Question: Are there any significant stories around about Astarte? My player is gonna be a Scion of hers, but I can't seem to find much of her doing anything besides being a cheerleader for Baal.
Ooh, one of the terrifying ladies of the Canaanite lands! There are indeed stories about her exploits, although not quite as many as someone like Baal who has an entire surviving myth cycle to his name.
Astarte is interesting because she is one of Baal's two wives along with Anat, and without a lot of material on the two of them, it sometimes seems like they're fairly identical or interchangeable, with Astarte the less well-defined of the two. Both are goddesses of love and sexuality, goddesses of war, and unflinchingly dedicated to the well-being of their husband Baal; but where Anat has separate stories of wading in the blood of her enemies, marching forth to defeat Mot and bearing Baal's child as a heifer, Astarte lacks these extra myths in the main body of Canaanite religion. We have to look a little harder to find stories of her actions, moving out to the wider world of Phoenician myth and her syncretizations with other cultures. We can start with Philo of Byblos, who in his description of Phoenician religion tells us that Baal and Astarte are the rulers of the universe; Anat may be the war-leader who destroys Baal's enemies, but Astarte is the queen who rules alongside him politically.
The most famous of Astarte's appearances are indeed in Baal's set of myths, which are overall the most well-known Canaanite myths we have. When Yam is declared king of the gods and Baal almost attacks the messenger in a fury, Astarte and Anat both restrain him, one on each arm, and remind him that murdering the messenger is not the wisest of all political moves. And when Baal defeats Yam, Astarte rebukes him for his unnecessary cruelty, telling him that Yam was already his prisoner and that killing him would be inappropriate, before moving on to declare before all the gods that since Baal has won, he should now be hailed as king of the gods without question. Different interpreters of the text have different ideas of what's going on here; Astarte may be telling Baal to back off of Yam because he's their sibling, or because since he was invested with power by El himself it would be politically foolish to outright kill him. But her call to the other gods to accept Baal is also a political power play, and a pretty ballsy one since El, who has previously been in charge of choosing who will rule after him, has not yet authorized that shift in power. Calling for Baal's rulership is in a way directly challenging El, who placed Yam above him, and calling the other gods to support Baal is something of a power coup away from the old father of the pantheon.
But these are pretty small mentions of Astarte, and clearly part of Baal's story rather than her own. However, the story of Astarte and Eshmun is all about her, with no whisper of Baal in sight. In that story - related by Photios, a Greek writer, who in usual Greek style uses Greek names for those involved and calls Eshmun "Asclepius of Beirut" since he is associated with healing like the Greek figure of that name - Astarte (here called Astronoe, "the heavenly" or "the starry", referring to her position as the morning star) falls in love with Eshmun, whose youthful beauty so impresses her that she begins purusing him relentlessly. Eshmun is afraid of her, since she is clearly a powerful and dangerous goddess (and possibly because he doesn't want to be on the receiving end of any jealous retribution from Baal) so he flees from her, and when he realizes he can't escape her completely, finally castrates himself so that she'll have no further interest in him. She catches up to him a moment too late, and he dies in her arms; full of grief, Astarte heals his wounds "with her body's warmth" and he becomes a god of healing, whose shrines were visited by those ill or injured. Eshmun does not appear in other myths besides this one, but is probably a Scion; Greek writers in the area claim he was the son of Apollo, which likely means the god Resheph, who is likewise a plague-associated archer who was often glossed as Apollo by Greek and Roman writers. In Syria, male cultists dedicated to her sometimes ritually castrated themselves in honor of her, echoing Eshmun's sacrifice.
The story of Astarte and Eshmun is more than a little bit similar to the story of Aphrodite and Adonis; in both cases, the love goddess falls in love with a beautiful young semi-mortal, who eventually dies because of her infatuation with him but becomes a resurrected divine figure in his own right. The ancient cults of Anat and Astarte (and Ishtar, over in Babylon) probably influenced Aphrodite and her stories considerably, and since Adonis is likewise a Canaanite import, it's very possible that the story of Aphrodite and Adonis was borrowed from this one about Astarte and Eshmun. Originally, anyway, although by the time Adonis' cult became important with its own mystery religion, they had become firmly separate figures.
