Baal

NOTES:

EISER, MICHAEL S.. THE UNSEEN REALM: RECOVERING THE SUPERNATURAL WORLDVIEW OF THE BIBLE. LEXHAM PRESS. KINDLE EDITION.

In the Ugaritic texts, the god Baal is called “the one who rides the clouds.”5 The description became an official title of Baal, Consequently, any figure to whom the title was attributed was a god.

In an effort to make the point that Yahweh, the God of Israel, deserved worship instead of Baal, the biblical writers occasionally pilfered this stock description of Baal as “cloud rider” and assigned it to Yahweh (emphasis in the following passages is added).

Cahn, Jonathan. Return of the Gods. Christma Media. Kindle Edition

Baal

The Possessor

Baalim - plural form

Lord of Rain

Part of the Dark Trinity

• King of the gods, leader of the spirits.
• He became the chief enemy of the God of Israel.
• God of fertility.
• Rode on the clouds, lord of the storms, hurled down lbolts of lightning
• If he prospered, the land propsered.
• A warrior
  • battle his fellow gods over and over
  • Battled against the God of Israel
  • waged battle in the realm of morality, spirituality, politics, and culture
• Reigned supreme over his pantheon
• Typically portrayed as a bearded and helmeted figure, holding a spar of lightning in his upraised hand. Some show the horns of a bull coming up out of his head or helmet.
• His preeminent symbol was the bull.
  • Symbol of a prosperse stock market - bull
• Another sign of Baal is the Arch
  • Arch of Palmyra - built to connect the temple of Bel with the city’s main colonnaded avenue.
  • Connected the two temples of Baal, Temple of Bel and Temple of Baalshamin
  • Destroyed in 2015 by jihadist in Isis
  • In September of that year an arch was erected in NYC at the entrance of the city’s financial district - near the bull of wall street - a recreation of the arch. It connected to the famouse main avenue of Broadway = the equavalent to the Grea colonnade at Palymyra
  • Archers were erected in London and Washington DC
• Chief god of the Canaanite pantheon
• Name translated as lord, owner, and master.
• Bible speaks of both Baal and the Baalim or the Baals.
• Nations, regions, and cities had their own Baals
  • Baal Hadad - In Canaanites, Adad was Hadad, and Hadad was Baal
  • Baal Hermon
  • Baal Tamar
  • Baal Peor
  • Baal Zephon
  • Baalshamen or Baal Shamim
    • identified with the god Zeus, head of the Greek pantheon.
    • Zeus in Greek=lord of heaven in Phoenician
    • Syriac writers called him Zeus Olympios
    • Zeus Belus
  • and others
• His name is mentioned first when along side those of other foreign gods. To the people of Israel, he was the head of the “other gods” and was the quintessential other god.
• epitome of all that was not God and all that warred against Him.
• signs of vulgarity
• people turn away from objectivity to subjectivity
• led Is Israel into the worship of nature - the earth was called Gaia

Judges 2:11-12 - Children of Israel served the Baals and forsook the Lord God of their fathers

Elijah rose up against the apostate king Ahab over the worship of Baal