6 ms·

> El, YHWH, and Baal were all different deities merged into one as the people groups unified. How does this theory account for the overt hostility to Baal et a

> El, YHWH, and Baal were all different deities merged into one as the people groups unified. How does this theory account for the overt hostility to Baal et al. in the Bible?

cogman10 1y ago
Unification. The authors of the Torah are laying down what correct worship is supposed to look like. I believe (and I'm not a biblical scholar, just like learning) the theory is that the priests at the time were dealing with a mixed culture and differing beliefs. One way to handle that is "Look at these evil/dumb heathens worshiping their weak gods". Painting the gods which likely some of the population still believes in dumb is a way to undermine and discourage belief. Sort of a "We are no longer team Bears, we are team bulls. The bears are actually inferior and dumb". Part of forming the new religion was merging concepts and powers from commonly believed in gods. A little like the early christians rebranding pagan holidays while actively purging pagans.
- xeonmc 1y ago
  Also similarly: The Orange Catholic Bible
  - petesergeant 1y ago
    Awww, I was hoping for more Orange Order and Catholicism trivia
smithkl42 1y ago
"Baal" was less a name than a title. In modern Hebrew, it just means "lord" or "husband". It was also apparently a title that could, at some stages of Israel's history, even be applied to YHWH, much like "Adonay" ("My lord"). For instance, the individuals named "Mephibosheth" and "Ish-bosheth" (two of the sons of Saul, a clear if imperfect Yahwist) were originally named "Meribaal" and "Ish-baal". Whoever put together 1 and 2 Samuel changed their names from "May Baal Contend" and "Man of Baal" to various plays on "shame" (bosheth). Their original names are preserved, oddly enough, in 1 Chronicles. If you could go back and ask, say, Samuel or David or Saul about how many gods existed and what their names were, I suspect all of them would have been clear that YHWH was the chief of the gods, and the only one that Israelites should worship, but beyond that you would have gotten some complicated and perhaps confused answers. Even some parts of the Bible take for granted that other gods besides YHWH exist - see, for instance, Psalm 82. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2082&version=NIV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2082&vers... Over time, "Baal" began to denote a specific agricultural deity, and it became less appropriate to use as a title for YHWH. That seems to have kicked off (or was kicked off by) the well-known conflict between Yahwism and Baal worship - see, ad infra, 1 Kings 18. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20kings%2018&version=NIV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20kings%2018&...
- schuyler2d 1y ago
  I don't want to completely refute this because I'm also an amateur and there are a lot of instabilities of consensus, but Baal was at least also the son of El in Canaanite religion which predated an Israeli kingdom. My understanding is more that Yahvists had more nomadic origins and populated (/conquered, possibly the Levites[1]) a Canaanite cultural context and then there was religious syncreticism and interest in merging them. Depending on the specific passage's history there's either a ret-coning of "all one god" or at least the interpretation that way (including how your links translate those passages). [1] https://www.amazon.com/Exodus-Richard-Elliott-Friedman/dp/0062565249 https://www.amazon.com/Exodus-Richard-Elliott-Friedman/dp/00...
  - thaumasiotes 1y ago
    > Baal was at least also the son of El in Canaanite religion which predated an Israeli kingdom Where are you getting this from?
    - ThalesX 1y ago
      Have you tried googling "baal son of el"? I have no idea on who Baal is, or El, but the discussion sparked my curiosity and that's all I needed to do in order to answer for myself the question "where are you getting this from?".
    - smithkl42 1y ago
      The Wikipedia article is a good place to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal Like all matters concerning the gods in the ancient near east, it's complex, and every answer has to be qualified. So apparently in some traditions, Baal was the son of Dagan (another fertility god), and in some the son of El (the head of the Canaanite pantheon, often identified with Yahweh even by orthodox Yahwists).
      - thaumasiotes 1y ago
        > often identified with Yahweh even by orthodox Yahwists This seems totally unsurprising, given that the Old Testament freely uses both terms while insisting there is only one god. What else are orthodox Yahwists supposed to think?
schuyler2d 1y ago
I'd answer a bit differently than replies so far. Later monotheist post "merging" of El and YHWH didn't really have space for El's son so they had to treat him as a lesser and then hostile God. Any worship for him was considered bad. Otoh, just like "Easter" is an echo of an earlier holiday, it just so happens Canaanites, as I understand it, celebrated the end of the storm god's season in spring ... Very similarly to how Passover is observed. With a sacrificed lamb shank bone and some other aspects.
- empath75 1y ago
  > Otoh, just like "Easter" is an echo of an earlier holiday (This is commonly repeated, but there is very little evidence for this)
  - AStonesThrow 1y ago
    [dead]
  - schuyler2d 1y ago
    Well the evidence is circumstantial. A bunch of Canaanites celebrate a spring festival with unleavened bread. Later they adopt a different religion that has a spring festival and an Exodus story with a new god called YHWH is glommed onto El. I think it depends how "natural" one thinks the reason for unleavened bread is to Exodus. There's obviously plenty of mythical aspects to the story but the oldest are more focused on the river (Song of the Sea) and the battle. Why not combine rebirth/reinvention stories -- one a feast and another the beginning of "freedom" But it's fair to say that most of Passover as a story and holiday is unrelated.
  - deepsun 1y ago
    Pretty much every culture had (has) social events for solstices and equinoxes. I'd rather find it harder to believe there was no such a holiday.
empath75 1y ago
"The Bible" is not a single coherent text, but rather a collection of hundreds or thousands of years of oral tradition that was created and passed on by various people at various times for various purposes, and then collected and edited again by different people for different purposes. There are layers of edits that you can tease out with careful reading, and they can be supported by archeological evidence from sites all around the near east. It is not remotely controversial that the Hebrews/Israelites/Canaanites/Judeans were originally polytheistic, with a pantheon built around Canaanite gods (El, Ashera, etc), just like all of their neighbors and then gradually became henotheistic (our god is the best god), and then finally monotheistic (there is only one god). Pure monotheism was a very late development, and a lot of the conflicts in the bible is straightforwardly interpreted as describing a conflict between Yahwist henotheism and traditional near-eastern polytheism. Even just reading the very first part of Genesis, there are two creation stories with very clear signs of a pantheon of gods. There are also completely retellings of polytheistic myths in the Bible which are basically a find-replace of Ba'al, etc, with either "El" or "Yahweh" or both.
- torben-friis 1y ago
  >Even just reading the very first part of Genesis, there are two creation stories with very clear signs of a pantheon of gods. What do you mean by this? I can think of signs of a pantheon in general but not particularly in the creation myths.
  - verbify 1y ago
    Presumably "and god said let us make man in our image". Although the monotheists can claim it is the pluralis majestatis, that doesn't seem to be a feature elsewhere when god talks.
  - adgjlsfhk1 1y ago
    compare Genesis chapter 1 with Genesis chapter 2. they are 2 pretty different creation myths. chapter 1:27 and chapter 2:21 certainly read like 2 separate creation stories for humans that have been jammed together without really fitting
  - 1y ago