The other place Astarte turns up in a major myth is, surprisingly, in Egypt. Thanks to being geographically close to one another, several figures from the Canaanite religion were imported into Egyptian cults in the northeast; gods with similar associations were often syncretized, so that some myths became attributed to Egyptian gods despite being originally of Canaanite origin. This led to the rise of a few areas in which Set and Baal were syncretized, since they were both temperamental storm gods with delusions of kingship, and in some of those areas the idea arose that Set was married to Anat and Astarte, who were given to him as consolation prizes when he lost the rulership of the gods to Horus. In those cults, it is Astarte who is the major figure in the myth of the sea falling in love with her and demanding her as tribute lest it overflow and flood the countryside, and it is for her sake that Set must go out and conquer the sea. It's an interesting syncretized myth, since the sea as the antagonist might have some roots in the Canaanite myth of Baal fighting Yam, with Set standing in for his fellow storm god. Further south in Egypt, Nephthys becomes the lady of the myth instead of Astarte since she is Set's traditional wife, but it's still a neat place to mess around with if you're looking for stuff to do with the Canaanite goddesses.
Astarte may not be the no-holds-barred bloodbath runner and war-monger that her conquering sister Anat is, but she's still an improtant goddess with a lot of neat stories and imagery. Good luck to that Scion of yours - they're about to head out into a the wonderful world of the few intrepid children of the war goddesses, and it's a dangerous place.
Showing posts with label Baal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Baal. Show all posts
Friday, January 31, 2014
Monday, September 9, 2013
Henolatrotheism
Question: The henotheistic Israelis likely saw their "King of Kings & Lord of Lords" as some sort of divine judiciary the region. If this were in fact mythically true, how would it affect the lives of the various pantheons of the fertile crescent (Moloch as a kind of divine criminal, Baal's right to rule, etc.)?
This is a really interesting question, because it involves a bunch of different concepts and religions interacting - henotheism versus polytheism, Justice as a purview and a concept, Virtues and so on. There's a whole lot to dive into!
To start with, the Israeli people definitely did think of Yahweh as a divine judiciary; his word, however humanity got it, was law, and his rulings on what was or was not morally okay absolute. You'll see this illustrated time and time again in the Old Testament, when those who deviate from the religiously mandated set of morals are usually brutally punished as an example to others. For the Israelites, obedience to the divine laws of Yahweh is neither negotiable nor questionable; it's as much a part of the foundation of the universe as gravity.
But, at the same time, this is a henotheistic religion, which means that the ancient Israelites acknowledged that there were not only other gods, but that they had powers and spheres of influence themselves. Yahweh was their god, but not everyone's god; he was with absolute and utter certainty in charge of them, but not necessarily of other groups of people who "belonged" to other gods, and probably not of those other gods at all. It can be tricky to talk about this, because Judaism is a continuum that started as henotheism and eventually made a transition to monolatrism, which is the point at which the Israelite banner god becomes considered by them preeminent over other gods as well as over humanity, and the Bible is usually not polite enough to tell you when that evolution is happening exactly.
For example, consider the story of the Golden Calf (incidentally, possibly a representation of Moloch, who is also associated with cattle and flame, or some other local Canaanite god), which the Israelites built and worshiped while the prophet Moses was off communing with the burning shrubbery in search of legal enlightenment. The problem that so upsets both Moses and Yahweh here is not that there's a foreign god stealing his thunder; it's that the traitorous Israelites are worshiping him, rather than adhering only to their totem god the way they're supposed to. The idol is destroyed and the people punished (like, seriously, via mass murder), and Yahweh goes back to being the top dog. Nobody conceives of him fighting with the other god or anything like that; it's a problem of the mortals misbehaving, and it's the mortals he has power over to correct the issue.
This is why, despite the fact that the Israelites eventually settle down in Canaan and incorporate many of the local beliefs into their own religion, we never consider Yahweh part of the Canaanite pantheon. He simply isn't; he never interacts with the Canaanite gods and is quite ferocious about being a pantheon of one, in fact. All the mentions in the Old Testament of Yahweh being a "jealous god", not to mention the first commandment that the people have no other gods before him, are not examples of the Israelites believing that Yahweh could dominate all other gods, at least not yet. They're just expressions of henotheism's basic tenet: yeah, there are other gods, and yeah, they can do powerful and cool stuff, but we only worship this one. Don't worship the other ones. Stop it.
