Institutions and practices
- Related Topics:
- high place
- Canaanite religion
- Keret Epic
- apilum
- tofet
The temple typically occupied a dominating site in the city along with the palace. Like the palace, it had political, administrative, and economic functions, as well as its distinctive religious functions. The temple, or the temple and palace together, were often raised or walled off in a separate precinct or acropolis. The temple was the “house” of the god—often so in both name and form. It was also a storehouse for the god’s treasures and hence sometimes particularly thickly walled. The temple staff played a leading role in the life of the city.
In the early 3rd millennium bce the temples were built on the same plan as houses: a rectangle with the entrance on one of the long sides, with a small altar or a niche for the cult statue opposite the entrance. Sometimes there were benches around the three uninterrupted walls. An outer court contained the main altar, where the larger community could participate in worship. At the beginning of the 2nd millennium bce the house of the god was extended by the expansion of the niche into an additional room (“cella”) and of the entrance into a porch—the form later used by the Phoenician architects of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. There were also outdoor shrines, such as the “high place” at Gezer (near modern Ramla, Israel) with its row of standing stones and monumental stone basin (and surviving charred animal remains). Over the centuries there was an increasing variety of forms at different sites. At particular sites, however, the plans of temples often remained virtually identical, even after previous superstructures had been destroyed.
Typical temple furniture included the cult statue, standing stones, bowls and their stands, altars, and benches around the walls. Hazor, in the Jordan valley north of the Sea of Galilee, has yielded a 13th-century-bce statue of a male deity on a bull-shaped base. In another temple a set of cultic objects, also from the 13th century, was found behind a stone slab: a seated male figure and a group of standing stones, the central one of which has engraved on it a vertical pair of arms with hands outstretched toward a disk and crescent.
The palace too might have a chapel. The palace at Mari, on the Euphrates in eastern Syria, housed a statue of a goddess holding a vase from which she dispensed flowing (“living”) water; the water was channeled through the statue to the vase. Wall paintings in the palace depict the same image, as well as scenes of the king being presented to a god and making offerings to a god.
A common religious object, not confined to sacred places, is the “Astarte” figurine, depicting a nude woman, often with exaggerated breasts and genitalia, and sometimes holding a child. This was perhaps a fetish representing the mother goddess and used to stimulate conception, childbirth, or lactation.
The temple was staffed by cultic personnel (priests) under a “chief of priests,” and by practitioners of the various other skills required by the functions of the temple. These included singers and other musicians, diviners, scribes, and other specialists, depending on the size of the temple. The temple staff was sustained by some of the sacrifices, by supplies from the estates of the temple or palace, or by direct contributions imposed on the surrounding population. Its essential religious function was the care of the cult statue, the offering of sacrifices, and the performance of other rituals for the welfare of god, monarch, and community.
Typically the monarch and sometimes other members of the royal family played a leading role in the most significant cultic acts and festivals. A king of Sidon refers to himself as “priest of Astarte.” One text from a town near Ugarit concerns a sacrifice by the queen.
In tombs formed from subterranean caves beneath the western palace of Ebla during the second quarter of the 2nd millennium bce, skeletal remains and treasures suggest a cult of deceased monarchs. From Mari and Ugarit researchers have learned of a significant cult of former rulers (called “Healers” or “Shades” at Ugarit)—from putative or mythical figures to the most recently deceased—who supported the reigning monarch with divine blessings. The monarch’s expectations of life after death are expressed in an inscription on an 8th-century monumental effigy of the god Hadad from Zincirli (ancient Samʿal) in south-central Turkey. King Panammu directs that his future heir, when making sacrifice to Hadad, pray that Panammu’s soul may eat and drink with the god. Phoenician kings of Sidon later refer to a resting place with the Healers/Shades, and the same word is used by the Israelites to refer to all the dead.
People attempted to influence the gods through animal sacrifices, petitions, and vows (promises of gifts contingent on the deity’s response to a request for help). Sacrifice was central to the cult. Domestic animals were the main victims—cattle, sheep, and goats—and also birds. There is clear evidence for two types of sacrifice: simple gifts and whole burned offerings. There also is scattered evidence of human sacrifice, probably limited to situations of unusual extremity (contrast the account of the sacrifice of his eldest son by the king of Moab in 2 Kings 3:26–27 with the more abundant evidence of child sacrifice from Carthage and other Phoenician colonies in the west).
The will of the gods was discovered in various ways. Use of the Mesopotamian technique of liver divination (hepatoscopy) is evidenced by the discovery of clay liver models (sometimes inscribed with omens) at such sites as Ugarit and Hazor, as well as by abundant written testimony at sites closer to Mesopotamia, such as Mari. Ugarit also had a list of omens based on abnormal births. King Idrimi of Alalakh refers to divining by observation of the flight of released birds.
The correspondence from Mari abundantly testifies to the institution of prophecy—spontaneous pronouncements by cult personnel and occasionally others, delivering messages from the deity. By this means the deity disclosed his or her wishes or gave divine warnings or promises to the king. The Aramaean king Zakir records that he appealed to his god in desperation during a siege and that the god answered him through prophets with promises of deliverance—obviously fulfilled, since the king makes so much of this in his inscription. According to the Egyptian “Report of Wen-Amon,” a young man of Byblos went into a trance and resolved a diplomatic deadlock by announcing that the Egyptian envoy whom the local king had refused to see had indeed been sent by the Egyptian god Amon. Biblical narratives portray similar prophetic phenomena in Israel. The gods also revealed themselves through dreams, which again were carefully reported to the monarch by his officers at Mari.
According to later classical sources a central focus of Syrian religion was the rituals surrounding the myth of the dying god. The myth, according to these sources, variously draws on other Middle Eastern or Egyptian traditions but essentially tells of the deity’s death and subsequent sojourn in the underworld and of an accommodation reached between the queen of the underworld and the goddess associated with the god that allows him to return to earth for six months of the year. Associated rituals include the sacrifice of a male pig, mourning for the dead god in a funeral procession, cultivating “gardens” in small pots and baskets, and a threshing rite.
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.