> El, YHWH, and Baal were all different deities merged into one as the people groups unified. How does this theory account for the overt hostility to Baal et al. in the Bible?

cogman10 1y ago

Unification. The authors of the Torah are laying down what correct worship is supposed to look like. I believe (and I'm not a biblical scholar, just like learning) the theory is that the priests at the time were dealing with a mixed culture and differing beliefs. One way to handle that is "Look at these evil/dumb heathens worshiping their weak gods". Painting the gods which likely some of the population still believes in dumb is a way to undermine and discourage belief. Sort of a "We are no longer team Bears, we are team bulls. The bears are actually inferior and dumb". Part of forming the new religion was merging concepts and powers from commonly believed in gods. A little like the early christians rebranding pagan holidays while actively purging pagans.

xeonmc 1y ago
Also similarly: The Orange Catholic Bible
- petesergeant 1y ago
  Awww, I was hoping for more Orange Order and Catholicism trivia

smithkl42 1y ago

"Baal" was less a name than a title. In modern Hebrew, it just means "lord" or "husband". It was also apparently a title that could, at some stages of Israel's history, even be applied to YHWH, much like "Adonay" ("My lord"). For instance, the individuals named "Mephibosheth" and "Ish-bosheth" (two of the sons of Saul, a clear if imperfect Yahwist) were originally named "Meribaal" and "Ish-baal". Whoever put together 1 and 2 Samuel changed their names from "May Baal Contend" and "Man of Baal" to various plays on "shame" (bosheth). Their original names are preserved, oddly enough, in 1 Chronicles. If you could go back and ask, say, Samuel or David or Saul about how many gods existed and what their names were, I suspect all of them would have been clear that YHWH was the chief of the gods, and the only one that Israelites should worship, but beyond that you would have gotten some complicated and perhaps confused answers. Even some parts of the Bible take for granted that other gods besides YHWH exist - see, for instance, Psalm 82. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2082&version=NIV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2082&vers... Over time, "Baal" began to denote a specific agricultural deity, and it became less appropriate to use as a title for YHWH. That seems to have kicked off (or was kicked off by) the well-known conflict between Yahwism and Baal worship - see, ad infra, 1 Kings 18. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20kings%2018&version=NIV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20kings%2018&...