So, in this religious and political climate, we're looking at a god who can (and will, and does, with extreme prejudice) punish the living shit out of humans who break his divine laws... but who doesn't actually have any interaction with other gods at all. Unless Baal shows up in person and steals the Ark of the Covenant or something - and he does not, nor do any other foreign gods actually make personal appearances in Israelite literature of the time - he's not the person "doing wrong" if people run off to go worship him instead. That's those peoples' fault. The closest you ever see to direct conflict is always through a human vessel, such as when Moses matches powers with the Egyptian sorcerers. Much later in the religion, the Jewish people will extrapolate on the idea of other gods never directly challenging Yahweh to claim that there are no other gods, becoming true monotheists.
So, at any rate, back to the Scion framework. Yahweh, if you play him as a god of equal Legend to the other pantheons rather than a Titan or some other weird thing, is most definitely a god with a giant serving of Justice powers, but he probably can't use them on the other gods much, if at all. Also really important to this discussion is the ancient Fertile Crescent's idea of city-states with a totem god and sovereign power over their own areas, which occurred all across Mesopotamia and the Levant as well as making forays west into Greece; each city, while recognizing that there were other gods that were powerful and worthy of worship, still had its own totem god, which was all-important within that city and the ultimate authority over a given set of people. The Israelites are wanderers without any city of their own, so while they have Yahweh as their totem god, they don't have an area in which they make the laws; they have to actually go out and start stealing other peoples' cities, at which point they fall under Yahweh's jurisdiction. Yahweh can't march into Ugarit and start smiting Baal with Justice for daring to rival him as king - because Ugarit belongs to Baal and there Baal is king and the highest authority, and Justice would simply not work.
It's the eternal conundrum of a Justice god: your Justice powers are absolute and irresistible, but they will never help you break the law yourself, so if you go somewhere the law isn't in your favor, you're completely SOL.
This is one of the reasons that the eternal battling of the Israelites to take the Promised Land of Canaan away from its native inhabitants is so incredibly important and all-encompassing during the Old Testament, stretching on for years and years and years of pitched battle. Gods in this region do everything through the proxies of their cities and people (which, not coincidentally, is what the Canaanite PSP of Malak is all about!), so before Yahweh can exercise any control over Jericho, Yarikh has to be ousted by the Israelites conquering the place, and before he can extend his religious law to apply to Rabbah, the worshipers of Moloch have to be toppled from power. It's a fundamental difference in how ancient middle eastern cultures conceived of their gods interacting with the world; the deities of Greece or Mexico or China were thought of as actually visiting the world and doing things in it by their own power, but the gods of the Crescent, although they could empower the people or cause natural disasters with their far-off heavenly doings, never did. Some of that is probably holdover from the original Mesopotamian religions, in which the gods were considered so incredibly powerful and unquestionably more important than mortals that the idea of them ever having any reason to descend down into the gutter where humans lived was laughable.
So, in most cases, Yahweh's prodigious command over the powers of judgment and law do not help him against the Elohim, who not only have several gods who can match him there pound for pound but who have their own claim and estates in the area as well. He'll never be using those powers to restrict or punish Baal and Moloch, because they're all using human proxies and it's unlikely that they'll ever actually personally do anything to one another that might break a rule, or indeed meet in person at all; and he also can't necessarily smite mortals who work for gods he doesn't approve of (i.e., everyone), unless they are subject to the laws of his land. Essentially, once the Israelites conquer a place, he can smite the shit out of it and usually does, but he generally won't just set cities aflame from a distance, and he certainly won't walk up to Dagon and send him to the Star Chamber for crimes against Judaism.
If you read the Bible, you can actually watch the change in the religion and therefore Yahweh's treatment as a giver of law and judgment as you go. Early in the Old Testament, the Hebrews are henotheists and Yahweh is their god and rules their lives, but they are also wanderers in the wilderness and have no power over other peoples or deities. Later in the Old Testament, they become monolatrists, and their rhetoric changes from "this is our peoples' god and therefore the most important to us" to "this is the most important god and other gods can't compete with him", which happens about when they've managed to conquer most of Canaan and are no longer nomadic herders but now the legal power in the region. And finally, in the New Testament, they become true monotheists and move to a model in which there are no other gods and everyone else is stupid and worshiping idols or (if something actually appears they can't explain) demons, which occurs about when they lose power again thanks to the incursions of Babylon and Rome, and have to find a new way to explain their god's power and importance outside the context of him granting victory to his people. As henotheists, they knew Yahweh as their god who protected and supported them if they followed his rules; as monolatrists, they knew him as the most potent god in the region who could conquer any other religion and bring them to supreme power; and as monotheists, they knew him as the only god in existence, whose powers and intentions were too far above them to be understood by the human mind.
