Baal

Baal was a Canaanite god and also Semitic title meaning lord that was used for various deities of the Levant. In the Bible, Baal was portayed as the primary enemy of the Hebrew God Yahweh.

This Baal was a major deity in the Canaanite pantheon, being the son of the chief god El and his consort Ashera. He is thought by many scholars to be Canaanite version of the Babylonian god Marduk and indentical with the Assyrian deity Hadad. He was the ruler of Heaven as well as a god of the sun, rain, thunder, fertility, and agriculture.

Many of the biblical uses of the word baal refer to a various local spirit-deities worshipped identified with specific places.

The Story of Baal

While many "baals" were worshipped in the ancient middle east, most readers are particularly interested in Baal as the enemy of the God of the Israelites. The biblical treatment of Baal will be deal with below. Here we will look at the Canaanite sources themselves.

Among Baal's titles were "Rider of the Clouds," "Almighty," and "Lord of the Earth." He is the god of both fertility and the thunderstorm, as well as a mighty warrior.

Ba'al with raised arm, 14th-12th century B.C.E., found at Ras Shamra.

A major source of our direct knowledge of the Canaanite Baal comes from the Ras Shamra tablets, which record fragments of a mythological story known to scholars as the Baal Cycle. Here, Baal earns his position a the champion of the gods by first preventing the sacrifice of his mother Ashera and then defeating the tyrannical sea god Yam. He then builds a house on Mount Saphon. However, the god of the underworld, Mot, soon lures Baal to his death, spelling ruin for the land. Baal's sister/wife Anat (possibly identified with Astarte) retrives his body and begs Mot to revive him. When her pleas are rebuffed, Anat assaults Mot, ripping him to pieces and scattering his remains over the fields. El, in the meantime, has had a dream in which fertility returned to the land, suggesting that Baal was not indeed dead. Eventually Baal is restored. But Mot too has revived and mounts a new attack against Baal. Although the gods support Baal, neither side gains victory. Finally El intervenes, dismissing Mot and leaving Baal in possession of the land.

Here Baal is the archetypal fertility deity. His death signals drought and his resurrection brings both rain and new life. He is also the vanquisher of death. His role as a maker of rain would be particularly important in the relatively arid area of Palestine, where no mighty river such as the Euphrates or the Nile existed.

Baal-worship extended from the Canaanites to the Phoenicians. Both Baal and his consort Astarte were Phoenician fertility symbols. Also worshipped as a sun god, Baal offered protection for livestock and crops, and was propitiated to avoid doughts, plauges, and famines. In certain times and places, his worship seems to have involved ritual sex between the king or priest and a female counterpart, symolizing the union of heaven and earth which brings on the blessing of rain and crops. Whether infant sacrifice was routinely devoted to Baal is a matter of debate.

Israelite Opposition to Baal

Although in primitive times the Israelites shared many of the religious beliefs of their Canaanite neighbors, as the monotheistic idea developed, Baal became the chief villain of Israelite myth.

The biblical version of Israel's history introduces Baal during the time of Moses:

While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women, who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate and bowed down before these gods. So Israel joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor. And the Lord's anger burned against them. (Numbers 25:1-3)

According to the biblical account, opposition to such an "abomination" is absolute. God orders the death of all those engaging in such practices. Intermarriage with Midianites is similarly forbidden, and a grahpic description follows in which Phinehas, the son of Aaron, personally impales an Israelite man and his forbidden Midiante wife with his spear. The Midianites, as well as the Moabites, are now to be treated as mortal enemies.

As the Israelites settle in Canaan, the temptation of participating in local religious practices continues to lure them. The period of the judges is summarized as one in which "The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord; they forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs." (Judges 3:7)

File:Elijah-prophets-baal.JPG

Elijah directs the massacre of the prophets of Baal.

Things become even more problematic, however, during the reign of the King Ahab in the Kingdom of Israel. His wife Phoenecian wife, Jezebel, introduces Baal worship in her court at Samaria and attempts a purge of the prophets of Yahweh, who vehemently oppose Baal worship. The struggle reaches its climax in the dramatic showdown between the prophet Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. Baal's prophets fail to produce a sign that Baal has accepted their sacrifice, while Elijah succeeds powerfully when Yahweh consumes his sacrifce with fire from heaven. Elijah then incites the onlookers to massacre all 450 of the Baal's representatives. (I Kings 18)

Over the next two centuries, several violent purges of worship are mentioned in the Bible. With the blessing of Elijah's successor, Elisha, a military commander named Jehu usurps Ahab's throne. The text declares that "Jehu killed everyone in Jezreel who remained of the house of Ahab, as well as all his chief men, his close friends and his priests, leaving him no survivor." (2 Kings 10:11) Jehu then proceeded to host a "an assembly in honor of Baal." After luring, priests, prophets, and other worshipers inside Baal's temple, he and 80 other soldiers masscacred them all and burned the temple to the ground. The text concludes: "So Jehu destroyed Baal worship in Israel." (2 Kings 10:28)

Included in Jehu's slayings was Jezebel herself. However, Jezebel's daughter Ataliah, by a quirk of fate, soon come to power in the southern Kingdom of Judah. There, for six years, she tolerated a Temple of Baal in Jerusalem. The priests of the Temple of Yahweh, however, mount a coup against her and she is slain. She is replaced by her young grandson Joash, who has been raised in the Temple of Yahweh while Athaliah ruled. (2 Kings 11) Under the leadership of the priest Jehoaida, an anti-Baal mob destroys Baal's temple. The young king, who begins to reign at age seven, agrees that henceforth, the Kingdom of Judah will follow a policy of strict Yahwism with no toleration for Baal worship.

