The Baal Cycle or Epic of Baal is a collection of stories about the Canaanite Baal, also referred to as Hadad. It was composed between 1400 and 1200 B.C. and rediscovered in the excavation of Ugarit, an ancient city in modern-day Syria.
The storm god Adad and the sun god Shamash jointly became the patron gods of oracles and divination in Mesopotamia.
Adad in Akkad and Sumer
In Akkadian, Adad is also known as Rammanu ("Thunderer") cognate with Imperial Aramaic: רעמאRaˁmā and Hebrew: רַעַםRaˁam, a byname of Hadad. Many scholars formerly took Rammanu to be an independent Akkadian god, but he was later identified with Hadad.
Though originating in northern Mesopotamia, Adad was identified by the same Sumerogram dIM that designated Iškur in the south.[14] His worship became widespread in Mesopotamia after the First Babylonian dynasty.[15] A text dating from the reign of Ur-Ninurta characterizes the two sides of Adad/Iškur as threatening in his stormy rage, and benevolent in giving life.[16]
Iškur appears in the list of gods found at Shuruppak but was of far less importance, perhaps because storms and rain were scarce in Sumer and agriculture there depended on irrigation instead. The gods Enlil and Ninurta also had storm god features that diminished Iškur's distinct role, and he sometimes appears as the assistant or companion of these more prominent gods.
When Enki distributed the destinies, he made Iškur inspector of the cosmos. In one litany, Iškur is proclaimed again and again as "great radiant bull, your name is heaven" and also called son of Anu, lord of Karkara; twin-brother of Enki, lord of abundance, lord who rides the storm, lion of heaven.
In other texts Adad/Iškur is sometimes son of the moon god Nanna/Sin by Ningal and brother of Utu/Shamash and Inanna/Ishtar. He is also sometimes described as the son of Enlil.[17]
The bull was portrayed as Adad/Iškur's sacred animal starting in the Old Babylonian period[18] (early 2nd millennium BCE).
Adad/Iškur's consort (both in early Sumerian and the much later Assyrian texts) was the grain goddess Shala, who is also sometimes associated with the god Dagānu. She was also called Gubarra in the earliest texts. The fire god Gibil (Girra in Akkadian) is sometimes the son of Iškur and Shala.
He is identified with the Anatolian storm-god Teshub, whom the Mitannians designated with the same Sumerogram dIM.[8] Occasionally he is identified with the Amorite god Amurru.[citation needed]
The Babylonian center of Adad/Iškur's cult was Karkara in the south, his chief temple being É.Kar.kar.a; his spouse Shala was worshipped in a temple named É.Dur.ku. In Assyria, Adad was developed along with his warrior aspect. During the Middle Assyrian Empire, from the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I (1115–1077BCE), Adad had a double sanctuary with Anu in Assur, and the two are often associated in invocations. The name Adad and various alternate forms (Dadu, Bir, Dadda) are often found in Assyrian king names.
Adad/Iškur presents two aspects in hymns, incantations, and votive inscriptions. On the one hand, he brings rain in due season to fertilize the land; on the other, he sends storms to wreak 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 hymns his sombre aspects predominate. His association with the sun-god Shamash, with the two deities alternating in the control of nature, tends to imbue him with some traits of a solar deity.
According to Alberto Green, descriptions of Adad starting in the Kassite period and in the region of Mari emphasize his destructive, stormy character and his role as a fearsome warrior deity,[19] in contrast to Iškur's more peaceful and pastoral character.[20]
Shamash and Adad jointly became the gods of oracles and divination, invoked in all the ceremonies to determine the divine will: through inspecting a sacrificial animal's liver, the action of oil bubbles in a basin of water, or the movements of the heavenly bodies. They are similarly addressed in royal annals and votive inscriptions as bele biri (lords of divination).
Hadad in Ugarit
Stele of Baal with Thunderbolt, 15th–13th century BCE. Found at the acropolis in Ras Shamra (ancient city of Ugarit).
In religious texts, Ba‘al/Hadad is the lord of the sky who governs rain and crops, master of fertility and protector of life and growth. His absence brings drought, starvation, and chaos. Texts of the Baal Cycle from Ugarit are fragmentary and assume much background knowledge.