This has been a very long post, which always seems to happen when monotheism comes up.
This is a really interesting question, because it involves a bunch of different concepts and religions interacting - henotheism versus polytheism, Justice as a purview and a concept, Virtues and so on. There's a whole lot to dive into!
To start with, the Israeli people definitely did think of Yahweh as a divine judiciary; his word, however humanity got it, was law, and his rulings on what was or was not morally okay absolute. You'll see this illustrated time and time again in the Old Testament, when those who deviate from the religiously mandated set of morals are usually brutally punished as an example to others. For the Israelites, obedience to the divine laws of Yahweh is neither negotiable nor questionable; it's as much a part of the foundation of the universe as gravity.
But, at the same time, this is a henotheistic religion, which means that the ancient Israelites acknowledged that there were not only other gods, but that they had powers and spheres of influence themselves. Yahweh was their god, but not everyone's god; he was with absolute and utter certainty in charge of them, but not necessarily of other groups of people who "belonged" to other gods, and probably not of those other gods at all. It can be tricky to talk about this, because Judaism is a continuum that started as henotheism and eventually made a transition to monolatrism, which is the point at which the Israelite banner god becomes considered by them preeminent over other gods as well as over humanity, and the Bible is usually not polite enough to tell you when that evolution is happening exactly.
For example, consider the story of the Golden Calf (incidentally, possibly a representation of Moloch, who is also associated with cattle and flame, or some other local Canaanite god), which the Israelites built and worshiped while the prophet Moses was off communing with the burning shrubbery in search of legal enlightenment. The problem that so upsets both Moses and Yahweh here is not that there's a foreign god stealing his thunder; it's that the traitorous Israelites are worshiping him, rather than adhering only to their totem god the way they're supposed to. The idol is destroyed and the people punished (like, seriously, via mass murder), and Yahweh goes back to being the top dog. Nobody conceives of him fighting with the other god or anything like that; it's a problem of the mortals misbehaving, and it's the mortals he has power over to correct the issue.
This is why, despite the fact that the Israelites eventually settle down in Canaan and incorporate many of the local beliefs into their own religion, we never consider Yahweh part of the Canaanite pantheon. He simply isn't; he never interacts with the Canaanite gods and is quite ferocious about being a pantheon of one, in fact. All the mentions in the Old Testament of Yahweh being a "jealous god", not to mention the first commandment that the people have no other gods before him, are not examples of the Israelites believing that Yahweh could dominate all other gods, at least not yet. They're just expressions of henotheism's basic tenet: yeah, there are other gods, and yeah, they can do powerful and cool stuff, but we only worship this one. Don't worship the other ones. Stop it.
So, in this religious and political climate, we're looking at a god who can (and will, and does, with extreme prejudice) punish the living shit out of humans who break his divine laws... but who doesn't actually have any interaction with other gods at all. Unless Baal shows up in person and steals the Ark of the Covenant or something - and he does not, nor do any other foreign gods actually make personal appearances in Israelite literature of the time - he's not the person "doing wrong" if people run off to go worship him instead. That's those peoples' fault. The closest you ever see to direct conflict is always through a human vessel, such as when Moses matches powers with the Egyptian sorcerers. Much later in the religion, the Jewish people will extrapolate on the idea of other gods never directly challenging Yahweh to claim that there are no other gods, becoming true monotheists.
