Baal
Baal, or Baʿal, 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 Baal was particularly associated with the storm and fertility god Hadad and his local manifestations. The Ugaritic god Baal is the protagonist of one of the lengthiest surviving epics from the ancient Near East, the Baal Cycle.
Known by epithets like “rider of the clouds” and “Victorious Baal,” he was associated with rain, lightning, wind, fertility, and kingship, and was often depicted in opposition to sea and death deities like Yammu and Mot. Worship of Baal spread throughout the Levant, Egypt, and the Mediterranean via Phoenician colonization, with regional forms such as Baal Hammon in Carthage. The god was also known as "the mighty one", and "the one without equal".
The Hebrew Bible includes use of the term in reference to various Levantine deities, often with application towards Hadad, who was decried as a false god. In the Hebrew Bible, Baal appears frequently as a foreign or rival deity, with prophets like Elijah opposing his cult, while in early Israelite contexts, the title may have sometimes referred to Yahweh. Depiction as a false god was taken over into Christianity and Islam, sometimes under the form Beelzebub in demonology.
Classical sources rendered him as Belus. The Quran also references Baal worship, portraying him as a false god opposed by the prophet Elijah.
Ba'al is the most commonly used Modern Hebrew word for a husband.
Name
Epithets
Baʻal's widely used epithet is "rider of the clouds." These are related to Zeus's "gatherer of the clouds" and Yahweh's "rider of the heavens." Like the English word ride, rkb has equine and sexual uses.Etymology
The spelling of the English term "Baal" derives from the Greek Báal which appears in the New Testament and Septuagint, and from its Latinized form Baal, which appears in the Vulgate. These forms in turn derive from the vowel-less Northwest Semitic form . The word's biblical senses as a Phoenician deity and false gods generally were extended during the Protestant Reformation to denote any idols, icons of the saints, or the Catholic Church generally. In such contexts, it follows the anglicized pronunciation and usually omits any mark between its two As. In close transliteration of the Semitic name, the ayin is represented, as Baʿal.In the Northwest Semitic languages—Ugaritic, Phoenician, Hebrew, Amorite, and Aramaic—the word baʿal signified 'owner' and, by extension, 'lord', a 'master', or 'husband'.
Cognates include the Akkadian Bēlu, Amharic bal, and Arabic baʿl. Báʿal and baʿl still serve as the words for 'husband' in modern Hebrew and Arabic respectively. They also appear in some contexts concerning the ownership of things or possession of traits.
The feminine form is baʿalah, meaning 'mistress' in the sense of a female owner or lady of the house and still serving as a rare word for 'wife'.
Suggestions in early modern scholarship also included comparison with the Celtic god Belenus, however this is now widely rejected by contemporary scholars.
Semitic religion
Generic
Like En in Sumerian, the Akkadian bēlu and Northwest Semitic baʿal was used as a title of various deities in the Mesopotamian and Semitic pantheons. Only a definitive article, genitive or epithet, or context could establish which particular god was meant.Hadad
Baʿal was also used as a proper name by the third millennium BC, when he appears in a list of deities at Abu Salabikh. Most modern scholarship asserts that this Baʿal—usually distinguished as "The Lord" —was identical with the storm and fertility god Hadad; it also appears in the form Baʿal Haddu. Scholars propose that, as the cult of Hadad increased in importance, his true name came to be seen as too holy for any but the high priest to speak aloud and the alias "Lord" was used instead, as "Bel" was used for Marduk among the Babylonians and "Adonai" for Yahweh among the Israelites. A minority propose that Baʿal was a native Canaanite deity whose cult was identified with or absorbed aspects of Adad's. Regardless of their original relationship, by the 1st millennium BCE, the two were distinct: Hadad was worshiped by the Aramaeans and Baʿal by the Phoenicians and other Canaanites.Baʿal
Baʿal is well-attested in surviving inscriptions and was popular in theophoric names throughout the Levant but he is usually mentioned along with other gods, "his own field of action being seldom defined". Nonetheless, Ugaritic records show him as a weather god, with particular power over lightning, wind, rain, and fertility. The dry summers of the area were explained as Baʿal's time in the underworld, and his return in autumn was said to have caused the storms that revived the land. Thus, the worship of Baʿal in Canaan—where he eventually supplanted El as the leader of the gods and patron of kingship—was connected to the region's dependence on rainfall for its agriculture, unlike Egypt and Mesopotamia, which focused on irrigation from their major rivers. Anxiety about water availability for crops and trees increased the importance of his cult, which focused attention on his role as a rain god. He was also called upon during battle, showing that he was thought to intervene actively in the world of man, unlike the more aloof El. The Lebanese city of Baalbeck was named after Baal. Alternatively, Ba' al is a divine co-regent with El, where El was the executive while Ba' al was the sustainer of the cosmos.The Baʿal of Ugarit was the epithet of Hadad, but as time passed, the epithet became the god's name while Hadad became the epithet. Baʿal was usually said to be the son of Dagan, but appears as one of the sons of El in Ugaritic sources. Both Baʿal and El were associated with the bull in Ugaritic texts, as they symbolized both strength and fertility. He held special enmity against snakes, both on their own and as representatives of Yammu, the Canaanite sea god and river god. He fought the Tannin, the "Twisted Serpent", "Lotan the Fugitive Serpent", and the "Mighty One with Seven Heads". Baʿal's conflict with Yammu is now generally regarded as the prototype of the vision recorded in the 7th chapter of the biblical Book of Daniel. As vanquisher of the sea, the Canaanites and Phoenicians regarded Baʿal as the patron of sailors and sea-going merchants. As vanquisher of Mot, the Canaanite death god, he was known as Baʿal Rāpiʾuma and regarded as the leader of the Rephaim, the ancestral spirits, particularly those of ruling dynasties.