The supreme god El resides on Mount Lel (Night?) where the assembly of the gods meets. At the beginning of the cycle, there appears to a feud between El and Ba‘al. El appoints one of his sons, called both prince Yamm (Sea) and judge Nahar (River), as king over the gods and changes Yamm's name from yw to mdd ’il (darling of El). El tells his son that he will have to drive off Ba‘al to secure the throne.
In this battle Ba‘al is somehow weakened, but the divine craftsman Kothar-wa-Khasis crafts two magic clubs for Ba’al as weapons that help Ba’al strike down Yamm and Ba'al is supreme. ‘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 he is dead and warmth 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 character in a similar story. These stories may have been allegories of crops threatened by the winds, storms, and floods from the Mediterranean sea.
A palace is built for Ba‘al with silver, gold, and cedar wood from Mount Lebanon and Sirion. In his new palace Ba‘al hosts a great feast for the other gods. When urged by Kothar-wa-Khasis, Ba’al reluctantly opens a window in his palace and sends forth thunder and lightning. He then invites Mot (Death, the god of drought and the underworld), another son of El, to join the feast.
But Mot, the eater of human flesh and blood, is insulted when offered only bread and wine. He threatens to break Ba‘al to pieces and swallow him, and even Ba‘al cannot stand against Death. Gaps here make interpretation dubious. It seems that by the advice of the sun goddess Shapash, Ba‘al mates 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. Ba‘al's sister ‘Anat finds Ba‘al's corpse, presumably really the dead 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 to the birds. But the earth is still cracked with drought until Shapsh fetches Ba‘al back.
Seven years later Mot returns and attacks Ba‘al, but the battle is quelled when Shapsh tells Mot that El now supports Ba’al. Mot surrenders to Ba‘al and recognizes him as king.
In the Amherst Papyrus, Baal Zephon (Hadad) is identified with the Egyptian god Horus: "May Baal from Zephon bless you", Amherst Papyrus 63, 7:3 and in 11:13–14: "and from Zephon may Horus help us". Classical sources translate this name as Zeus Kasios, since in Pelusium, the statue of Zeus Kasios was considered the image of Harpocrates (Horus the Child).[21] Zeus Casius had inherited some traits from Apollo as well. They also recall his conflict with Typhon over that mountain (Mount Casius on the Syrian–Turkish border or Casion near Pelusium in Egypt). The reason why Baal could be both identified with Horus and his rival Set; is because in Egypt the element of the storm was considered foreign as Set was a god of strangers and outsiders, thus because the Egyptians had no better alternative to identify their native god Set with another neighboring deity, they tentatively associated him with Hadad since he was a storm-god, but when the god Baal (Hadad) is not specifically attributed the traits of rain and thunder and is instead perceived as a god of the sky generically, which is what is embodied by his form "Baal Zaphon" as the chief deity who resides on the mountain (for example a 14th-century letter from the king of Ugarit to the Egyptian pharaoh places Baʿal Zaphon as equivalent to Amun also),[22] in that case he's more similar to the Egyptian Horus in that capacity (comparable to Baalshamin as well). The different interpretation could also be based on the fact that Set had been associated with Hadad by the Hyksos. Most likely originally Set referred to another deity also addressed by the title "Baal" (one of the many; an example of this would be the Baal of Tyre) who happened to display storm-like traits especially in Egypt since they were foreign and as such duly emphasized; when instead his weather features probably weren't all that prominent in other cultures who worshipped equivalents of him, but given that the only storm-god available for identification in Semitic culture was Hadad and in Hittite Sutekh (a war-god who's been hypothesized to be an alternative name of Teshub, but it remains unclear), the traits matched the characteristics of the Egyptian deity, and an association between the two was considered plausible, also given by the fact that both the Hittites and Semitic Hyksos were foreigners in the Egyptian land who brought their gods with them, and their main god happened to display storm-like traits and was also associated with these foreigners who came to Egypt, a characteristic that would make him similar to the perception that the Egyptians had of Set. This would once again echo the mythological motif of a previous chief of the Pantheon who gets replaced by the new generation of deities represented by the younger ascendant ruler and newly appointed chief of the gods, as is the case also for the Hittite "Cycle of Kumarbi" where Teshub displaces the previously established father of the gods Kumarbi. In Amherst XII/15 the same identification as before is once again stated: "Baal from Zephon, Horus" (BT mn Şpn Hr).