So, at any rate, back to the Scion framework. Yahweh, if you play him as a god of equal Legend to the other pantheons rather than a Titan or some other weird thing, is most definitely a god with a giant serving of Justice powers, but he probably can't use them on the other gods much, if at all. Also really important to this discussion is the ancient Fertile Crescent's idea of city-states with a totem god and sovereign power over their own areas, which occurred all across Mesopotamia and the Levant as well as making forays west into Greece; each city, while recognizing that there were other gods that were powerful and worthy of worship, still had its own totem god, which was all-important within that city and the ultimate authority over a given set of people. The Israelites are wanderers without any city of their own, so while they have Yahweh as their totem god, they don't have an area in which they make the laws; they have to actually go out and start stealing other peoples' cities, at which point they fall under Yahweh's jurisdiction. Yahweh can't march into Ugarit and start smiting Baal with Justice for daring to rival him as king - because Ugarit belongs to Baal and there Baal is king and the highest authority, and Justice would simply not work.
It's the eternal conundrum of a Justice god: your Justice powers are absolute and irresistible, but they will never help you break the law yourself, so if you go somewhere the law isn't in your favor, you're completely SOL.
This is one of the reasons that the eternal battling of the Israelites to take the Promised Land of Canaan away from its native inhabitants is so incredibly important and all-encompassing during the Old Testament, stretching on for years and years and years of pitched battle. Gods in this region do everything through the proxies of their cities and people (which, not coincidentally, is what the Canaanite PSP of Malak is all about!), so before Yahweh can exercise any control over Jericho, Yarikh has to be ousted by the Israelites conquering the place, and before he can extend his religious law to apply to Rabbah, the worshipers of Moloch have to be toppled from power. It's a fundamental difference in how ancient middle eastern cultures conceived of their gods interacting with the world; the deities of Greece or Mexico or China were thought of as actually visiting the world and doing things in it by their own power, but the gods of the Crescent, although they could empower the people or cause natural disasters with their far-off heavenly doings, never did. Some of that is probably holdover from the original Mesopotamian religions, in which the gods were considered so incredibly powerful and unquestionably more important than mortals that the idea of them ever having any reason to descend down into the gutter where humans lived was laughable.
So, in most cases, Yahweh's prodigious command over the powers of judgment and law do not help him against the Elohim, who not only have several gods who can match him there pound for pound but who have their own claim and estates in the area as well. He'll never be using those powers to restrict or punish Baal and Moloch, because they're all using human proxies and it's unlikely that they'll ever actually personally do anything to one another that might break a rule, or indeed meet in person at all; and he also can't necessarily smite mortals who work for gods he doesn't approve of (i.e., everyone), unless they are subject to the laws of his land. Essentially, once the Israelites conquer a place, he can smite the shit out of it and usually does, but he generally won't just set cities aflame from a distance, and he certainly won't walk up to Dagon and send him to the Star Chamber for crimes against Judaism.
If you read the Bible, you can actually watch the change in the religion and therefore Yahweh's treatment as a giver of law and judgment as you go. Early in the Old Testament, the Hebrews are henotheists and Yahweh is their god and rules their lives, but they are also wanderers in the wilderness and have no power over other peoples or deities. Later in the Old Testament, they become monolatrists, and their rhetoric changes from "this is our peoples' god and therefore the most important to us" to "this is the most important god and other gods can't compete with him", which happens about when they've managed to conquer most of Canaan and are no longer nomadic herders but now the legal power in the region. And finally, in the New Testament, they become true monotheists and move to a model in which there are no other gods and everyone else is stupid and worshiping idols or (if something actually appears they can't explain) demons, which occurs about when they lose power again thanks to the incursions of Babylon and Rome, and have to find a new way to explain their god's power and importance outside the context of him granting victory to his people. As henotheists, they knew Yahweh as their god who protected and supported them if they followed his rules; as monolatrists, they knew him as the most potent god in the region who could conquer any other religion and bring them to supreme power; and as monotheists, they knew him as the only god in existence, whose powers and intentions were too far above them to be understood by the human mind.
This has been a very long post, which always seems to happen when monotheism comes up.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Sons of El
Question: Who is Baal's father, Dagon or El?
It's all a matter of translation and interpretation. And since Canaanite mythology is mostly preserved on piecemeal tablets in ritual poetic form, it's every man for himself when it comes to making a call.
In the Baal cycle, Baal is directly referred to as "son of Dagon", which is pretty plain. Setting the storm god as the son of the grain deity makes a lot of sense in the myth itself; it's no wonder that Yam and Mot, sons of the current king and greatest among gods, are mortally offended by an upstart pretender to the throne who both of them should by rights outrank and succeed before. On the other hand, it's also theorized that Baal's connection to Dagon may be a symbolic one, and that as the dying fertility god who renews the world after a drought, he might be called the "son" of the god of grain to illustrate their close concepts.
