fertility god Hadad and his local manifestations.[12]
The
Levantine deities, often with application towards Hadad, who was decried as a false god. That use was taken over into Christianity and Islam, sometimes under the form Beelzebub in demonology
.
Name
Epithets
Ba'al's widely used epithet is "rider (or mounter[13]) of the clouds." (rkb 'rpt cf rkb b'rbt in Ps. 68:5; Ugaritic kb 'rpt.) These are related to Zeus's "gatherer of the clouds" and Yahweh's "rider of the heavens."[14]
Etymology
The spelling of the English term "Baal" derives from the
saints, or the Catholic Church generally.[18] In such contexts, it follows the anglicized pronunciation and usually omits any mark between its two As.[6] In close transliteration of the Semitic name, the ayin
is represented, as Baʿal.
In the
Aramaic—the word baʿal signified 'owner' and, by extension, 'lord',[16] a 'master', or 'husband'.[19][20]
). Báʿal (בַּעַל) 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 (
Arabic: بَعْلَة), meaning 'mistress' in the sense of a female owner or lady of the house[22] and still serving as a rare word for 'wife'.[23]
Suggestions in early modern scholarship also included comparison with the Celtic god Belenus, however this is now widely rejected by contemporary scholars.[24]
Baʿal is well-attested in surviving inscriptions and was popular in
Baalbeck was named after Baal.[32] Alternatively, Ba' al is a divine co-regent with El, where El was the executive whilst Ba' al was the sustainer of the cosmos.[33]
The Baʿal of Ugarit was the epithet of Hadad but as the time passed, the epithet became the god's name while Hadad became the epithet.
Rephaim (Rpum), the ancestral spirits, particularly those of ruling dynasties.[36]
From Canaan, worship of Baʿal spread to Egypt by the
grain god.[49] 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.[50] He was worshipped as Baʿal Karnaim ("Lord of the Two Horns"), particularly at an open-air sanctuary at Jebel Bu Kornein ("Two-Horn Hill") across the bay from Carthage. His consort was the goddess Tanit.[51]
The epithet Hammon is obscure. Most often, it is connected with the NW Semitic ḥammān ("
Mount Amanus and modern Nur Mountains, which separate northern Syria from southeastern Cilicia.[54][55]
Judaism
Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld
Baʿal (בַּעַל) appears about 90 times in the
Baʿal Shamem, the Lord of the Heavens, a title most often applied to Hadad, who is also often titled just Ba‘al.[58]
prophet Elijah and Jezebel's priests. Both sides offered a sacrifice to their respective gods: Ba'al 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,[59]
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[60] and their offering of sacrifice while adorned in special vestments.[61]
The title baʿal was a synonym in some contexts of the
Bealiah ("The Lord is Jah"; "Yahweh is Baʿal")[12] combined the two.[64][65] However John Day states that as far as the names Eshba’al, Meriba’al, and Beeliada (that is Baaliada), are concerned it is not certain whether they simply allude to the Canaanite god Ba’al, or are intended to equate Yahweh with Ba’al, or have no connection to Ba’al.[66]
It was the program of Jezebel, in the 9th century BCE, to introduce into Israel's capital city of Samaria her Phoenician worship of Baal as opposed to the worship of Yahweh that made the name anathema to the Israelites.[57]
At first the name Baal was used by the
prophet Hosea, who reproached the Israelites for doing so.[70]
Brad E. Kelle has suggested that references to cultic sexual practices in the worship of Baal, in Hosea 2, are evidence of an historical situation in which Israelites were either giving up Yahweh worship for Baal, or blending the two. Hosea's references to sexual acts being metaphors for Israelite "apostasy".[71]
Brian P. Irwin argues that "Baal" in northern Israelite traditions is a form of Yahweh that was rejected as foreign by the prophets. In southern Israelite traditions, "Baal" was a god that was worshipped in Jerusalem. His worshippers saw him as compatible or identical with Yahweh and honored him with human sacrifices and fragrant meal offerings. Eventually, the Chronicler(s) disapproved of both "Baals" whilst the Deuteronomists used "Baals" for any god they disapproved of. [72]
Likewise, Mark S. Smith believes Yahweh was more likely to be inspired by Baal rather than El, since both are stormy divine warriors and lack the pacifistic traits of El according to the Ugaritic texts and Hebrew Bible.[73]
However, during the period of Judges such worship seems to have been an occasional deviation from a deeper and more constant worship of Yahweh:
Throughout all the stories of Judges the popular faith in YHWH runs as a powerful current. This faith raises the judges, and inspires poets, prophets, and Nazirites. ... Worship of Baals and Ashtoreths has been schematically interspersed between these chapters, but no trace of a vital, popular belief in any foreign gods can be detected in the stories themselves. Baal prophets appeared in Israel centuries later; but during the age of the judges when Israel is supposed to have been most deeply affected by the religion of Canaan, there are no Baal priests or prophets, nor any other intimation of a vital effect of polytheism in Israel’s life.[79]