schuyler2d 1y ago
I don't want to completely refute this because I'm also an amateur and there are a lot of instabilities of consensus, but Baal was at least also the son of El in Canaanite religion which predated an Israeli kingdom. My understanding is more that Yahvists had more nomadic origins and populated (/conquered, possibly the Levites[1]) a Canaanite cultural context and then there was religious syncreticism and interest in merging them. Depending on the specific passage's history there's either a ret-coning of "all one god" or at least the interpretation that way (including how your links translate those passages). [1] https://www.amazon.com/Exodus-Richard-Elliott-Friedman/dp/0062565249 https://www.amazon.com/Exodus-Richard-Elliott-Friedman/dp/00...
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  > Baal was at least also the son of El in Canaanite religion which predated an Israeli kingdom Where are you getting this from?
  - ThalesX 1y ago
    Have you tried googling "baal son of el"? I have no idea on who Baal is, or El, but the discussion sparked my curiosity and that's all I needed to do in order to answer for myself the question "where are you getting this from?".
  - smithkl42 1y ago
    The Wikipedia article is a good place to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal Like all matters concerning the gods in the ancient near east, it's complex, and every answer has to be qualified. So apparently in some traditions, Baal was the son of Dagan (another fertility god), and in some the son of El (the head of the Canaanite pantheon, often identified with Yahweh even by orthodox Yahwists).
    - thaumasiotes 1y ago
      > often identified with Yahweh even by orthodox Yahwists This seems totally unsurprising, given that the Old Testament freely uses both terms while insisting there is only one god. What else are orthodox Yahwists supposed to think?

schuyler2d 1y ago

I'd answer a bit differently than replies so far. Later monotheist post "merging" of El and YHWH didn't really have space for El's son so they had to treat him as a lesser and then hostile God. Any worship for him was considered bad. Otoh, just like "Easter" is an echo of an earlier holiday, it just so happens Canaanites, as I understand it, celebrated the end of the storm god's season in spring ... Very similarly to how Passover is observed. With a sacrificed lamb shank bone and some other aspects.

empath75 1y ago
> Otoh, just like "Easter" is an echo of an earlier holiday (This is commonly repeated, but there is very little evidence for this)
- AStonesThrow 1y ago
  [dead]
- schuyler2d 1y ago
  Well the evidence is circumstantial. A bunch of Canaanites celebrate a spring festival with unleavened bread. Later they adopt a different religion that has a spring festival and an Exodus story with a new god called YHWH is glommed onto El. I think it depends how "natural" one thinks the reason for unleavened bread is to Exodus. There's obviously plenty of mythical aspects to the story but the oldest are more focused on the river (Song of the Sea) and the battle. Why not combine rebirth/reinvention stories -- one a feast and another the beginning of "freedom" But it's fair to say that most of Passover as a story and holiday is unrelated.
- deepsun 1y ago
  Pretty much every culture had (has) social events for solstices and equinoxes. I'd rather find it harder to believe there was no such a holiday.

empath75 1y ago

"The Bible" is not a single coherent text, but rather a collection of hundreds or thousands of years of oral tradition that was created and passed on by various people at various times for various purposes, and then collected and edited again by different people for different purposes. There are layers of edits that you can tease out with careful reading, and they can be supported by archeological evidence from sites all around the near east. It is not remotely controversial that the Hebrews/Israelites/Canaanites/Judeans were originally polytheistic, with a pantheon built around Canaanite gods (El, Ashera, etc), just like all of their neighbors and then gradually became henotheistic (our god is the best god), and then finally monotheistic (there is only one god). Pure monotheism was a very late development, and a lot of the conflicts in the bible is straightforwardly interpreted as describing a conflict between Yahwist henotheism and traditional near-eastern polytheism. Even just reading the very first part of Genesis, there are two creation stories with very clear signs of a pantheon of gods. There are also completely retellings of polytheistic myths in the Bible which are basically a find-replace of Ba'al, etc, with either "El" or "Yahweh" or both.

torben-friis 1y ago
>Even just reading the very first part of Genesis, there are two creation stories with very clear signs of a pantheon of gods. What do you mean by this? I can think of signs of a pantheon in general but not particularly in the creation myths.
- verbify 1y ago
  Presumably "and god said let us make man in our image". Although the monotheists can claim it is the pluralis majestatis, that doesn't seem to be a feature elsewhere when god talks.
- adgjlsfhk1 1y ago
  compare Genesis chapter 1 with Genesis chapter 2. they are 2 pretty different creation myths. chapter 1:27 and chapter 2:21 certainly read like 2 separate creation stories for humans that have been jammed together without really fitting
- 1y ago