On the other hand, Baal is also referred to one of the "sons of El", which also seems pretty black and white. The equal powers of Baal as sky, Mot as death and Yam as sea seem to make sense as the forces of three equal brothers, especially when compared to Zeus, Hades and Poseidon (who many scholars believe were probably influenced by them). But, then again, "sons of El" - literally what the word elohim means - is a generic term that seems to be used to refer to all of the gods, highlighting that El is their original ancestor and creator, and may not be meant to mean that Baal is his actual direct issue.
We're inclined to play Baal as the son of Dagon, making him probably El's grandson rather than a direct heir, and to assume that the title of Elohim in his case just means "one of the brood of El" rather than anything too specific. It covers both possibilities and also allows for some interesting interplay between members of different family lines and loyalties within the pantheon.
It's all a matter of translation and interpretation. And since Canaanite mythology is mostly preserved on piecemeal tablets in ritual poetic form, it's every man for himself when it comes to making a call.
In the Baal cycle, Baal is directly referred to as "son of Dagon", which is pretty plain. Setting the storm god as the son of the grain deity makes a lot of sense in the myth itself; it's no wonder that Yam and Mot, sons of the current king and greatest among gods, are mortally offended by an upstart pretender to the throne who both of them should by rights outrank and succeed before. On the other hand, it's also theorized that Baal's connection to Dagon may be a symbolic one, and that as the dying fertility god who renews the world after a drought, he might be called the "son" of the god of grain to illustrate their close concepts.
On the other hand, Baal is also referred to one of the "sons of El", which also seems pretty black and white. The equal powers of Baal as sky, Mot as death and Yam as sea seem to make sense as the forces of three equal brothers, especially when compared to Zeus, Hades and Poseidon (who many scholars believe were probably influenced by them). But, then again, "sons of El" - literally what the word elohim means - is a generic term that seems to be used to refer to all of the gods, highlighting that El is their original ancestor and creator, and may not be meant to mean that Baal is his actual direct issue.
We're inclined to play Baal as the son of Dagon, making him probably El's grandson rather than a direct heir, and to assume that the title of Elohim in his case just means "one of the brood of El" rather than anything too specific. It covers both possibilities and also allows for some interesting interplay between members of different family lines and loyalties within the pantheon.
Friday, April 12, 2013
Bulls on Parade
Question: Do you think that there is any way that Baal and Moloch, with all that they have in common, could be the same god, or are they just two separate gods that just happen to have a lot in common?
Well, no, I don't think they're the same god. They're pretty clearly distinct figures. But hey, we might as well talk about those things they have in common!
There are really only two things Baal and Moloch have in common: both have names that can be used as titles (usually translated as "lord" and "king", respectively), and both are associated with bulls.
The etymological similarity sounds like a connection in English, but that's specifically because it's in translation; in the original language (what we've reconstructed of it, anyway), the two words are clearly separate and have different connotations. Baal is more accurately transliterated from the symbols as b'l, although we're fairly certain of the vowels thanks to contextual evidence from Ras Shamra and Hebrew sources, and while it's most often translated as "lord", it's actually much closer to "owner" or even "husband". When used as a verb, it actually means "he marries", and the feminine form of the noun, Baalah, likewise refers not just to a lady in power but also to a mistress of a household and a wife. It's not surprising that Baal's epithet implies husbandliness along with control and ownership, because those are the trifecta of Baal's power. He's not only the king of his pantheon but also the very virile and potent husband of Anat and Astarte and the general master of the universe. The word suits him, and its plethora of associations also makes it an easy title to apply to other deities in the area, both because it allows them to embody some of those same qualities of control and also to borrow some of big Baal's glory.
