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Temples | IronAge Religion | Death | Glossary | Bibliography | Activities Canaanite religion was based on the worship
of local deities in local temples,
but included widely held myths and rituals. Local
gods and goddesses were special manifestations of
the great deities of religious epics. Canaanite
deities were organized in a pantheon: El the
creator, his consort Athirat (Asherah), the storm
god Ba'al, and his sister Anat, a goddess of
hunting and warfare. El, the chief god of the pantheon, is
identified in Canaanite art as a seated male figure
with arms raised as if about to give a blessing. In
myths from Ugarit (in Syria) he is described as
sitting enthroned in his palace, where he gives his
sanction to all decisions among the gods affecting
nature and society. El's female counterpart in myth is the
mother-goddess Asherah. As consort to El, Asherah
is associated with a cult of fertility and
eroticism. Her sacred animal is the lion.
Ba'al ("Master") is one of the major gods of
the Canaanite cult and is associated with a holy
mountain called Zaphon. Numerous bronze votives
show him as a young man with his hand raised in a
gesture of victory. The bull was a major symbol of
this god. Ba'al was the owner and defender of
fertile lands as well as the gods of storms. A
popular Canaanite myth describes the battle between
Ba'al and a monstrous sea god, Yam. Another myth
involves a struggle between Ba'al and Mot, the god
of Death and Sterility. Ba'al is closely associated
with the goddess Anat (or Astarte), who is his
sister, and in some myths, his consort. Anat is a
warlike and often cruel goddess. These mythic deities appear as local deities
of Canaanite cities in the southern Levant, both in
the Bible
and in inscriptions. On the international scene,
Canaanite gods and goddesses were equated with
their counterparts in Egypt and Mesopotamia. For
example, Ba'al is equated with the Egyptian god
Seth, since they are both storm gods, and the
Egyptian goddess Hathor is equated with a number of
Canaanite goddesses, including Anat and Qudushu
("the holy one," a voluptuous goddess of love,
lions and snakes). |
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