Despite these purges Baal worship remains in practice both in Israel and Judah for some time to come. The Bible considers that Israel's destruction by the Assyrian empire and later the destruction of Judah by Babylon are both due to the failure to completely eliminate Baal worship and other Canaanite religious practices.

King Hezekiah of Judah and other "good kings" mounted a campaing to tear down the "high places" in which deities such as Baal were worshiped. Hezekiah's son Manasseh, however, allowed altars to Baal to be rebuilt. By the time of King Josiah, the Temple of Jerusalem reportedly housed sacred prostitutes involved in the fertility cult associated with Baal and Ashera. (2 Kings 23) Josiah purged the Temple of all vestiges of pagan worship and also

did away with the pagan priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem—those who burned incense to Baal... (2 Kings 23:5)

In the biblical view, however, Josiah's reforms had come too late. God had already determined to punish Judah for her sins. Josiah was killed in battle against Pharoah Neco II of Egypt, and the Babylonians soon besieged Jerusalem. The prophet Jeremiah reports Baal worhip still common in his day (2:23; 7:9; 9:14; 11:17, etc.) Ezekiel reports having had a vision of pagan worship in the Temple itself before its destruction in 586 B.C.E.

Baal is not mentioned in the post-exilic biblical writings. However, the apocryphal "Bel and the Dragon," appended to the Book of Daniel in some versions of the Bible, tells the story of the prophet Daniel exposing the fraudulent practices of Babylonian Bel/Marduk-worship.

Deities called Ba’al and Ba’alath

Several deities bore the title "Baal" (Lord) and more than one goddess bore the title "Baalat" (Lady). Biblical references to baals associated with various places include: Baal-hazor, Baal-hermon, Baal-melqart, Baal-meon, Ball-peor, Baal-perazim, Baal-shalisha, Baal-tamar, Baal-zephon and others. However, as early as the period of the Book of Judges, we find references to a more generalize sense of the term — Baal-berith — Lord of the covenant. Thus, Baal was clearly conceived in universal as well as place-specific terms. Similary, the God of the Israelites was conceived as the God of the whole earth, the God of the Hebrews, and the God of one specific mountain: Sinai.

Baal-melqart

The prophet Jeremiah indicates that infant sacrifice was offered to Baal as well as to other dieties. (The Book of Judges states that at least one Israelite judge, Jephthat, offered his daughter as an burnt sacrifice to Yahweh.) Baal Hammon was the supreme god of the Carthaginians and is generally identified by modern scholars either with the northwest Semitic god El or Dagon or the Greek Cronus. Classical sources relate that the Carthaginians burned their children as offerings to Baal Hammon. See Moloch for a discussion of these traditions and conflicting thoughts on the matter. Such a devouring of children fits well with the Greek traditions of Cronus.

In Carthage and North Africa Ba’al Hammon was especially associated with the ram and was worshipped also as Ba’al Qarnaim ("Lord of Two Horns") in an open-air sancutary at Jebel Bu Kornein ("the two-horned hill") across the bay from Carthage.

The Dinstinction Between Yahweh and Baal

It has been suggested by modern scholars that the Lord of the Hebrews and the Baal of the Canaanites may not always have been so distinct. Baal/Hadad was the son of El, the chief god of the Canaanite pantheon. El was also used interchangeably with that of the Hebrew god, Yahweh. Psalm 84 says that "God presides in the great assembly; he gives judgment among the gods." A number of commentators believe this verse harkens back to a time when the Hebrew religion was not yet monotheistic.

Since Baal simply means 'Lord,' there is no obvious reason why it could not be applied to Yahweh as well as other gods. Indeed, this seems to have been the case. The judge Gideon was also called Jerubaal, a name which seems to mean 'Ba‘al strives.' One also finds Eshbaal (one of Saul's sons) and Beeliada (a son of David). 1 Chronicles 12:5 mentions the name Bealiah (more accurately b^ə‘’alyâ) meaning either Baal-Yahweh, or "Yahweh is Ba‘al."

After Gideon's death, according to Judges 8.33, the Israelites went astray and started to worship the baalim (the baals) especially Baal Berith ("Lord of the Covenant"). A few verses later (Judges 9.4) the citizens of Shechem support Abimelech's attempt to become king by giving him 70 shekels from the House of Ba‘al Berith. It is hard to disassociate this "Lord of the Covenant" who is worshipped in Shechem from the covenant at Shechem described earlier in 'Joshua 24.25, in which the people of Schechem pledge to worship Yahweh. It is especially hard to do so when Judges 9:46 relates that all "the holders of the tower of Shechem" entered "the House of El Berith" — that is, 'the House of El of the Covenant." Is "Baal Berith" a way of refering to Yahweh, Baal or El?

