Gods, mythology, and worldview
There are significant differences between the divine names used in personal names, those of literary myths and epics, and those of more official pantheons, as found in cultic and political texts.
Personal names are probably the most conservative of these sources. Some of the deities referred to in personal names are not mentioned in other contemporary sources. They may also preserve the memory of old family or clan cults. The piety expressed in personal names shows that people often saw themselves (or their children) as related to a god especially by kin or service. At Ugarit the god was variously conceived as father, mother, brother, sister, mistress, king, or judge, and the person named could be the son, daughter, offspring, servant, boy, or man of the god. The names also refer to individuals as the “gift” or “beloved” of the god. In personal names the relationship between an individual and a god is more important than the particular deity’s role in traditional mythology or the official cult.
The projection of anthropomorphic features onto the gods and the need to explain things—from specific rituals to the nature of the world—led to the telling of stories about the gods. The written versions of such myths and epics often preserve older traditions and may figure as their chief divine actors gods other than those prominent in the current official pantheon. The only source of such native Syro-Palestinian religious literature is 14th-century-bce Ugarit.
El
In the Ugaritic myths, El is depicted as a bearded old man, kindly and wise. In the legend of King Keret, El is the sole benefactor of Keret in that king’s various sufferings: he responds to Keret’s misery at his lack of a family by appearing to him in a dream and giving him detailed directions for making a certain princess his wife. When Keret has successfully followed these directions, El appears at his wedding and pronounces a blessing, promising the couple many children. After the children are born, Keret becomes sick because of his failure to fulfill a vow. No mortal or deity is able to help him until finally El again intervenes and creates a creature for the specific task of healing him. No sooner has Keret recovered and resumed his duties than he faces another crisis—his son proposes to take his place as king—but the sequel (a third intervention by El?) has not been preserved. In the text El is called “the Father of humankind.” He is the patriarch of the gods, the final power and authority, though he does not always act decisively and he is not always treated with due respect. As the creator god, “the Creator of Creatures” (though no creation myth has been preserved) and the king of the gods, he is the owner and chief executive of the world. Even the forces of chaos, Yamm and Mot (“Sea” and “Death”), are his beloved children. El is called “the Bull” and is represented iconographically by a bull. His consort is Elat, usually known as Asherah, the “Progenitress of the Gods.” She is associated with the sea and with serpents.
The Baal cycle
Baal (Hadad) is regularly denominated “the son of Dagan,” although Dagan (biblical Dagon) does not appear as an actor in the mythological texts. Baal also bears the titles “Rider of the Clouds,” “Almighty,” and “Lord of the Earth.” He is the god of the thunderstorm, the most vigorous and aggressive of the gods, the one on whom mortals most immediately depend. Baal resides on Mount Zaphon (Cassius), north of Ugarit, and is usually depicted holding a thunderbolt. He is the protagonist of a cycle of myths from Ugarit. These tell of a challenge from Yamm, to which Baal responds. Armed with magical weapons made by the craftsman god, Kothar, Baal manages to overcome Yamm. Another major episode is instigated by Baal’s lack of a house. With the assistance of Asherah and Anath, Baal gets El’s approval to build a house; Kothar accomplishes the construction; and Baal celebrates by inviting the gods to a feast. The other major story concerns Baal’s relations with Mot, whom he initially defies, but to whom he eventually succumbs. After Baal is swallowed up by Mot, Anath, Baal’s sister, goes in search of her brother. Anath, who is called “the Maiden,” is a goddess of fertility and of warfare. She is depicted in this story in scenes of bloody slaughter in single combat with various monstrous enemies. After finding Baal, Anath buries him and informs El of Baal’s death. Attempts are made to find a god adequate to assume Baal’s role and to restore fertility to the land, but these attempts fail. Anath then confronts and defeats Mot and disposes of his body as if it were grain, grinding him up and scattering him over land and sea. In a dream, El learns that Baal is alive again. Mot also reappears and he and Baal fight until the sun goddess warns Mot of the consequences of Baal’s defeat. There is apparently a final definition of the two gods’ spheres of influence.
