Baal Cycle

Baal Cycle is a series of myths from Ugarit that tells of the rise of Baal, a warrior god of storms and fertility, to kingship over the gods. In the Old Testament Baal is the most prominent divine rival to Yahweh, the God of Israel, and the two gods have many qualities and titles in common. The poem fills six tablets, designated KTU 1.1-1.6 and described under Baal Cycle (Ugaritic Texts), among the hundreds of texts in alphabetic cuneiform, the Ugaritic Texts, that archaeologists have recovered at Ugarit since 1929. The Louvre dates two of its fragments of the cycle to 1400-1200 BC.

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The story

Baal, also called Hadad, overcomes the sea god Yamm with magic war clubs made by Kothar-wa-Hasis. He then seeks permission from the elderly god El to build a palace. His sister Anat and Asherah, "mother of the gods," win El over, and he grants the request, ensuring that Baal will send his rain at its proper time. Kothar builds the palace on Mount Zaphon, identified with Jebel el-Aqra, north of Ugarit.

Then Mot, the god of death, invites Baal to a banquet at which Baal himself is to be the main course, and Baal goes down to the realm of death. Baal surrenders, though it remains unclear whether he actually dies. Anat seizes Mot: "with a blade she splits him, with a sieve she winnows him, with fire she burns him, and with millstones she grinds him." Baal returns to power, bringing his rains back to the thirsty fields.

Scholars still debate whether Baal should be called a "dying and rising god" whose yearly death and return were acted out in a seasonal round of worship. The semiticist Mark S. Smith, in a 1998 article in the Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, called that whole category a fantasy produced by uncritical comparison.

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Baal in the Old Testament

In the days of the judges the Israelites "served the Baals" and "served Baal and the Ashtoreths" (Judges 2:11, 13). The LORD sent Gideon to tear down his father's altar to Baal and the Asherah pole beside it (Judges 6:25-28). Ahab, king of Israel (874-853 BC), married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal, served Baal, and built him a temple and an altar in Samaria (1 Kings 16:31-32).

Elijah announced a drought (1 Kings 17:1) and later met the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:19-20). In the contest, told under Elijah at Mount Carmel, no one answered Baal's prophets, the fire of the LORD fell on Elijah's sacrifice, and heavy rain followed (1 Kings 18:26, 38, 45). Robert B. Chisholm Jr., professor of Old Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, argues in Bibliotheca Sacra (151:603, July 1994) that the contest showed the LORD, not Baal, "controls the elements of the storm."

Through Hosea the LORD charges that Israel did not acknowledge that he gave her grain, new wine and oil, and silver and gold "which they crafted for Baal" (Hosea 2:8). The word baal is common Semitic for "owner, master, husband," and the LORD promises that Israel will call him "my Husband" and no longer "my Master" (Hosea 2:16).

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Shared imagery

One of Baal's frequent titles is "Cloud Rider," and Psalm 68:4 gives the LORD a nearly identical one, "Him who rides on the clouds." Baal is praised for defeating "Litan the Fleeing Serpent," and Isaiah describes Leviathan, Litan's Hebrew counterpart, in the same terms, "Leviathan the fleeing serpent" (Isaiah 27:1). Psalm 74:14 says God "crushed the heads of Leviathan." Psalm 29 hears "the voice of the LORD" over the waters and has the LORD "enthroned as King forever" over the flood (Psalm 29:3, 10). In a 1935 article H. L. Ginsberg argued that the psalm contains Canaanite elements, its glorifying of the LORD's voice being adapted from praises of the storm god Baal. Some interpreters read the psalm as "a bold polemic against the Canaanite storm god Baal," affirming that the LORD is "the real king who controls the elements of the storm."