Moloch, on the other hand, is properly named mlk, which is the proper noun meaning king or ruler. Debate rages on in the scholarly community over whether or not Moloch's name is actually the same as mlk, however, because unlike b'l we aren't a hundred percent sure what vowels are involved and whether or not they might change the meaning of the word. Traditionally, scholars have reconstructed the word "king" as melek and assumed that the Hebrew Bible replaced the vowel with an O in order to make a disrespectful pun out of the name by rhyming it with the word boseth, which means "shameful" (something the Hebrews had a keen interest in seeing that people thought of the Canaanite gods). But mlk is also used in other contexts, most notably burnt sacrifices, which has split scholars down the middle from believing that this proves the burning cult belongs to Moloch all the way to the other extreme of deciding that there was no such god as Moloch at all and all mentions of him must be referring to burnt sacrifices. Still others believe that there must have been totally different vowels for the god's proper name and that it wasn't the same as the word for "king" at all, which is just as unprovable as the rest. Poor Moloch has a lot less direct attestation that Baal since he isn't included in the Ras Shamra tablets, and as a result there's a lot more rampant confusion about his name and what exactly it, and he, mean.
So you can see that the etymological connection between their names really isn't much of one. In English, it would be like saying that a guy named Master of the House obviously had the same name as another guy named King, and there's a possibility that one or both of them aren't really named that in the first place. The similarities are superficial.
They do, however, both share a connection to the bull as a totem animal! That's totally legit! Or at least, as legit as we can get. Gods associated with bulls are traditional in the Middle East and Mediterranean, where the animal is associated with strength, virility and power, and the two of them are keeping company with the likes of Apis, Ashur, Dionysus, Gugalanna, Marduk, Mithra, Qos, Teshub and Zeus, all powerful figures associated with manliness (and those are by no means the only ones). It's not surprising that more than one god in the same area might be associated with the bull, especially in a culture like the Canaanites where different city states may celebrate their local patron gods with all the trappings of royalty regardless of what else they do.
In light of all that, I don't see much reason to assume that Baal and Moloch are the same guy. But that doesn't mean you can't play with their possible connection in a game; Moloch's kind of a pain in the ass, and when Baal's not looking it's totally possible he might have at some point (maybe even now!) tried to seize power or convince mortals that he was in fact Baal. Baal's notoriously jealous of his power and might always be looking for possible dissidents in his pantheon, including Moloch, and assume in his paranoia that the god might be plotting against him, or maybe one or both gods are playing a long game of Fatebonds, trying to dislodge the other.
My favorite wacky theory to connect the two is the idea that Moloch, who has no distinct genealogy in Canaanite myth, might be an ancient son of Baal. On the way to confronting Mot, Baal famously has sex with a heifer (depending on the translator, sometimes assumed to be Anat in animal form) and has a calf-like child, which he then offers up to death (and Mot) as a sacrifice before heading into the underworld. Moloch's bull and death connotations, not to mention his nasty temperament, could be a result of this origin story, which has no real mythological backing but is pretty entertaining anyway.
Well, no, I don't think they're the same god. They're pretty clearly distinct figures. But hey, we might as well talk about those things they have in common!
There are really only two things Baal and Moloch have in common: both have names that can be used as titles (usually translated as "lord" and "king", respectively), and both are associated with bulls.
The etymological similarity sounds like a connection in English, but that's specifically because it's in translation; in the original language (what we've reconstructed of it, anyway), the two words are clearly separate and have different connotations. Baal is more accurately transliterated from the symbols as b'l, although we're fairly certain of the vowels thanks to contextual evidence from Ras Shamra and Hebrew sources, and while it's most often translated as "lord", it's actually much closer to "owner" or even "husband". When used as a verb, it actually means "he marries", and the feminine form of the noun, Baalah, likewise refers not just to a lady in power but also to a mistress of a household and a wife. It's not surprising that Baal's epithet implies husbandliness along with control and ownership, because those are the trifecta of Baal's power. He's not only the king of his pantheon but also the very virile and potent husband of Anat and Astarte and the general master of the universe. The word suits him, and its plethora of associations also makes it an easy title to apply to other deities in the area, both because it allows them to embody some of those same qualities of control and also to borrow some of big Baal's glory.
Moloch, on the other hand, is properly named mlk, which is the proper noun meaning king or ruler. Debate rages on in the scholarly community over whether or not Moloch's name is actually the same as mlk, however, because unlike b'l we aren't a hundred percent sure what vowels are involved and whether or not they might change the meaning of the word. Traditionally, scholars have reconstructed the word "king" as melek and assumed that the Hebrew Bible replaced the vowel with an O in order to make a disrespectful pun out of the name by rhyming it with the word boseth, which means "shameful" (something the Hebrews had a keen interest in seeing that people thought of the Canaanite gods). But mlk is also used in other contexts, most notably burnt sacrifices, which has split scholars down the middle from believing that this proves the burning cult belongs to Moloch all the way to the other extreme of deciding that there was no such god as Moloch at all and all mentions of him must be referring to burnt sacrifices. Still others believe that there must have been totally different vowels for the god's proper name and that it wasn't the same as the word for "king" at all, which is just as unprovable as the rest. Poor Moloch has a lot less direct attestation that Baal since he isn't included in the Ras Shamra tablets, and as a result there's a lot more rampant confusion about his name and what exactly it, and he, mean.