One theory is that, just as El and Yahweh eventually came to refer to the One God of the Hebrews, so Baal once may have been conceived of as another way of refering to Yahweh.

Indeed, Pssalm 29 is thought to be an adaptation of a Canaanite hymn originally devoted to Baal.[1]

The voice of the Lord is over the waters;

The God of glory thunders,

The Lord thunders over the mighty waters...

The voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning.

The voice of the Lord shakes the desert;

The Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh.

The voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forests bare.

And in his temple all cry, "Glory!"

Psalm 18 also describes the Hebrew God in terms that couls easily apply to Baal.

The earth trembled and quaked

and the foundations of the mountains shook;

They trembled because he was angry.

Smoke rose from his nostrils;

consuming fire came from his mouth

burning coals blazed out of it.

He parted the heavens and came down;

dark clouds were under his feet.

He mounted the cherubim and flew;

he soared on the wings of the wind.

He made darkness his covering

his canopy around him — the dark rain clouds of the sky.

Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced

with hailstones and bolts of lightning.

YHWH thundered from heaven

the voice of the Most High resounded

It is difficult to know to what extent the false worship so strongly condemned by the prophets is the wrongful worship of Yahweh as a nature god. Jermiah persistent reminds his hears that various practices are something that "I never commanded, nor did it ever enter my mind." The implication seems to be that Jeremiah's audiences believed these practices to be something which God wanted.

Regardless of whether the people generally thought that Yahweh and Baal were distinct deities or two names for the same God, the biblical prophets clearly sought to draw the disnction as starkly as possible. The author of Kings dramatizes the distinction by reported the words of Elijah to those assembled on Mt. Carmel: "How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him." (1 Kings 18:21) The story continues with the prophets of Baal failing almost comically, while Elijah's God sends fire from heaven and the people respond by killing the prophets of Baal. The lesson which the author intends the for reader could not be more clear.

The prophet Hosea put the issue more subtly when he declared:

I will allure her [Israel] and bring her into the wilderness, and I will speak tenderly and to her heart... And it shall be in that day, says the Lord, that you will call Me 'Ishi' [my Husband], and you shall no more call Me 'Baali' [my Lord/Baal]. For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be mentioned or seriously remembered by their name. (Hosea 2:14-17)

The demon entitled ba'al

Baal is also seen as a Christian demon. Early demonologists, unaware of Baal/Hadad or that "baal" could refer to any number of local spirits, came to regard the term as referring to one supremely evil personage. Baal was ranked as the first and principal king in Hell, ruling over the East.

Illustration of "Bael" from the Dictionnaire Infernal

During the English Puritan period, Baal was either uquated with Satan or considered his main lieutenant.

While the Semitic high god Baal Hadad was depicted various froms —a human, ram or a bull — the demon Baal (also spelled Bael) was said to appear in the forms of a man, cat, toad, or combinations thereof. An illustration in Collin de Plancy's 1818 book Dictionnaire Infernal rather curiously placed the heads of the three creatures onto a set of spider legs.

Another version of the demon Baal is Beelzebub, or more accurately Ba‘al Zebûb or Ba‘al Z^əbûb (Hebrew בעל זבוב, Ba'al zvuv), who was originally the name of a deity worshipped in the Philistine city of Ekron. Ba‘al Zebûb might mean 'Lord of Zebûb', referring to an unknown place named Zebûb. However, it is also a pun — zebûb being a Hebrew noun meaning 'fly'. Thus Baal Zebub was the "Lord of Flies." Scholars have suggested that the term was originally Baal Zebul, which means "lord the prince." This was deliberately changed by the worshippers of Yahweh to Baal Zebub (lord of the flies) in order to ridicule and protest the worship of Baal Zebul. (NIV Study Bible published by Zondervan)

Later, Christian writings referred to Ba‘al Zebûb as a demon, often interchanged with Beelzebul. Either form may appear as an alternate name for Satan (or the Devil) or may appear to refer to the name of a lesser devil. As with several religions, the names of any earlier foreign or "pagan" deities often became synonymous with the concept of an adversarial entity.

See also

• Hadad
• Canaanite religion
• Baal Peor
• Ba‘al Shamîm
• Beelzebub
• Bel
• Melqart
• Moloch
• The Lesser Key of Solomon
• Ars Goetia
• Baal (Stargate) - A fictional Alien who impersonates Baal

External links

• Article Baal, Baalim from The Catholic Encyclopedia.
• Article Baal by W. Robertson Smith and George F. Moore in Encyclopædia Biblica, edited T. K. Cheyne and J. Sutherland Black, MacMillan: London, 1899) (PDF format. Still quite accurate.)
• Baal Myth translations
• Bartleby: American Heritage Dictionary: Semitic roots: b^cl.
• Scarce Punic images of Baal Hammon described.

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