Baal

Baal, identified primarily with the storm god Hadad, is one of the central divinities of the Canaanite and Ugaritic pantheon of the second millennium B.C. His name means «Lord» or «Owner», and often functions as a title applicable to various local divinities. In the clay texts of Ugarit he is presented as son of Dagan and linked to the supreme god El, and he is called «the one who rides on the clouds», lord of rain and fertility. The great Baal Cycle narrates his cosmic battles: first he defeats Yam, the god of the sea and chaos, to secure his reign and build his palace on Mount Zaphon; then he succumbs to Mot, the god of death and aridity, and descends to the underworld, until his sister and consort Anat destroys Mot and Baal resurrects, personifying the annual agricultural cycle of drought and renewal.

Baal is represented in stelae and Canaanite images as a vigorous warrior wearing a helmet with bull horns, symbol of strength and fertility. In his raised hand he wields a mace or a lightning bolt, and in the other he often holds a spear whose lower part ends in the shape of a plant or a lightning bolt, emblem of the storm that fertilizes the earth. The bull is his sacred animal par excellence, image of potency and fecundity, and sometimes he is shown standing on mountains, on a bull or on a pedestal, with his seat on Mount Safón. His attributes (the bifurcated lightning, the rain clouds and the peaks) reflect his role as organizer of the climate against drought and marine chaos.

The cult of Baal was very widespread throughout the Levant and Phoenicia, with sanctuaries on the tops of the mountains and large temples such as those of Ugarit or Baalbek. The rites sought to ensure rain and harvests through animal sacrifices, especially bulls, and fertility offerings. Biblical sources, written by their adversaries, attribute to these cults practices of sacred prostitution and child sacrifices, although today research considers both accusations disputed and probably exaggerated, understood in part as religious polemic of Yahwism against neighboring cults. The Hebrew Bible presents Baal as the great rival of Yahweh and the idol that seduces Israel, and the most famous episode is the challenge of the prophet Elijah to the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, where the fire of Yahweh triumphs over the Canaanite god.

With the rise of the Abrahamic religions, the great Canaanite Baal was reduced to a demonic figure. His epithet Baal-Zebub («Lord of the Flies»), name of a Philistine advocacy of Ekron mentioned in 2 Kings, derived into the demon Beelzebub of Christian demonology, and under the name of Bael he heads the catalog of the Ars Goetia. The prophets (Hosea, Jeremiah) condemn him as a false god who turns Israel away from its covenant. In the academic field, on the other hand, Baal is studied as one of the first and most influential examples of the myth of the storm god who dies and resurrects, a pattern that illuminates the understanding of the religions of the ancient Near East and their fertility cycles.