Anath also appears as the villain in the tale of Aqhat, or Aqhat Epic. In this story the gods grant Danel a son, Aqhat, on whom Danel confers a bow made by the craftsman god, Kothar. Anath offers Aqhat riches and immortality in exchange for the bow, but Aqhat refuses her offers. After bullying El into letting her have her way with Aqhat, she proceeds, with the aid of her henchman Yatpan, to have Aqhat killed. Danel performs various rites to try to remove the consequent blight on the land, until he is informed of his son’s murder. He then seeks his remains and buries him, curses the towns closest to the site of the murder, and mourns for seven years, after which he gives his blessing to his daughter’s proposed mission to avenge Aqhat’s death. She sets out and comes to the camp of Yatpan, where the two of them start drinking—at which point the preserved portion of the tale ends. Anath is often associated with Athtart (later Hebrew Ashtoreth, Greek Astarte). Both are renowned for their beauty, and both are closely associated with Baal.
Another group of gods play important subordinate roles in the myths. The sun goddess, Shapash, “Light of the Gods,” helps Anath in her retrieval of the dead Baal and intervenes in the final conflict between Baal and Mot. The craftsman god, known as both Kothar (“Skilled”) and Khasis (“Clever”), makes the weapons with which Baal disposes of Yamm and builds the palace for Baal. He is the source of Aqhat’s bow, coveted by Anath. The Kathirat are goddesses of marriage and pregnancy, who appear before the conception of Aqhat and in a brief myth about the marriage of Yarikh (“Moon”) and his Mesopotamian consort Nikkal. Shahar and Shalim are the gods of dawn and dusk, whose conception and birth are recounted in a liturgical myth.
While the great cycle of narratives about Baal from Ugarit is clearly a literary work and not a myth, it is doubtlessly composed of religiously significant mythic material. It depicts the prevailing order of things as the result of struggles among the gods—successive bids for power in which Yamm and Mot are confined to their present bounds and Baal and Anath (associated with fertility and military prowess, respectively) prevail. Having descended into the underworld and survived Death, Baal embodies the assertiveness and continuity of life.
It is the official documents of religious practice—god lists, sacrificial lists, and temple rituals, as well as the inscribed monuments—that disclose most directly the gods favoured by the authorities of the time. While virtually all the gods of the myths are Semitic in name, the gods of the cult are much more diverse. This official pantheon presumably included the gods of leading families within this cosmopolitan state and the gods of allied neighbouring states.
Other early gods
At 3rd-millennium Ebla the most important god was Dagan, “Lord of Gods” and “Lord of the Land.” Other gods of Ebla included El, Resheph, the storm god, Ishtar, Athtart, Chemosh, and the sun goddess. The gods of the city included several referred to by their Sumerian names. The great rivers of northern Syria were also deified, so that their local names remain unknown. Personal or family gods were referred to as “the god of my father” and “the god of the ruler.”
In the early 2nd millennium the great goddess, Ishtar, was widely portrayed in contemporary northern Syria as both warrior and fertility goddess. A standing stone from Ebla depicts her in a winged shrine, standing on a bull. Dagan was also popular—there are references to the local Dagan of various towns: Dagan of Terqa, Dagan of Tuttul, and so on. The royal establishments of Mari and Ugarit owed special allegiance to a deity called “the Lady of the Palace.”
The Indo-European gods Varuna, Mitra, and Indra were recognized in the kingdom of Mitanni in northeastern Syria, where a Hurrian population was ruled by an Indo-Aryan aristocracy in the third quarter of the 2nd millennium. Little is known of the religion of the Hurrians beyond the names and general character of their chief gods: Teshub, a storm god, and his consort Hepat; their son, Sharruma, also a storm god; the goddess Shaushka, identified with the Mesopotamian Ishtar; and Kushukh and Shimegi, lunar and solar deities, respectively. Hurrian mythology is known only through Hittite versions.
King Idrimi of Alalakh designates himself “servant of the storm god; of Hepat; and of Ishtar, the Lady of Alalakh, my lady.” He acknowledges his dependence on the storm god in his adventures and concludes his autobiographical inscription by invoking deified Heaven and Earth, the gods of heaven and earth, the storm god “the lord of heaven and earth,” and the great gods. Thus an individual king of the mid-2nd millennium pays tribute specifically to the storm god and then to the two major goddesses of his world, and he acknowledges the rest by means of collectives.
