Mythology

show his power, but also dispensing the kindly rains in their season to make the earth fertile. When we come to deal with Hebrew mythology we shall see how much of the Baal myth was taken over by the Hebrews and transferred to Yahweh when they settled in Canaan. In another form of the myth Baal’s conquest of the forces of disorder and chaos is depicted as the slaying of the seven-headed dragon Lotan (the Hebrew Leviathan), where there seems to be evidence of the influence on Canaanite mythology of the Akkadian myth of the slaying of the dragon Tiamat by Marduk. Anath’s Slaughter of Baal’s Enemies This episode appears to be connected with the myth of Baal’s conquest of Yam-Nahar, and has echoes of the Egyptian myth of the destruction of mankind by Hathor. Baal’s sister, the goddess Anath, orders a great feast to be prepared in celebration of Baal’s victory over. Yam- Nahar. The feast is held in Baal’s palace on Mt Zaphon, the mountain of the gods in ‘the sides of the north’. This site is frequently mentioned in Hebrew poetry as a divine abode (cf. Ps. 48:2). Having adorned herself with rouge and henna for the feast, Anath closes the doors of the palace and proceeds to slay all the enemies of Baal. She girds herself with the heads and hands of the slain, and wades in blood up to her knees. This last detail occurs in the story of Hathor’s slaughter of Re’s enemies. The Building of a House for Baal It will be remembered that after Marduk’s victory over Tiamat, the Epic of Creation gives an account of the building by the gods of the temple Esagila for Marduk. Similarly, after Baal’s victory over Yam-Nahar, the god complains that he has no house like the other gods. He and his sister Anath beg the Lady Asherah of the Sea that she will intercede with El and obtain permission for the building of Baal’s house. Asherah accordingly saddles her ass and journeys northwards to Mt Zaphon, to the pavilion of El. She flatters El and obtains his permission for Baal to have a house built. There is some obscurity here in the text, but it appears that, although Baal already has a house of cedar and brick, he does not consider it worthy of the position among the gods to which he aspires. His sister Anath hastens to inform him of El’s permission, and declares that he must have a house of gold and silver and lapis-lazuli. Messengers are then sent to the craftsman-god Kothar, who comes and is received with great honour and is feasted. A curious debate then ensues between Baal and Kothar on the question whether the new house is to have a window or not. Kothar insists that the house should have a window, but Baal refuses to allow it, on the ground, apparently, that he does not wish Yam to be able to spy out Baal’s concubines. However, Kothar ultimately prevails, and the house is furnished with a window through which Baal is able to send lightning and thunder and rain. The completion of the building is celebrated by a great feast to which Baal invites all his kinsfolk and the seventy children of Asherah. At the feast Baal declares his supremacy and announces that he will not send tribute to El’s new favourite, the god Mot, the god of sterility and the underworld. This introduces a new figure in the Baal mythology, and the next episodes are concerned with the struggle between Baal and Mot. Having overcome the challenge of the waters, personified by Yam, Baal must now defeat the threat to the fertile earth by the encroachment of the barren steppe, personified by Mot. There is a probable connexion between the name Mot and the Hebrew word mot which means ‘death’. It has been suggested that in Ps. 48:14 there is an allusion to Mot;

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