The Deuteronomist[80] and the present form of Jeremiah[81] seem to phrase the struggle as monolatry or monotheism against polytheism. Yahweh is frequently identified in the Hebrew scriptures with El Elyon, however, this was after a conflation with El in a process of religious syncretism.[82]’El (Hebrew: אל) became a generic term meaning "god", as opposed to the name of a worshipped deity, and epithets such as El Shaddai came to be applied to Yahweh alone, while Baal's nature as a storm and weather god became assimilated into Yahweh's own identification with the storm.[83] In the next stage the Yahwistic religion separated itself from its Canaanite heritage, first by rejecting Baal-worship in the 9th century, then through the 8th to 6th centuries with prophetic condemnation of Baal, sun-worship, worship on the "high places", practices pertaining to the dead, and other matters.[84]
epic Paradise Lost describes the fallen angels collecting around Satan, stating that, though their heavenly names had been "blotted out and ras'd", they would acquire new ones "wandring ore the Earth" as false gods. Baalim and Ashtaroth are given as the collective names of the male and female demons (respectively) who came from between the "bordering flood of old Euphrates" and "the Brook that parts Egypt from Syrian ground".[97]
The Quran mentions that Prophet Elias (Elijah) warned his people against Baʿal worship.[98]
And Indeed, Elijah was among the
punishment], (127) Except the chosen servants of Allah. (128) And we left for him [favorable mention] among later generations: (129) Peace be upon Ilyāseen*. (130) Indeed, We thus reward the doers of good. (131) Indeed, he was of Our believing servants. (132).[99] Quran Surah 37, verses 123-132[99]
According to
Tabari, baal is a term used by Arabs to denote everything which is a lord over anything.[100]
Al-Thaʿlabī offers a more detailed description about Baal; accordingly it was an idol of gold, twenty cubits tall, and had four faces.[98]
The trilateral root, (bā, ayn, lam)baʿl occurs seven times in the Qur’an with its common Semitic usage of “owner, husband,” particularly husband.[101] For example, Sarah, wife of Abraham refers to her husband using the term.[102][103]
ʿAnat takes credit for destroying the monsters on Baʿal's behalf. Herrmann takes "Šalyaṭu" as a proper name[36] rather than translating it as the "powerful one" or "tyrant".[38]
^"The etymology of Beelzebul has proceeded in several directions. The variant reading Beelzebub (Syriac translators and Jerome) reflects a long-standing tradition of equating Beelzebul with the Philistine deity of the city of Ekron mentioned in 2 Kgs 1:2, 3, 6, 16. Baalzebub (Heb ba˓al zĕbûb) seems to mean “lord of flies” (HALAT, 250, but cf. LXXB baal muian theon akkarōn, “Baal-Fly, god of Akkaron”; Ant 9:2, 1 theon muian)."[87]
^Arndt & al. reverse this, saying Symmachus transcribed Baälzeboúb for a more common Beëlzeboúl.[85]
^"It is more probable that b‘l zbl, which can mean “lord of the (heavenly) dwelling” in Ugaritic, was changed to b‘l zbb to make the divine name an opprobrius epithet. The reading Beelzebul in Mt. 10:25 would then reflect the right form of the name, a wordplay on “master of the house” (Gk oikodespótēs)."[94]
^"An alternative suggested by many is to connect zĕbûl with a noun meaning '(exalted) abode.'"[87]
^"In contemporary Semitic speech it may have been understood as ‘the master of the house’; if so, this phrase could be used in a double sense in Mt. 10:25b."[95]
^"In NT Gk. beelzeboul, beezeboul (Beelzebub in TR and AV) is the prince of the demons (Mt. 12:24, 27; Mk. 3:22; Lk. 11:15, 18f.), identified with Satan (Mt. 12:26; Mk. 3:23, 26; Lk. 11:18)."[95]
^"Besides, Matt 12:24; Mark 3:22; Luke 11:15 use the apposition ἄρχων τῶν δαιμονίων ‘head of the →Demons’."[91]
^Belin, in Gilles Ménage, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue françoise, 1750. Ménage constructs a derivation of both the "Chaldean" Bel and the Celtic Belin
from a supposed word for 'ball, sphere', whence 'head', and 'chief, lord'
^ abTottoli, Roberto. ‘Baal’. In Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, edited by Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, and Everett Rowson. Accessed August 24, 2022. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_23985.
Arndt, W.; Danker, F.W.; Bauer, W. (2000), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Ayles, H.H.B. (1904), A Critical Commentary on Genesis II.4-III.25, Cambridge: J. & C.F. Clay for the Cambridge University Press
Balz, Horst R.; Schneider, Gerhard (2004), Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. I, Grand Rapids: translated from the German for Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing,
Halpern, Baruch (2009), Adams, M.J. (ed.), From Gods to God: The Dynamics of Iron Age Cosmologies, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck (Ser. Forschungen zum Alten Testament, No. 63),
Lurker, Manfred (1984), Lexicon der Götter und Dämonen [Dictionary of Gods and Demons], Stuttgart: Alfred Krämer Verlag, translated from the German for Routledge in 1987 as The Routledge Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses, Devils and Demons
Olmo Lete, Gregorio del; Sanmartin, Joaquin; Watson, Wilfred G.E., eds. (2015), Diccionario de la Lengua Ugarítica, 3rd ed., Leiden: translated from the Spanish for E.J. Brill as A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition (Ser. Handbuch der Orientalistik [Handbook of Oriental Studies], Vol. 112),
Asia portal
Kohler, Kaufmann (1902), "Beelzebub or Beelzebul", in Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.), The Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. II, New York: Funk & Wagnalls, pp. 629–630
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