B

BAAL. The name Baal (b El) is a common Semitic appellative meaning “lord” that is
used as a proper name for the West Semitic storm god in ancient Near Eastern texts dating
from the late third millennium BCE through the Roman period. Identified as the warrior
Hadd (or Hadad) in the Late Bronze Age texts from Ugarit, Baal is a popular deity in
Syro-Palestinian or “Canaanite” religious traditions as a god of storms and fertility. Asso-
ciated with kingship and oaths, his name appears as a divine witness to international trea-
ties and as a common element in theophoric names. Baal was venerated in West Semitic
religious traditions as a powerful god and patron of humanity for over two thousand years.
The character of Baal is most fully described in the Late Bronze Age archives of the
ancient Syrian city of Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra), where he is the patron of the royal
house and protector of the city. Archaeologists have recovered hundreds of mythological,
epic, and ritual texts written in an alphabetic cuneiform script from this coastal site since
its rediscovery in 1929. The Baal revealed in these texts is an aggressive and powerful war-
rior who vies for kingship among the gods. Frequent epithets for Baal in the Ugaritic texts
include “Almighty Baal” (aliyn b El), “the mightiest of warriors” (aliy qrdm), “the rider of
the clouds” (rkb Erpt), and “the Prince, lord of the earth” (zbl b El ars: ). He is the son of
the grain god Dagan and the brother of the violent Maiden Anat. Baal dwells on Mount
Saphon (spn), identified with Jebel el-Aqra (Mons Casius in classical sources), the highest
peak in Syria. From here he also controls the winds and storms at sea and acts as the pro-
tector of mariners.
As a god of the storm, Baal is depicted as both a divine warrior and the provider
of natural fertility in the form of dew and rains. His presence in the heavens is manifested
by dark clouds, roaring winds, peals of thunder, and bolts of lightning. Ugaritic myths
depict Baal as victorious in battle against the primordial forces of Sea (Yamm) and Death
(Mot). He is praised for his defeat of dragons or sea monsters called Litan the Fleeing
Serpent, Tunnan, and the seven-headed Twisting Serpent. Baal’s distinctive iconography
portrays him as a bearded god, wearing a conical hat with two horns, brandishing a mace
or battle-ax in his right hand and grasping lightning and thunderbolts in the left. As king
(mlk) of the gods, Baal rules the cosmos under the authority of El, the grey-bearded patri-

C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P L E F T C O R N E R . Eleventh-century black basalt relief depicting the birth of Kr: s: n: a.

Indian Museum, Calcutta. [©Giraudon/Art Resource, N.Y.]; Female temple figure. Bali,
Indonesia. [©Wolfgang Kaehler/Corbis]; The Great Buddha in Kamakura, Japan. [©Edifice/
Corbis]; Buddha sculpture and stupas at Borobudur in Java, Indonesia. [©Owen Franken/
Corbis]; A mid-nineteenth-century nahen (a house partition screen) depicting a squatting bear,
from Tlingit, Alaska. Denver Art Museum. [©Werner Forman/Art Resource, N.Y.] .

