![]() He fought the Tannin ( Tunnanu), the "Twisted Serpent" ( Bṭn ʿqltn), " Lotan the Fugitive Serpent" ( Ltn Bṭn Brḥ, the biblical Leviathan), and the " Mighty One with Seven Heads" ( Šlyṭ D.šbʿt Rašm). He held special enmity against snakes, both on their own and as representatives of Yammu ( lit. "Sea"), the Canaanite sea god and river god. Both Baʿal and El were associated with the bull in Ugaritic texts, as it symbolized both strength and fertility. Baʿal was usually said to be the son of Dagan, but appears as one of the sons of El in Ugaritic sources. The Baʿal of Ugarit was the epithet of Hadad but as the time passed, the epithet became the god's name while Hadad became the epithet. The Lebanese city of Baalbeck was named after Baal. He was also called upon during battle, showing that he was thought to intervene actively in the world of man, unlike the more aloof El. Anxiety about the availability of water for crops and trees increased the importance of his cult, which focused attention on his role as a rain god. Thus, the worship of Baʿal in Canaan-where he eventually supplanted El as the leader of the gods and patron of kingship-was connected to the regions' dependence on rainfall for its agriculture, unlike Egypt and Mesopotamia, which focused on irrigation from their major rivers. The dry summers of the area were explained as Baʿal's time in the underworld and his return in autumn was said to cause the storms which revived the land. Nonetheless, Ugaritic records show him as a weather god, with particular power over lightning, wind, rain, and fertility. El īaʿal is well-attested in surviving inscriptions and was popular in theophoric names throughout the Levant but he is usually mentioned along with other gods, "his own field of action being seldom defined". Regardless of their original relationship, by the 1st millennium BCE, the two were distinct: Hadad was worshipped by the Aramaeans and Baʿal by the Phoenicians and other Canaanites. ![]() A minority propose that Baʿal was a native Canaanite deity whose cult was identified with or absorbed aspects of Adad's. Scholars propose that, as the cult of Hadad increased in importance, his true name came to be seen as too holy for any but the high priest to speak aloud and the alias "Lord" ("Baʿal") was used instead, as " Bel" was used for Marduk among the Babylonians and " Adonai" for Yahweh among the Israelites. Most modern scholarship asserts that this Baʿal-usually distinguished as "The Lord" ( ה בעל, Ha Baʿal)-was identical with the storm and fertility god Hadad it also appears in the form Baʿal Haddu. Semitic religion īaʿal was also used as a proper name by the third millennium BCE, when he appears in a list of deities at Abu Salabikh. Suggestions in early modern scholarship also included comparison with the Celtic god Belenus, however this is now widely rejected. The feminine form is baʿalah ( Hebrew: בַּעֲלָה Arabic: بَعْلَة), meaning "mistress" in the sense of a female owner or lady of the house and still serving as a rare word for "wife". They also appear in some contexts concerning the ownership of things or possession of traits. Báʿal ( בַּעַל) and baʿl still serve as the words for "husband" in modern Hebrew and Arabic respectively. ![]() Ĭognates include the Akkadian Bēlu ( □), Amharic bal ( ባል), and Arabic baʿl ( بعل). In the Northwest Semitic languages- Ugaritic, Phoenician, Hebrew, Amorite, and Aramaic-the word baʿal signified " owner" and, by extension, "lord", a "master", or "husband". In close transliteration of the Semitic name, the ayin is represented, as Baʿal. In such contexts, it follows the anglicized pronunciation and usually omits any mark between its two As. The word's biblical senses as a Phoenician deity and false gods generally were extended during the Protestant Reformation to denote any idols, icons of the saints, or the Catholic Church generally. These forms in turn derive from the vowel-less Northwest Semitic form BʿL ( Phoenician and Punic: □□□). The spelling of the English term "Baal" derives from the Greek Báal ( Βάαλ which appears in the New Testament and Septuagint, and from its Latinized form Baal, which appears in the Vulgate.
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