Mot (god)
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Mot | |
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Death and the Underworld | |
Major cult center | Ugarit |
Deities of the ancient Near East |
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Religions of the ancient Near East |
Mot (
Forms of the name
In
Religion and mythology
Ugaritic texts
The main source of the story of Mot 'Death' is
) to his messengers, lives in a city named hmry ('Mirey'), a pit is his throne, and Filth is the land of his heritage. But Ba'al warns them:that you not come near to divine Death,
lest he make you like a lamb in his mouth,
(and) you both be carried away like a kid in the breach of his windpipe.
Hadad seems to be urging that Mot come to his feast and submit himself to Hadad.
Death sends back a message that his appetite is that of lions in the wilderness, like the longing of dolphins in the sea, and he threatens to devour Ba'al himself. In a subsequent passage Death seemingly makes good his threat, or at least is deceived into believing he has slain Ba'al. Numerous
El, Baal's father, dreams that Baal is alive, and sends Shapash to bring him back to life because the land had become dry.
After seven years, Death returns, seeking vengeance and demanding one of Ba'al's brothers to feed upon. A gap in the text is followed by Mot complaining that Ba'al has given Mot his own brothers to eat, the sons of his mother to consume. A single combat between the two breaks out until the
Influence on the Passover
A few scholars have postulated the idea that the Jewish tradition of Passover may have begun as a ritual connected with the myth of Mot killing Baal.,[8][9] as Baal was the god of rain among the Canaanites and certain other Semitic nations. Modern scholars have disputed such views as a failure to take into account the original narrative and cultural context, pointing instead to a purposeful subversion of the Baal/Mot myth on the part of the authors of the Hebrew Bible, working in a framework of an audience who were well-acquainted with the religious worldview of the surrounding nations.[10][11]
Phoenician sources
A Phoenician account survives in a paraphrase of the Greek author Philo of Byblos by Eusebius,[12] who writes of a Phoenician historian named Sanchuniathon. In this account Death is a son of 'El and counted as a god, as the text says in speaking of 'El/Cronus:
And not long after another of his sons by
Pluto.
But in an earlier philosophical creation myth, Sanchuniathon refers to a great wind which merged with its parents, and that connection was called 'Desire' (πόθος):
From its connection Mot was produced, which some say is mud, and others a putrescence of watery compound; and out of this came every germ of creation, and the generation of the universe. So there were certain animals which had no sensation, and out of them grew intelligent animals, and were called "Zophasemin", that is "observers of heaven"; and they were formed like the shape of an egg. Also Mot burst forth into light, and sun, and moon, and stars, and the great constellations.
The form Mot (Μώτ) here is not the same as Muth (Μοὺθ) which appears later.
Hebrew scriptures
In Hebrew scriptures, Death ("Maweth/Mavet(h)") is sometimes linguistically personified, as in Habakkuk 2:5 and Job 18:13.[13]
See also
- Mythology portal
- Asia portal
- List of Stargate SG-1 characters#Goa'uld#Minor characters
References
- ^ a b c Spar, Authors: Ira. "The Gods and Goddesses of Canaan | Essay | The Metropolitan Museum of Art | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History". The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Retrieved 2023-02-26.
- ISBN 978-0-567-08089-9.
- JSTOR 27924890.
- ^ "Appendix II - Semitic Roots".
- OCLC 3103763.
- JSTOR 27924890.
- ISBN 9780826470874.
- ^ Elon Gilad (April 2, 2015). "Was Passover Originally an Ancient Canaanite Ritual to Stop the Rains?".
- ^ Michael S. Heiser. "Are Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut. 32:8-9 and Psalm 82?".
- ^ Brian D. Russsell, "The Song of the Sea and the Subversion of Canaanite Myth: A Missional Reading"
- ^ Eusebius of Caesarea, Praeparatio Evangelica, Book 1, chap. 9–10, trans. E. H. Gifford (1903)
- JSTOR 27924890.
Further reading
- Jacobs, Vivian; Jacobs, Isaac Rosensohn (1945). "The Myth of Môt and 'Al'eyan Ba'al". The Harvard Theological Review. 38 (2): 77–109. S2CID 163117377.
- Mannati, M. (1972). "Les Adorateurs de Môt Dans Le Psaume LXXIII". Vetus Testamentum. 22 (4): 420–25. JSTOR 1517192.
- McAffee, Matthew. "An Analysis of Words for “Death” in Ugaritic". In: Life and Mortality in Ugaritic: A Lexical and Literary Study. University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, 2019. pp. 125-190.
- Mullen, E. T., Jr. (1980). "The Cosmogonie Conflicts: The Kingship of Ba'l, Yamm, and Môt". In: The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. pp. 46–84.
- Sibbing-Plantholt, I. (2020). "Visible Death and Audible Distress: The Personification of Death (Mūtu) and Associated Emotions as Inherent Conditions of Life in Akkadian Sources". In: The Expression of Emotions in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. pp. 335–389.
- Watson, Paul L. (1972). "The Death of 'Death' in the Ugaritic Texts". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 92 (1): 60–64. JSTOR 599648.
External links
- Putting God on Trial- The Biblical Book of Job A Biblical reworking of the combat motif between Mot and Baal.
- Book 1 of the Praeparatio Evangelica of Eusebius containing the paraphrase of Philo
- Daccache, Jimmy. "Mot". In: Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception Online. Edited by Constance M. Furey, Joel Marcus LeMon, Brian Matz, Thomas Chr. Römer, Jens Schröter, Barry Dov Walfish and Eric Ziolkowski. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2021. doi:10.1515/ebr.mot. Accessed 2023-02-15.