The documentation at Ugarit attests to a more explicit and specific comprehensiveness. Several god lists have been recovered from Ugarit. The most “official” one, which has survived in two Ugaritic copies and one Akkadian translation, consists of 33 items, beginning with a generalized ancestral deity, Ilib, “God of the Father.” (One version prefixes the “God of [Mount] Zaphon”—presumably the deity of the mountain north of Ugarit, which is later referred to directly as a god.) Then comes El, followed by Dagan, Baal of Zaphon, and six other Baals. (El, Ilib, or Baal of Ugarit variously come at the head of other god lists.) There follows a small group of gods and goddesses bracketed by Earth-and-Heaven and Mountains-and-Valleys, including the Kathirat, Yarikh, Mount Zaphon, Kothar, and Athtar. Then comes a group of major goddesses, led by Asherah, Anath, and Shapash and concluding with Athtart. The list ends with another group beginning with “the gods who are Baal’s auxiliaries,” and including the assembly of the gods. This group includes Resheph, Yamm, and Shalim.
Figurines from throughout the area and from a period of many centuries represent an enthroned couple (corresponding to El and Asherah) and a belligerent pair (corresponding to Baal and Anath or Athtart). These figurines are probably replicas of life-size (or larger-than-life) cult images. In any case, they attest to the ongoing official significance of these four types of deity under whatever names.
Developments in the 1st millennium bce
In the 1st millennium bce the written documentation shrinks to formulaic inscriptions, very occasionally developed into more expressive literary miniatures. Gods are often referred to in these texts by titles or by new names, so that it is often difficult to ascertain their relationship to the deities of the 2nd millennium, or indeed to determine their individuality in relation to one another. It appears that there was a tendency in this millennium to concentrate all divine power in one deity, as has been noted of Mesopotamia and as is most obviously and extremely the case in Israel.
The storm god, Hadad, appears as the chief god of the Aramaeans in northern Syria in the 9th and 8th centuries. The moon god (under the name Sahar) also is prominent in this area. Some rulers speak of their own dynastic deity. A king who owes his position to the Assyrian emperor refers to the latter and the dynastic deity equally as “my master.”
It is clear that several different deities are referred to by the form Baal-X (“Lord of X”). Hadad is probably represented by Baal-Shamen (“Lord of the Heavens”). El appeared under the title Baal-Hammon—rarely on the mainland, but abundantly in the Phoenician colonies of Africa; under this name he becomes the chief deity of Carthage. In the Phoenician heartland the supreme goddess of Byblos—presumably Asherah—is called simply Baalat Gubl (“the Lady of Byblos”). Anath becomes much less visible during the 1st millennium than at Ugarit. Athtart (Astarte), on the other hand, becomes more prominent. At Sidon, as earlier at Ugarit, she is referred to as “the Name of Baal,” perhaps indicating that she was called upon as a mediator with the supreme Baal (Hadad). Alongside other long-familiar deities such as Resheph and Shamash appeared certain new names, including Eshmun (especially at Sidon), Melqart (“king of the [underworld] city”; especially at Tyre), and, of course, Yahweh (in Israel—but also represented at least in personal names at Hamath and Larnaca). According to the Hebrew Bible, Asherah and Astarte were both worshiped in Israel during the first half of the millennium, and Hebrew inscriptions attest to a pairing of Yahweh and Asherah.
Chemosh, known from Ebla and Ugarit, reappears as the national god of Moab. King Meshaʿ of Moab interprets Israel’s occupation of his country as a consequence of Chemosh’s anger with his land. He claims that, at Chemosh’s direction, he reconquered land occupied by Israel, and he attributes his success to Chemosh. He reports that he dedicated the Israelite inhabitants to Chemosh by slaughter and says that Chemosh will henceforth dwell in these territories. This is recorded on the Moabite Stone (now in the Louvre, Paris), a stela that commemorates these events and the building by Meshaʿ of a sanctuary for Chemosh in gratitude. The formal identity of these expressions and this kind of religious interpretation of events with those found in some of Israel’s literature encourages the surmise that they may also have been shared by the Ammonites with respect to their national god, Milcom, and by the Edomites with respect to their national god, Qos.
The Philistines, traditionally believed to have originated in Crete, were one group of the Sea Peoples that moved from the Aegean Sea to the southeastern Mediterranean. They settled in southwestern Palestine after being repulsed by the Egyptians. Their religion, while it retains some Aegean and Egyptian elements from the Philistines’ origins and route of migration, appears largely indistinguishable from Canaanite religion in general. The Bible refers to the gods of the Philistines by the familiar Canaanite names Dagon, Baalzebub, and Ashtart. The name of Asherah has been found inscribed on storage jars in a cultic room at Ekron.
Simon B. Parker The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica