Two Powers in Heaven

Baal was the chief competitor to the worship of Yahweh during the period of the monarchy. To combat the worship of Baal and argue for the superiority of Yahweh, the biblical writers would (with some frequency) utilize certain Baal symbols, titles, and imagery in their descriptions of Yahweh.  The effect was to displace Baal in the mind of the reader with Yahweh.  Here are some examples:

• Yahweh is said to have defeated the dragon and the sea (as though the sea was an enemy) in passages like Ps 74:12-15 and Isaiah 27:1. This is precisely what Baal does in Ugaritic literature:

What manner of enemy has arisen against Baal,

of foe against the Charioteer of the Clouds?

Surely I smote the Beloved of El, Yam;

Surely I exterminated Nahar, the mighty god?

Surely I lifted up the dragon,

I overpowered him;

I smote the twisting serpent,

The coiled one-with-seven-heads!¹

• The sea conflict is associated with Yahweh’s kingship (cf. Ps 74:12-15; Isa 27:1; Job 7:12). Following Baal’s victory over the sea in Ugaritic literature, Baal’s palace / temple was built for him. Following Yahweh’s victory over the sea (the deliverance of Israel from Egypt and the Reed Sea incident) Exod 15:17 tells us of the establishment of Yahweh’s sanctuary (the tabernacle).
• As noted in an earlier post about the meeting place of the divine council, Yahweh’s sanctuary is described in terms reminiscent of Baal’s. We saw in that earlier post that Yahweh’s tent dwelling followed descriptions of El’s dwelling. However, part of that post noted how Yahweh’s dwelling matches descriptions of Baal’s abode:
  • “The Ugaritic god Baal, the deity who oversaw the council for El (see below) held meetings in the “heights” (mrym) of Mount Zaphon (Ṣapānu, apparently located in a range of mountains that included El’s own abode. In Baal’s palace in Ṣapānu there were “paved bricks” (lbnt) that made Baal’s house “a house of the clearness of lapis lazuli” (bht ṭhrm ʾiqn ʾum).” We could add that Psalm 48:1-2 calls Mount Zion the “heights” (mrym) of the north” (Hebrew = zaphon = Ṣapānu).
• One of the most familiar titles of Baal in the ancient world was the “cloud rider” who makes the clouds his chariot. For example:

What manner of enemy has arisen against Baal,

of foe against the Charioteer of the Clouds?

• This title shows up in various wordings in the Old Testament as a title of the God of Israel:

Isaiah 19:1 - An oracle concerning Egypt. Behold, Yahweh is riding on a swift cloud and comes to Egypt; and the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence, and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.

Deut. 33:26 - “There is none like God, O Jeshurun, who rides through the heavens to your help, through the skies in his majesty.

Psalm 68:32-33 - ³² O kingdoms of the earth, sing to God; sing praises to the Lord, Selah ³³ to him who rides in the heavens, the ancient heavens; behold, he sends out his voice, his mighty voice.[ABD notes that: “It is doubtful, however, whether the expression rōkēb bāʿǎrābōt used of Yahweh in Ps 68:5-Eng 68:4 is to be rendered “rider on the clouds” on the analogy of Baal’s Ugaritic epithet rkb ʿrpt, contrary to a widely held view. The expected translation of the Hebrew expression would be “rider through the deserts, ” since ʿǎrābâ regularly means “desert” in the OT, and it should be noted that this fits the context in the Psalm, dealing as it does with the wilderness wanderings. (Cf. too Isa 40:3, bā˓ǎrābâ měsillâ “a highway in the desert” with Ps 68:5-Eng 68:4, sōllû lārōkēb bāʿǎbōt “raise a highway for him who rides through the deserts.” ) Probably the Hebrew expression is to be understood as a deliberate distortion of Baal’s epithet rkb ʿrpt. Vol. 1:549. This may be the case in this verse, but at any rate, the motif is still imitated if not copied.]

Psalm 104:1-4 - ¹ Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are very great! You are clothed with splendor and majesty, ² covering yourself with light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a tent. ³ He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters; he makes the clouds his chariot; he rides on the wings of the wind; ⁴ he makes his messengers winds, his ministers a flaming fire.

The cloud rider motif is very important. It will be the focal point of the next post, where this deity title is applied to another figure in a scene where Yahweh is already present-the second power.

Technorati Tags: Baal, Divine Council Co-Regency, Yahweh

NOTE: I’m adapting and trimming this from my dissertation, so I’m excluding footnote material for space.