In the second millennium BCE, the king of Yamhad or Halab (modern Aleppo), who claimed to be "beloved of Hadad", received the tribute of statue of Ishtar from the king of Mari, to be displayed in the temple of Hadad in Halab Citadel.[23][24] Hadad is called "the god of Aleppo" on a stele of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser I.
The element Hadad appears in a number of theophoric names borne by kings of the region. Hadad son of Bedad, who defeated the Midianites in Moab, was the fourth king of Edom. Hadadezer ("Hadad-is-help") was the Aramean king defeated by David. Later Aramean kings of Damascus seem to have habitually assumed the title of Ben-Hadad (son of Hadad). One was Ben-Hadad, the king of Aram whom the Judean king Asa sent to invade the northern Kingdom of Israel.[25] A votive basalt stele from the 9th or 8th century, BCE found in Bredsh north of Aleppo, is dedicated to Melqart and bears the name Ben-Hadad, king of Aram.[26] The seventh of the twelve sons of Ishmael is also named Hadad.
A set of related bynames include Aramaic rmn, Old South Arabic rmn, Hebrew rmwn, and Akkadian Rammānu ("Thunderer"), presumably originally vocalized as Ramān in Aramaic and Hebrew. The Hebrew spelling rmwn with Masoretic vocalization Rimmôn[27] is identical with the Hebrew word meaning 'pomegranate' and may be an intentional misspelling and/or parody of the deity's original name.[28]
The word Hadad-rimmon (or Hadar-rimmon) in the phrase "the mourning of (or at) Hadad-rimmon",[29] has aroused much discussion. According to Jerome and the older Christian interpreters, the mourning is for something that occurred at a place called Hadad-rimmon (Maximianopolis) in the valley of Megiddo. This event was generally held to be the death of Josiah (or, as in the Targum, the death of Ahab at the hands of Hadadrimmon). But even before the discovery of the Ugaritic texts, some suspected that Hadad-rimmon might be a dying-and-rising god like Adonis or Tammuz, perhaps even the same as Tammuz, and the allusion could then be to mournings for Hadad such as those of Adonis festivals.[30] T. K. Cheyne pointed out that the Septuagint reads simply Rimmon, and argues that this may be a corruption of Migdon (Megiddo) and ultimately of Tammuz-Adon. He would render the verse, "In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of the women who weep for Tammuz-Adon" (Adon means "lord").[31] No further evidence has come to light to resolve such speculations.
In the Books of Kings, Jezebel – the wife of the Northern Israelite King Ahab promoted the cult of Ba'al in her adopted nation. John Day argues that Jezebel's Baʿal was possibly Baʿal Shamem (Lord of the Heavens), a title most often applied to Hadad.[32]
Sanchuniathon
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,[33] 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.[34] 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.
Baal, or Baʻal, was a title and honorific meaning 'owner' or 'lord' in the Northwest Semitic languages spoken in the Levant during antiquity. From its use among people, it came to be applied to gods. Scholars previously associated the theonym with solar cults and with a variety of unrelated patron deities, but inscriptions have shown that the name Ba'al was particularly associated with the storm and fertility god Hadad and his local manifestations.
El is a Northwest Semitic word meaning 'god' or 'deity', or referring to any one of multiple major ancient Near Eastern deities. A rarer form, 'ila, represents the predicate form in the Old Akkadian and Amorite languages. The word is derived from the Proto-Semitic *ʔil-.
Dagon or Dagan was a god worshipped in ancient Syria across the middle of the Euphrates, with primary temples located in Tuttul and Terqa, though many attestations of his cult come from cities such as Mari and Emar as well. In settlements situated in the upper Euphrates area, he was regarded as the "father of gods" similar to Mesopotamian Enlil or Hurrian Kumarbi, as well as a lord of the land, a god of prosperity, and a source of royal legitimacy. A large number of theophoric names, both masculine and feminine, attests that he was a popular deity. He was also worshiped further east, in Mesopotamia, where many rulers regarded him as the god capable of granting them kingship over the western areas.