From Canaan, worship of Baʿal spread to Egypt by the Middle Kingdom and throughout the Mediterranean following the waves of Phoenician colonization in the early 1st millennium BCE. He was described with diverse epithets, and before Ugarit was rediscovered, these were supposed to refer to distinct local gods. However, as explained by Day, the texts at Ugarit revealed that they were considered "local manifestations of this particular deity, analogous to the local manifestations of the Virgin Mary in the Roman Catholic Church". In those inscriptions, he is frequently described as "Victorious Baʿal", "Mightiest one" or "Mightiest of the Heroes", "The Powerful One", and in his role as patron of the city "Baʿal of Ugarit". As Baʿal Zaphon, he was particularly associated with his palace atop Jebel Aqra. He is also mentioned as "Winged Baʿal" and "Baʿal of the Arrows". Phoenician and Aramaic inscriptions describe "Baʿal of the Mace", "Baʿal of the Lebanon", "Baʿal of Sidon", Bʿl Ṣmd, "Baʿal of the Heavens", Baʿal ʾAddir, Baʿal Hammon, Bʿl Mgnm.
Baʿal Hammon
was worshipped in the Tyrian colony of Carthage as their supreme god. It is believed that this position developed in the 5th century BCE following the severing of its ties to Tyre following the 480 BCE Battle of Himera. Like Hadad, Baʿal Hammon was a fertility god. Inscriptions about Punic deities tend to be rather uninformative, though, and he has been variously identified as a moon god and as Dagan, the grain god. Rather than the bull, Baʿal Hammon was associated with the ram and depicted with his horns. The archaeological record seems to bear out accusations in Roman sources that the Carthaginians burned their children as human sacrifices to him. He was worshipped as Baʿal Karnaim, particularly at an open-air sanctuary at Jebel Bu Kornein across the bay from Carthage. His consort was the goddess Tanit.The epithet Hammon is obscure. Most often, it is connected with the NW Semitic ḥammān and associated with a role as a sun god. Renan and Gibson linked it to Hammon and Cross and Lipiński to Haman or Khamōn, the classical Mount Amanus and modern Nur Mountains, which separate northern Syria from southeastern Cilicia.
Judaism
Baʿal appears about 90 times in the Hebrew Bible in reference to various gods. The priests of the Canaanite Baʿal are mentioned numerous times, most prominently in the First Book of Kings. Many scholars believe that this describes Jezebel's attempt to introduce the worship of the Baʿal of Tyre, Melqart, to the Israelite capital Samaria in the 9th century BCE. Against this, Day argues that Jezebel's Baʿal was more probably Baʿal Shamem, the Lord of the Heavens, a title most often applied to Hadad, who is also often titled just Baʻal.1 Kings 18 records an account of a contest between the prophet Elijah and Jezebel's priests. Both sides offered a sacrifice to their respective gods: Baʻal failed to light his followers' sacrifice while Yahweh's heavenly fire burnt Elijah's altar to ashes, even after it had been soaked with water. The observers then followed Elijah's instructions to slay the priests of Baʿal, after which it began to rain, showing Yahweh's mastery over the weather.
Other references to the priests of Baʿal describe their burning of incense in prayer and their offering of sacrifice while adorned in special vestments.