Canaanite Puns

To me, the most horrifying part of the Bible is the Book of Joshua. It says that the Hebrews invaded Cannan and exterminated the population of Jericho, Ai, and other cities, including all the women and children. A prostitute in Jericho got her life spared and her family's by turning informant.

I should mention this is a made-up story; archeologists say that there was no city on the site of Jericho at the appropriate time, and there's no independent evidence of a war of extermination. But many Christians glorify this supposed act of mass murder. There are even children's cartoons on YouTube saying how great Joshua was for leading a genocide.

While I'm wary of Godwin's Law, I consider it fair to say that the fictional massacre of the Canaanites is as evil as anything the Nazis ever did. Christians try to justify it by saying the Canaanites were so evil that they deserved to be slaughtered. Answers in Genesis justifies the massacres by saying that the inhabitants engaged in "idolatry [they had the wrong religion], sodomy [some of them were gay], bestiality [yuck, but deserving of death?], sorcery [ancient people often believed magic worked], and child sacrifice [we've got to kill the Canaanite kids to save them from being killed]." This site should call itself "Answers in Genocide."

I have no patience with anyone who glorifies mass murder.

I was never a christian however I'm curious to know your opinion since you obviously are very critical of the bible I assume, also I guess I need to clarify that this would also be related to how christians helped shape and push for support for the state of Israel to fulfill a biblical prophecy.

Thanks in advance.

Hi! Don't know if this is the right place, but I had a question. I've heard in various places that Ancient Israelite mythology was very connected to Canaanite Mythology. I was wondering if it evolved from Canaanite mythology or not. Thanks

I have been doing research into the ancient Canaanite pantheon, such as the Ba'al Cycle and the Sea Myth in an attempt to discover what ways it ties with the Jewish God of the Bible and the ways it does not. My question is this; what is the earliest inscription discovered that makes mention the Canaanite gods?

Judahite Temple by Jerusalem May Have Housed Statue of Canaanite God

"The shrine also closely resembles the biblical descriptions of that First Temple and is seen as reflecting the beliefs and rituals that were upheld in Jerusalem at the time...If the discovery is verified, it would be tangible evidence confirming the long-standing suspicion that, in the First Temple period, starting 3,000 years ago, the religion of the ancient Israelites was very different from the aniconic, monotheistic faith that Judaism later became...The putative artifact may be a stone that has broken off in a most unusual way, but it is more plausible that it was part of a manmade relief depicting the legs of a standing figure. That would be typical of Levantine and Canaanite religious imagery in which deities, rulers and mythical beings were portrayed standing, archaeologists say."

This is a passage that deals with the conquest of Canaan. One of the controversial episodes in the Biblical texts. Here are a couple of themes that can be gleaned specifically from this passage.

(i)"Completely destroy". The use of war language in the Bible.

• Throughout the Bible, the Biblical authors often times use Ancient Near Eastern War idioms when speaking about and describing battles and military campaigns. An idiom is a phrase or figure of speech that is used by a society or culture that isn't meant to be taken literally. So for instance if I said "I am so hungry I could eat a horse". No one would think I want to eat horses. That's a figure of speech used to illustrate my hunger. If someone were describing a football game and they said the Steelers "annihilated" the saints, no one would think that's literal. That's a figure of speech used to describe the fact that they won the game.
• Similarly in Ancient Near Eastern cultures when battles and military campaigns were described, idioms were used as part of the war rhetoric of that culture. For instance, when describing the conquest of Israel, Moabite King Mesha states in the Mesha Stele that he destroyed Israel "forever and ever". That's an obvious exaggeration because Israel still survived. Ramses III when describing his battle with the Sea People's at the Battle of Djahy states "their seed is not, their heart and soul are finished for ever and ever". Another example of a figure of speech due to the fact that right after that he would fight the Sea Peoples again at the Battle of the Delta.
• In a similar sense the Biblical authors like their Ancient Near Eastern contemporaries uses war rhetoric that employs hyperbole. Language like "utterly destroy" or "destroy all that breathes" are hyperbolic statements used for literary and theological purposes.

(ii)Judgement on wickedness

• God is passing judgement on the wickedness of the Canaanite nations in the region. The Biblical authors elaborate on this by stating the following: "You must not do the same for the Lord your God, because every abhorrent thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods. They would even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire for their gods"(Deuteronomy 12:31).
• In the Wisdom of Solomon it goes further than this by stating: "Those who lived long ago in your holy land you hated their detestable practises, their works of sorcery and unholy rites, their merciless slaughter of children, and their sacri

I’m interested in learning about the polytheistic religions of the Levant in the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and into later antiquity. Analysis of textual and archaeological information from Ugaritic, Canaanite, Israelite, and Phoenician sources would be of interest to me. I would ideally like to read about deities, ritual practices, and, if possible, a sense of how common people might have observed the religion.

I have access to a good academic library, so any papers or books you can recommend, or just tips on situating myself in the scholarly discussion, would be great.

Apologies if this is beyond the scope of this sub, please let me know if there’s a better place for my question. Thanks in advance for any help!

Is it true that it has pagan roots? If so how can we trust any of the bible?

Did one influence the other, or did they just share coincidentally similar names? Is there even proof that the storm-war god and national god of Iron age Israel was called "Yahweh"? I've been doing a lot of research into the history of Judaism and the secular arguments of it's supposedly pagan roots, and I'm curious as to how the "conclusion" that God the Father evolved from some member of a Canaanite pantheon was drawn up.