Yamhad (Yamḫad) was an ancient Semitic-speaking kingdom centered on Ḥalab (Aleppo) in Syria. The kingdom emerged at the end of the 19th century BC and was ruled by the Yamhad dynasty, who counted on both military and diplomacy to expand their realm. From the beginning of its establishment, the kingdom withstood the aggressions of its neighbors Mari, Qatna and the Old Assyrian Empire, and was turned into the most powerful Syrian kingdom of its era through the actions of its king Yarim-Lim I. By the middle of the 18th century BC, most of Syria minus the south came under the authority of Yamhad, either as a direct possession or through vassalage, and for nearly a century and a half, Yamhad dominated northern, northwestern and eastern Syria, and had influence over small kingdoms in Mesopotamia at the borders of Elam. The kingdom was eventually destroyed by the Hittites, then annexed by Mitanni in the 16th century BC.
Adrammelech is an ancient Semitic god mentioned briefly by name in the Book of Kings, where he is described as a god of "Sepharvaim". Sepharvaim is commonly, but not certainly, identified with the twin cities of Sippar Yahrurum and Sippar Amnanum on the banks of the Euphrates, north of Babylon. The name Adrammelech probably translates to "Magnificent king."
Mot was the Canaanite god of death and the Underworld. He was also known to the people of Ugarit and in Phoenicia, where Canaanite religion was widespread. The main source of information about Mot in Canaanite mythology comes from the texts discovered at Ugarit, but he is also mentioned in the surviving fragments of Philo of Byblos's Greek translation of the writings of the Phoenician Sanchuniathon.
Baal Hammon, properly Baʿal Ḥamon, meaning "Lord Hammon", was the chief god of ancient Carthage. He was a weather god considered responsible for the fertility of vegetation and esteemed as king of the gods. He was depicted as a bearded older man with curling ram's horns. Baʿal Ḥammon's female cult partner was Tanit.
Teshub was the Hurrian weather god, as well as the head of the Hurrian pantheon. The etymology of his name is uncertain, though it is agreed it can be classified as linguistically Hurrian. Both phonetic and logographic writings are attested. As a deity associated with the weather, Teshub could be portrayed both as destructive and protective. Individual weather phenomena, including winds, lightning, thunder and rain, could be described as his weapons. He was also believed to enable the growth of vegetation and create rivers and springs. His high position in Hurrian religion reflected the widespread importance of weather gods in northern Mesopotamia and nearby areas, where in contrast with the south agriculture relied primarily on rainfall rather than irrigation. It was believed that his authority extended to both mortal and other gods, both on earth and in heaven. However, the sea and the underworld were not under his control. Depictions of Teshub are rare, though it is agreed he was typically portrayed as an armed, bearded figure, sometimes holding a bundle of lightning. One such example is known from Yazılıkaya. In some cases, he was depicted driving in a chariot drawn by two sacred bulls.
Kumarbi, also known as Kumurwe, Kumarwi and Kumarma, was a Hurrian god. He held a senior position in the Hurrian pantheon, and was described as the "father of gods". He was portrayed as an old, deposed king of the gods, though this most likely did not reflect factual loss of the position of the head of the pantheon in Hurrian religion, but only a mythological narrative. It is often assumed that he was an agricultural deity, though this view is not universally accepted and the evidence is limited. He was also associated with prosperity. It was believed that he resided in the underworld.
Ancient Semitic religion encompasses the polytheistic religions of the Semitic peoples from the ancient Near East and Northeast Africa. Since the term Semitic represents a rough category when referring to cultures, as opposed to languages, the definitive bounds of the term "ancient Semitic religion" are only approximate but exclude the religions of "non-Semitic" speakers of the region such as Egyptians, Elamites, Hittites, Hurrians, Mitanni, Urartians, Luwians, Minoans, Greeks, Phrygians, Lydians, Persians, Medes, Philistines and Parthians.