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724 BAAL
archal leader of the divine assembly. Baal “reigns over the
gods,” “issues orders to gods and humans,” and “satisfies the
multitudes of the earth” with his fertilizing rains in Ugaritic
poetry. The absence of Baal from the world results in “no
dew, no downpour, no swirling of the deeps, no welcome
voice of Baal” to break the sweltering heat, according to the
Aqhat epic. Baal is also associated with the fertility of the
herd, as is mythologically represented in two Ugaritic texts
that describe his sexual intercourse with a cow, who then
bears a son as his heir.
The myth of Baal’s rise to sovereignty over the gods is
narrated in the six tablets of the Ugaritic Baal Cycle, which
encompasses three main sections. The elderly god El presides
over the divine assembly, while a younger god is enthroned
as the active king of the cosmos. As the son of Dagan, Baal
has a conflicted relationship with El, who resists Baal’s rise
to power in preference for his own sons’ claims to divine
kingship. In the cycle’s first episode, Baal contends with
Yamm (Sea) for dominion among the gods. After defeating
Yamm with the help of magic war clubs crafted by Kothar-
wa-Hasis, Baal seeks permission from El to build a palace as
a symbol of his divine kingship. Kothar, Anat, and El’s own
consort, Athirat, eventually support Baal in the political in-
trigue, and his palace is constructed in the second section of
the Baal Cycle.
The third section of the Baal Cycle describes Baal’s con-
flict with divine Mot (Death), who challenges Baal’s king-
ship. Mot demands that the storm god “enter the maw of
Death” and descend into the underworld. Baal immediately
submits to Mot’s authority, but the fragmentary text ob-
scures the sequence of events at this point. It remains unclear
if Baal actually dies and enters the dreary land of the dead.
Regardless, the heavenly gods believe that Baal has died. Anat
discovers a corpse “in the pleasant field of Death’s Realm”
(ysmt šd šh: lmmt). There is a burial, copious ritual mourning,
and funerary offerings by El and Anat in honor of the fallen
Baal. After these events, El and the divine council unsuccess-
fully seek a replacement for Baal as the king of the gods.
Meanwhile, Anat approaches Mot with a pitiful request to
release her brother. When her pleas go unheeded for months,
Anat violently attacks Mot, chops his body into pieces, and
scatters his remains upon the fields for the birds to consume.
After more broken text, El has an oracular dream of Baal’s
return to the earth in which “the heavens rain oil and the
wadis run with honey” to relieve the parched furrows of the
fields. Baal then returns to the divine assembly, defeats his
enemies, and is again seated upon “the throne of his domin-
ion.” Later, “in the seventh year,” Mot returns to challenge
Baal’s sovereignty, but the sun goddess Shapsh mediates be-
tween the rival gods and resolves their dispute in favor of
Baal. The Baal Cycle concludes with the establishment of
Baal’s kingship over the heavenly gods, the earth, and hu-
manity.
Scholars continue to debate whether Baal is appropriate-
ly described as a “dying and rising god” whose annual death
and resurrection are cultically reenacted within a seasonal
calendar. Certain West Semitic texts also hint at Baal’s role
in the revivification of the dead in a netherworld existence.
Indeed, some scholars identify Baal as the leader of the Re-
phaim, the underworld shades of deceased kings, but no con-
sensus exists among scholars on this issue. The Ugaritic myth
of the voracious “Devourers” also narrates Baal’s defeat and
seven-year absence from the earth. The fragmentary charac-
ter of the relevant episodes in the Baal Cycle precludes any
definite conclusion, but perhaps Baal is most accurately de-
scribed as a “disappearing god,” similar to certain Hittite tra-
ditions. There is no compelling evidence for the ritual reen-
actment of Baal’s annual death and resurrection in any
ancient Syro-Palestinian source. Mot’s absence for seven
years in the Baal Cycle further argues against the alleged sea-
sonal pattern of the conflict between Baal’s fructifying rains
and Mot’s sterile rule during the heat of summer. Yet the sea-
sonal aspects of the drama between the rain god and Mot
cannot be denied. With their emphasis on fertility, death,
and the politics of divine kingship, the myths of Baal repre-
sent the precarious balance of powerful forces at play in the
natural, divine, and human realms. In many ways, Baal him-
self symbolizes the fragility of life, fertility, and political sta-
bility in a hostile cosmos.
In the Hebrew Bible, the Phoenician Baal appears as the
most prominent divine rival to the Israelite god, Yahweh. In-
deed, the two gods share many of the same qualities and epi-
thets. Like Baal, Yahweh is depicted as a god of the storm
who sounds his voice in thunder and sends lightning
(Ps.18:10–16). Yahweh is the rider of the clouds (Isa.19:1;
Ps. 68:5), who dominates the sea (ym) and vanquishes pri-
mordial dragons or sea monsters, including Tannin and Le-
viathan the Twisting Serpent (Ps. 74:13–14; Isa. 27:1; 51:9–
10; Job 26:12–13). Yahweh is also responsible for human and
natural fertility, including the “dew of the heavens and the
fat of the earth, the abundance of new grain and wine”
(Gen. 27:28).
SEE ALSO Dying and Rising Gods.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Parker, Simon B., ed. Ugaritic Narrative Poetry. Atlanta, 1997. Ex-
cellent and accessible English translations of the Ugaritic
mythological texts.
Schwemer, Daniel. Die Wettergottgestalten Mesopotamiens und
Nordsyriens im Zeitalter der Keilschriftkulturen. Weisbaden,
2001. See pp. 443–588.
Smith, Mark S. The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, I. Leiden, 1994. The first
volume of a projected three-volume commentary on the Baal
Cycle.
Smith, Mark S. The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other
Deities in Ancient Israel. 2d ed. Grand Rapids, Mich., 2002.
An excellent introduction with comprehensive bibliographic
references to recent work.
Van der Toorn, Karel, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst,
eds. Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. 2d ed. Lei-
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION