Asia Minor, cognate to Akkadian Bēlu. A Baalist or Baalite means a worshipper of Baal.
“Baal” may refer to any god and even to human officials. In some texts it is used for Hadad, a god of thunderstorms, fertility and agriculture, and the lord of Heaven. Since only priests were allowed to utter his divine name, Hadad, Ba‛al was commonly used. . El and Baal are often associated with the bull in Ugaritic texts, as a symbol both of strength and fertility.
The worship of Ba’al in Canaan was bound to the economy of the land which depends on the regularity and adequacy of the rains, unlike Egypt and Mesopotamia, which depend on irrigation. Anxiety about the rainfall was a continuing concern of the inhabitants which gave rise to rites to ensure the coming of the rains. Thus the basis of the Ba’al cult was the utter dependence of life on the rains which were regarded as Baal’s bounty. In that respect, Ba’al can be considered a rain god.
Baal Melqart
Baal Melqart (Phoenician, lit. Milk-qart, “King of the City”, Akkadian: Milqartu) was the son of El in the Phoenician triad of worship. Melqart was the tutelary god of the Phoenician city of Tyre, although one finds this equation in older scholarship. He was often called the Baal of Tyre.
Melqart was often titled Ba‘l Ṣūr, “Lord of Tyre”, and considered to be the ancestor of the Tyrian royal family. In Greek, by interpretatio graeca he was identified with Heracles and referred to as the Tyrian Herakles. He is the son of El in the Phoenician triad of worship. He was the god of Tyre and was often called the Baal of Tyre.
As Tyrian trade and colonization expanded, Melqart became venerated in Phoenician and Punic cultures from Syria to Spain. The first occurrence of the name is in a 9th-century BCE stela inscription found in 1939 north of Aleppo in northern Syria, the “Ben-Hadad” inscription, erected by the son of the king of Arma, “for his lord Melqart, which he vowed to him and he heard his voice”.
1Kings 16:31 relates that Ahab, king of Israel, married Jezebel, daughter of Eth-baal, king of the Sidonians, and then “went and served Baal, and worshipped him”. Josephus (Antiquities 8.13.1) states clearly that Jezebel “built a temple to the god of the Tyrians, which they call Belus” which certainly refers to the Baal of Tyre, or Melqart.
The cult of this god was prominent in Israel until the reign of Jehu (841–814 BC), the tenth king of Israel since Jeroboam I, who – according to the biblical account in 2 Kings – put an end to it: “And they brought forth the images out of the house of Baal, and burned them. And they broke down the image of Baal, and broke down the house of Baal, and made it a draught house unto this day. Thus Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel.” (2Kings 10:26-28)
Ishkur/ Adad/Hadad
Adad in Akkadian and Ishkur in Sumerian and Hadad in Aramaic are the names of the storm-god in the Babylonian-Assyrian pantheon. The Akkadian god Adad is cognate in name and functions with northwest Semitic god Hadad.
Adad/Ishkur’s special animal is the bull. He is naturally identified with the Anatolian storm-god Teshub. Occasionally Adad/Ishkur is identified with the god Amurru, the god of the Amorites.
When Enki distributed the destinies, he made Ishkur inspector of the cosmos. Shamash and Adad became in combination the gods of oracles and of divination in general.
The Babylonian center of Adad/Ishkur’s cult was Karkara in the south, his chief temple being E. Karkara. He was worshipped in a temple named E. Durku.
In one litany Ishkur is proclaimed again and again as “great radiant bull, your name is heaven” and also called son of An, lord of Karkara; twin-brother of Enki, lord of abundance, lord who rides the storm, lion of heaven.
Adad/Ishkur’s consort (both in early Sumerian and later Assyrian texts) was Shala, a goddess of grain, who is also sometimes associated with the god Dagan. She was also called Gubarra in the earliest texts. The fire god Gibil (named Gerra in Akkadian) is sometimes the son of Ishkur and Shala.
In other texts Adad/Ishkur is sometimes son of the moon god Nanna/Sin by Ningal and brother of Utu/Shamash and Inanna/Ishtar. He is also occasionally son of Enlil.
Hadad (Ugaritic Haddu) is a Northwest Semitic storm and rain god, cognate in name and origin with the earlier attested East Semitic Akkadian (Assyrian-Babylonian) god Adad. Hadad was also called “Pidar”, “Rapiu”, “Baal-Zephon”, or often simply Baʿal (Lord), but this title was also used for other gods.
The bull was the symbolic animal of Hadad. He appeared bearded, often holding a club and thunderbolt while wearing a bull-horned headdress. Hadad was equated with the Indo-European Nasite Hittite storm-god Teshub; the Egyptian god Set; the Greek god Zeus; and the Roman god Jupiter, as Jupiter Dolichenus.
In Akkadian, Adad is also known as Ramman (“Thunderer”) cognate with Aramaic Rimmon which was a byname of the Aramaic Hadad. Ramman was formerly incorrectly taken by many scholars to be an independent Babylonian god later identified with the Amorite god Hadad.
The Sumerian Ishkur appears in the list of gods found at Fara, but was of far less importance than the Akkadian Adad later became, probably partly because storms and rain are scarce in southern Babylonia and agriculture there depends on irrigation instead.
Also, the gods Enlil and Ninurta also had storm god features which decreased Ishkur’s distinctiveness. He sometimes appears as the assistant or companion of one or the other of the two.
Aamong the Assyrians his cult was especially developed along with his warrior aspect. From the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I (1115–1077 BCE), Adad had a double sanctuary in Assur which he shared with Anu. Anu is often associated with Adad in invocations. The name Adad and various alternate forms and bynames (Dadu, Bir, Dadda) are often found in the names of the Assyrian kings.
Adad/Ishkur presents two aspects in the hymns, incantations, and votive inscriptions. On the one hand he is the god who, through bringing on the rain in due season, causes the land to become fertile, and, on the other hand, the storms that he sends out bring havoc and destruction.
He is pictured on monuments and cylinder seals (sometimes with a horned helmet) with the lightning and the thunderbolt (sometimes in the form of a spear), and in the hymns the sombre aspects of the god on the whole predominate. His association with the sun-god, Shamash, due to the natural combination of the two deities who alternate in the control of nature, leads to imbuing him with some of the traits belonging to a solar deity.
In religious texts, Ba‘al/Hadad is the lord of the sky who governs the rain and thus the germination of plants with the power of his desire that they be fertile. He is the protector of life and growth to the agricultural people of the region. The absence of Ba‘al causes dry spells, starvation, death, and chaos. Also refers to the mountain of the west wind.
The Biblical reference occurs at a time when Yahweh has provided a strong east wind (cf. Exodus 14:21,22) to push back the waters of the Red or Erythrian Sea, so that the sons of Israel might cross over.
In the Ugaritic texts El, the supreme god of the pantheon, resides on Mount Lel (perhaps meaning “Night”) and it is there that the assembly of the gods meet. That is perhaps the mythical cosmic mountain.
The Ba‘al cycle is fragmentary and leaves much unexplained that would have been obvious to a contemporary. In the earliest extant sections there appears to be some sort of feud between El and Ba‘al.
El makes one of his sons who is called both prince Yamm (“Sea”) and judge Nahar (“River”) king over the gods and changes Yamm’s name from yw (so spelled at that point in the text) to mdd ’il, meaning “Darling of El”. El informs Yamm that in order to secure his power, Yamm will have to drive Ba‘al from his throne.
In this battle Ba‘al is somehow weakened, but the divine craftsman Kothar-wa-Khasis strikes Yamm with two magic clubs, Yamm collapses, and Ba’al finishes the fight. ‘Athtart proclaims Ba‘al’s victory and salutes Ba‘al/Hadad as lrkb ‘rpt (“Rider on the Clouds”), a phrase applied by editors of modern English Bibles to Yahweh in Psalm 68.4. At ‘Athtart’s urging Ba‘al “scatters” Yamm and proclaims that Yamm is dead and heat is assured.
A later passage refers to Ba‘al’s victory over Lotan, the many-headed sea-dragon. Due to gaps in the text it is not known whether Lotan is another name for Yamm or a reference to another similar story. In the Mediterranean area, crops were often threatened by winds, storms, and floods from the sea, indicating why the ancients feared the fury of this cosmic being.
A palace is built for Ba‘al/Hadad with cedars from Mount Lebanon and Sirion and also from silver and from gold. In his new palace Ba‘al hosts a great feast for the other gods. When urged by Kothar-wa-Khasis, Ba’al, somewhat reluctantly, opens a window in his palace and sends forth thunder and lightning. He then invites Mot ‘Death’ (god of drought and underworld), another son of El, to the feast.
But Mot is insulted. The eater of human flesh and blood will not be satisfied with bread and wine. Mot threatens to break Ba‘al into pieces and swallow Ba‘al. Even Ba‘al cannot stand against Death. Gaps here make interpretation dubious.
It seems that by the advice of the goddess Shapsh ‘Sun’, Ba‘al has intercourse with a heifer and dresses the resultant calf in his own clothes as a gift to Mot and then himself prepares to go down to the underworld in the guise of a helpless shade. News of Ba‘al’s apparent death leads even El to mourn.
‘Anat, Ba‘al’s sister, finds Ba‘al’s corpse, presumably really the dead body of the calf, and she buries the body with a funeral feast. The god ‘Athtar is appointed to take Ba‘al’s place, but he is a poor substitute. Meanwhile ‘Anat finds Mot, cleaves him with a sword, burns him with fire, and throws his remains on the field for the birds to eat. But the earth is still cracked with drought until Shapsh fetches Ba‘al back.
Seven years later Mot returns and attacks Ba‘al in a battle which ceases only when Shapsh tells Mot that El now supports Ba’al. Thereupon Mot at once surrenders to Ba‘al/Hadad and recognizes Ba‘al as king.
In Sanchuniathon’s account Hadad is once called Adodos, but is mostly named Demarûs. This is a puzzling form, probably from Ugaritic dmrn, which appears in parallelism with Hadad, or possibly a Greek corruption of Hadad Ramān. Sanchuniathon’s Hadad is son of Sky by a concubine who is then given to the god Dagon while she is pregnant by Sky.
This appears to be an attempt to combine two accounts of Hadad’s parentage, one of which is the Ugaritic tradition that Hadad was son of Dagon. The cognate Akkadian god Adad is also often called the son of Anu (“Sky”). The corresponding Hittite god Teshub is likewise son of Anu (after a fashion).
In Sanchuniathon’s account, it is Sky who first fights against Pontus (“Sea”). Then Sky allies himself with Hadad. Hadad takes over the conflict but is defeated, at which point unfortunately no more is said of this matter. Sanchuniathion agrees with Ugaritic tradition in making Muth, the Ugaritic Mot, whom he also calls “Death”, the son of El.
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