Yam was a god representing the sea and other sources of water worshiped in various locations on the eastern Mediterranean coast, as well as further inland in modern Syria. He is best known from the Ugaritic texts. While he was a minor deity in Ugaritic religion, he is nonetheless attested as a recipient of offerings, and a number of theophoric names invoking him have been identified. He also played a role in Ugaritic mythology. In the Baal Cycle he is portrayed as an enemy of the weather god, Baal. Their struggle revolves around attaining the rank of the king of the gods. The narrative portrays Yam as the candidate favored by the senior god El, though ultimately it is Baal who emerges victorious. Yam nonetheless continues to be referenced through the story after his defeat. In texts from other archaeological sites in Syria, attestations of Yam are largely limited to theophoric names. In Emar he was among the many deities venerated during a local festival, zukru, which took place once every seven years.
Baʽal Zephon, also transliterated as Baal-zephon, was an epithet of the Canaanite storm god Baʿal in his role as lord of Jebel Aqra, called "Mount Zaphon" in antiquity. He is identified in Ugaritic texts as Hadad.
The religions of the ancient Near East were mostly polytheistic, with some examples of monolatry. Some scholars believe that the similarities between these religions indicate that the religions are related, a belief known as patternism.
Canaanite religion was a group of ancient Semitic religions practiced by the Canaanites living in the ancient Levant from at least the early Bronze Age to the first centuries CE. Canaanite religion was polytheistic and in some cases monolatristic. It was influenced by neighboring cultures, particularly ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian religious practices. The pantheon was headed by the god El and his consort Asherah, with other significant deities including Baal, Anat, Astarte, and Mot.
As polytheistic systems evolve, there is a tendency for one deity to achieve preeminence as king of the gods. This tendency can parallel the growth of hierarchical systems of political power in which a monarch eventually comes to assume ultimate authority for human affairs. Other gods come to serve in a Divine Council or pantheon; such subsidiary courtier-deities are usually linked by family ties from the union of a single husband or wife, or else from an androgynous divinity who is responsible for the creation.
The Baal Cycle is an Ugaritic text about the Canaanite god Baʿal, a storm god associated with fertility.
Baalshamin, also called Baal Shamem and Baal Shamaim, was a Northwest Semitic god and a title applied to different gods at different places or times in ancient Middle Eastern inscriptions, especially in Canaan/Phoenicia and Syria. The title was most often applied to Hadad, who is also often titled just Ba‘al. Baalshamin was one of the two supreme gods and the sky god of pre-Islamic Palmyra in ancient Syria. There his attributes were the eagle and the lightning bolt, and he perhaps formed a triad with the lunar god Aglibol and the sun god Malakbel. The title was also applied to Zeus.
A weather god or goddess, also frequently known as a storm god or goddess, is a deity in mythology associated with weather phenomena such as thunder, snow, lightning, rain, wind, storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Should they only be in charge of one feature of a storm, they will be called after that attribute, such as a rain god or a lightning/thunder god. This singular attribute might then be emphasized more than the generic, all-encompassing term "storm god", though with thunder/lightning gods, the two terms seem interchangeable. They feature commonly in polytheistic religions, especially in Proto-Indo-European ones.
Shapshu or Shapsh, and also Shamshu, was a Canaanite sun goddess. She also served as the royal messenger of the high god El, her probable father. Her most common epithets in the Ugaritic corpus are nrt ỉlm špš, rbt špš, and špš ʿlm. In the pantheon lists KTU 1.118 and 1.148, Shapshu is equated with the Akkadian dšamaš.
Jebel Aqra is a limestone mountain located on the Syrian–Turkish border near the mouth of the Orontes River on the Mediterranean Sea. Rising from a narrow coastal plain, Jebel Aqra is a mariners' landmark which gathers thunderstorms.
References
Day, John (2000). "Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan". Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. 265. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. ISBN9781850759867..
Driver, Godfrey Rolles, and John C. L. Gibson. Canaanite Myths and Legends. Edinburgh: Clark, 1978. ISBN9780567023513.
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