It's usually claimed that this was immoral by specific atheists. (Obviously morality is not something objectively real on atheism, but I guess we'll just brush that aside as always when dealing with these people.)

But is it? There's probably an easy way to refute this. First, we can acknowledge (as has been historically confirmed) that the Canaanite's performed child sacrifice, and the Old Testament cites this as one of the major causes for why the Canaanite's were attacked. The specific attacked villages, which probably populated a couple hundred, was a community of people who participated in acts of literal child sacrifice. This is arguably one of the most inhuman forms of murder possible. I fail to see how it could possibly not be justified to execute any individual, and therefore the community in consensus on it, which literally sacrifices children as a communal rite. We slaughtered way more Nazi's for similar level evil. Now, there's a second issue, which I'll get to in a second (namely the children who died in these attacks).

Does everyone remember the Trolley problem? It's the moral dilemma where you have five people tied to a train track, and the train is coming and is about to run them over. But you have the option to push a really fat guy onto the train track, which will save the other five people tied to the track by blocking the train but also kill that fat person. So, what do you do? Do you push?

This is one of the most famous moral dilemmas in philosophy, and philosophers themselves are more or less split on the issue. You can't really blame someone who pushes the guy (as he saved a total of four livers), nor the person who doesn't push (because they couldn't bring themselves to justifying the action, or at the very least actually bringing themselves to directly inducing the death of someone else).

But let's say I tweaked it: what if the guy you wanted to push onto the train track was a literal serial killer? Would you push him to save 5 innocent people then? I think a lot more people would do that. I sure would. Let's now increase the numbers: there are 2,500 innocent children tied to the train, and you have the option of clicking a button that will throw 500 serial murderers onto the train track, thus blocking a gigantic train that will otherwise kill all 2,500 innocent children. Would you click the butto

This is what William Lane Craig concludes for the canaanite genocide: "So whom does God wrong in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites? Not the Canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgment. Not the children, for they inherit eternal life."

By this logic, Is it fair to argue that the canaanite "genocide" was justified?

I do not really believe that but I want to be able to argue against it.

I've been recently taking a reaaally big dive into the history of pre-Islamic Arabia, just thought this was worth sharing;

Al-Jallad, Ahmad. “Echoes of the Baal Cycle in a SafaitoHismaic inscription,” Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions (2015).

In this paper, Ahmad al-Jallad identifies an inscription mixed in the Safaitic and Hismaic scripts which reads as follows;

>Mōt has celebrated a feast; the scorner eats
>
>established is the succession of his nights and days
>
>and behold, Baal is cut off; cut off indeed, but not dead

As al-Jallad writes;

"This text provides our first evidence for the existence of Canaanite mythology among the Arabic-speaking nomads of the southern Levant, and puts into context the widespread worship of the god Bʿls¹mn among them." (pg. 16)

This is a really fascinating find, and is the first of its kind in pre-Islamic Arabia. It really opens up the possibilities, in many ways, of what kind of cultural knowledge was transmitted and still known over the course of the history of pre-Islamic Arabia that we simply don't have access to anymore. What's even more interesting about this inscription, besides its suggestion of the survival of the Baal Cycle mythology perhaps even into the common era in pre-Islamic Arabia, is a specific poetic correspondence that the poem above has with the Qurʾān. The line that Mōt established "the succession of his nights and days" matches quite closely the following, as al-Jallad observes;

>Q 23:80
>
>and his is the alternation of night and day
>
>Q 25:61–62
>
>and he is the one who made night and day to follow one another

I really have to appreciate just how pioneering Ahmad al-Jallad's work is in pre-Islamic Arabian languages.

A question I would also have to anyone else is whether there's other evidence besides just this suggesting the survival of Canaanite mythology into the period of pre-Islamic Arabia.

Baal, a god once worshipped and revered a millennia ago, suddenly returns to our world. He reveals the history between himself and God--henceforth known as "Yahweh": Eons ago, Baal was the leader of a pantheon of gods who each had their own duties. Yahweh was an up-and-coming weather deity who was tasked with leading the charge against their enemies, and to his credit, he was rather good at his job. However, Yahweh gradually grew envious of Baal's position, and ultimately overthrew him, with Yahweh claiming the spot of chief god of the pantheon. However, Yahweh eventually grew to believe that godhood should be his and his alone, so he then denigrated and cast out the other gods, and then remade the world as he saw fit.

Now, Baal has rejoined with those other gods, and they intend to take revenge on Yahweh, with the ultimate goal being to outright destroy him instead of merely casting him out; with their combined and renewed power, they are confident that they can take Yahweh down. Baal cites Yahweh's selfishness and jealously as the reason why the world is in the state that it's in now, and promises everlasting prosperity to the world once he is back on the heavenly throne. Meanwhile, an envoy of heaven speaking as Yahweh's voice does not necessarily refute their history, but calls Baal a "snake" and a "false god", and that anyone who follows him will find eternal damnation once Yahweh strikes Baal down for good.

This one may be a silly question, but in this scenario, how would the world react, and which side do you ultimately believe humanity would support? Which side would YOU support, personally?

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Did one influence the other, or did they just share coincidentally similar names? Is there even proof that the storm-war god and national god of Iron age Israel was called "Yahweh"? I've been doing a lot of research into the history of Judaism and the secular arguments of it's supposedly pagan roots, and I'm curious as to how the "conclusion" that God the Father evolved from some member of a Canaanite pantheon was drawn up.