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Understanding the notion of “two Yahwehs” in the Hebrew Bible requires first grasping the relationship of the high god and his co-regent (”vizier”) within the divine council structure. We’ll start first with the council at Ugarit and then move to Israelite religion.

At Ugarit, El was high sovereign and Baal was his co-regent. Under the authority of El, the most powerful office in the divine bureaucracy of Ugarit was the position of overlord of the gods. As scholars of Ugaritic religion have long recognized, it is this office, the right to be the one who “rules over the gods,” that is the focus of the conflicts between Yamm, Baal, and Mot in the Baal Cycle.

Unlike the first few decades following the discovery of the Ugaritic tablets and their content, current scholarship is virtually unanimous in its conclusion that El was not displaced by Baal at Ugarit. Within the context of El’s supreme command of the pantheon, Baal had to fight rivals for the right to rule the other gods. Once he emerged victorious, he was given the titles of “most high” (ʿly), “king, sovereign”(mlk), and “[the one] who rules over the gods” (d ymlk ʿl ʾilm). The Baal Cycle reads that the response to Baal’s victory is tgr ʾil bnh, which de Moor renders as “El appointed his son deputy.” Baal is also referred to as “lord” or “ruler” (yw) of the gods. The rendering “god of the gods” is also possible, according to Wyatt, who remarks, “The apparent sense was ‘lord’, or even ‘god’, given the equation in BM93035 ʾilu = yau.” Baal also earns the title zbl bʿl arṣ (”prince Baal of / over the earth”), a title “found on nine occasions . . . but never used until Baal’s victory over Yamm is assured.” This title “appears to indicate that the conflict between Baal and Yamm is concerned with lordship of the earth.” This would make contextual sense, since the other sons of El were princes over geographic regions of the earth, while their ruler would have authority over them and their individual earthly provinces. The title therefore is another reminder that Baal is king over the second-tier gods under El.

Lastly, in the divine council scene of KTU 1.2.I:20ff., while the second-tier gods of the council are sitting (ytb) on their princely thrones, Baal is described as “standing by El” (qm ʿl ʾil). The phrase comes at the point in the Baal Cycle where Yamm challenges the gods of the council to surrender Baal, “the god whom you obey.” The gods of the council are described in cringing posture at the demand, and are rebuked by Baal. The interchange is curious, for Yamm at the time is referred to as the “ruler of the gods” but since Baal is the god who is obeyed in council, Yamm must challenge him. Wyatt notes in this regard, “though Baal is Yamm’s successor on the divine throne, it appears from the present passage that he also had a prior claim to it, but was passed over by El in favour of Yamm.” Hence the Baal Cycle in its entirety clarifies who ultimately earns the kingship of the gods under El. The two powers in the Ugaritic heaven are certainly El and Baal.

El is also considered by most scholars to be the father of Baal, but this depends on how one takes the references to Baal being “the son of Dagan.” There have been three approaches to this description and the apparent problem it creates for Baal being a son of El. I’ll cut to the chase here and focus on the one I think most coherent-that El and Dagan are the same deity. This view is supported by the fact that KTU 1.118 and 1.47 have both El and Dagan sharing the same epithet, “father god” (ʾilib). Additionally, inscriptions at what most scholars consider the temple of Dagan at Ugarit make an identification very likely, the Mesopotamian pantheon identified both Dagan and El with the supreme god (Anu/Enlil), and at Ebla Dagan is the high god, also called “lord of Canaan.” Combining Wyatt’s reasonable conclusion that Dagan was a weather god with the shared epithet and this comparative material persuades this writer that, in the words of del Olmo Lete, “there can be no doubt that the equation of Ilu and Daganu expresses the process of cultural and cultic identification of two (Canaanite / Amorite) pantheons.” This fusion explains the dual reference to Baal’s parentage alongside the clear descriptions of Baal’s kinship with the other sons of El.

So what’s the point with starting our discussion of co-regency with extra-biblical material? For three reasons: (1) in the Hebrew Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is referred to as El; (2) Yahweh is identified with both El and Baal; and (3) divine figures other than Yahweh-but which are also equated with Yahweh-are also identified with Baal. This may seem like a weird set of affairs, but what it amounts to is that, while El and Baal are fused into Yahweh, Israelite religion retained the co-regency structure of the divine council-and filled each slot with a Yahweh figure! More on that as we progress.

Technorati Tags: divine council, Divine Council Co-Regency, Ugarit

In order to understand my proposal-that divine council co-regency provides the conceptual backdrop to the two powers idea-we have to begin with a brief introduction to the divine council and its structure. This material is quite familiar to scholars of the Hebrew Bible and the Semitic world, but isn’t on the radar at all for scholars whose focus is Second Temple Judaism and New Testament. We have to bridge this gap.

As many scholars of the Hebrew Bible have noted for many years, early Israelite culture cannot be divorced from the culture of “Canaan.” As Smith notes, “Canaanite” is better described as “West Semitic,” since “Canaanite” is used more often than not as a term of contrast with “Israelite,” a choice that is influenced by the biblical record, not archaeology.¹ The close relationship of Israelite and West Semitic culture is securely established through the well-known commonalities in material culture, script, language, burial customs, and religion. In terms of language, biblical Hebrew and Ugaritic, for example, have an abundance of common terms in religious contexts: priesthood; sacrifice; offering; tabernacle/temple; the realm of the dead and its inhabits; and names, epithets, and stock descriptions of divine beings.² Hebrew itself is described in the Bible as one of the languages of Canaan (Isaiah 19:18).

The Council of the Gods / God³

The religious similarity between the Israelites and other West Semitic cultures is quite evident with respect to the hierarchical bureaucracy of divine beings. The textbook example outside the Bible is the literature from Ras Shamra (Ugarit). Translated shortly after their discovery in the 1930s, these tablets contain several phrases describing a council of gods that are conceptually and linguistically parallel to the Hebrew Bible. The Ugaritic council was led by El, the same proper name used in the Hebrew Bible for the God of Israel (e.g., Isaiah 40:18; 43:12). References to the “council of El” include:

• pḫr ʾilm (”the assembly of El/ the gods”; KTU 1.47:29, 1.118:28, 1.148:9)⁴
• pḫr bn ʾilm (”the assembly of the sons of El/ the gods”; KTU 1.4.III:14)
• mpḫrt bn ʾil (”the assembly of the sons of El”; KTU 1.65:3; cf. 1.40:25, 42)
• dr bn ʾil (”assembly [circle, group] of the sons of El”; KTU 1.40:25, 33-34)
• ʿdt ʾilm (”assembly of El / the gods”; KTU 1.15.II: 7, 11). Phoenician texts, such as the Karatepe inscription, also describe a Semitic pantheon: wkl dr bn ʾilm (”and all the circle/group of the sons of the gods”; KAI 26.III.19; 27.12).

The ʿdt ʾilm (”assembly of El / the gods”) of Ugaritic texts represents the most precise parallel to the data of the Hebrew Bible. Psalm 82:1 uses the same expression for the council (ʿdt ʾilm), along with an indisputably plural use of the word ʾĕlōhîm (”God, gods”): “God (ʾĕlōhîm) stands in the council of El/the divine council (baʿadat ʾēl); among the gods (ʾĕlōhîm) he passes judgment.” The second occurrence of ʾĕlōhîm must be plural due to the preposition “in the midst of.” The Trinity cannot be the explanation for this divine plurality, since the psalm goes on to detail how Israel’s God charges the other ʾĕlōhîm with corruption and sentences them to die “like humankind.” Psalm 89:5-7 [6-8] places the God of Israel “in the assembly of the holy ones” (biqhal qĕdoshîm) and then asks “For who in the clouds can be compared to Yahweh? Who is like Yahweh among the sons of God (benê ʾēlîm), a god greatly feared in the council of the holy ones (bĕsôd qĕdoshîm)?” Psalm 29:1 commands the same sons of God (benê ʾēlîm) to praise Yahweh and give him due obeisance. These heavenly “sons of God” (benê ʾēlōhîm, or the benê ha-ʾēlōhîm) appear in other biblical texts (Gen 6:2.4; Job 1:6; Job 2:1; Job 38:7; and Deut 32:8-9, 43 [LXX, Qumran]).⁵

Another biblical Hebrew term matching Ugaritic terminology is dôr, which often means “generation” but, as with Ugaritic and Phoenician dr, may also refer to the “circle” (group) of gods; that is, the divine council (Amos 8:14 [emendation]; Psa 49:20; 84:11).

The next post will detail: (1) the comparative evidence for the meeting place / abode of the gods / temple / tabernacle language, and (2) the structure of the divine council.

Technorati Tags: divine council, Divine Council Co-Regency, Israelite religion, Ugarit