So you can see that the etymological connection between their names really isn't much of one. In English, it would be like saying that a guy named Master of the House obviously had the same name as another guy named King, and there's a possibility that one or both of them aren't really named that in the first place. The similarities are superficial.
They do, however, both share a connection to the bull as a totem animal! That's totally legit! Or at least, as legit as we can get. Gods associated with bulls are traditional in the Middle East and Mediterranean, where the animal is associated with strength, virility and power, and the two of them are keeping company with the likes of Apis, Ashur, Dionysus, Gugalanna, Marduk, Mithra, Qos, Teshub and Zeus, all powerful figures associated with manliness (and those are by no means the only ones). It's not surprising that more than one god in the same area might be associated with the bull, especially in a culture like the Canaanites where different city states may celebrate their local patron gods with all the trappings of royalty regardless of what else they do.
In light of all that, I don't see much reason to assume that Baal and Moloch are the same guy. But that doesn't mean you can't play with their possible connection in a game; Moloch's kind of a pain in the ass, and when Baal's not looking it's totally possible he might have at some point (maybe even now!) tried to seize power or convince mortals that he was in fact Baal. Baal's notoriously jealous of his power and might always be looking for possible dissidents in his pantheon, including Moloch, and assume in his paranoia that the god might be plotting against him, or maybe one or both gods are playing a long game of Fatebonds, trying to dislodge the other.
My favorite wacky theory to connect the two is the idea that Moloch, who has no distinct genealogy in Canaanite myth, might be an ancient son of Baal. On the way to confronting Mot, Baal famously has sex with a heifer (depending on the translator, sometimes assumed to be Anat in animal form) and has a calf-like child, which he then offers up to death (and Mot) as a sacrifice before heading into the underworld. Moloch's bull and death connotations, not to mention his nasty temperament, could be a result of this origin story, which has no real mythological backing but is pretty entertaining anyway.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Sky Versus Sea: Fight!
Question: Do you think the episode of Set, Nepthys and the sea could be played as a conflict between Set and Poseidon?
I think that if you have a fun plot you want to spin off of that, sure, go for it. Egyptian mythology really doesn't have a sea-god thanks to their focus being narrowed down mostly to the Nile and surrounding environs, so there's no easy Egyptian figure to attach to the myth and the personified sea is merely itself. There is also no hint of any Greek influence in that particular myth, but Poseidon is the Greek god of the Mediterranean, and if you wanted to play it as an ancient political grudge-match kind of thing, you probably could.
Interestingly, I've seen scholarly suggestion that that particular myth might be heavily influenced by Canaanite mythology; in an alternate version, Set is instead married to Astarte (who was given to him as a sort of consolation prize after he lost the throne to Horus) and it's her he's saving from the ocean, which therefore probably refers to Yam, the Canaanite sea-god who's always startin' shit. This is probably a result of the fact that Egyptian and Canaanite territories overlapped and that Set and Baal, being both bad-tempered storm gods, might have been slightly conflated or worshiped together by some Egyptians in that area. If you wanted to, you could probably consider it a purely Canaanite myth and decide that it's referring to Baal, not Set, when it talks about going out to fight the sea.
Either way, though, the sea, whoever he is, is going to take a serious pounding to the face if he keeps these shenanigans up.
I think that if you have a fun plot you want to spin off of that, sure, go for it. Egyptian mythology really doesn't have a sea-god thanks to their focus being narrowed down mostly to the Nile and surrounding environs, so there's no easy Egyptian figure to attach to the myth and the personified sea is merely itself. There is also no hint of any Greek influence in that particular myth, but Poseidon is the Greek god of the Mediterranean, and if you wanted to play it as an ancient political grudge-match kind of thing, you probably could.
Interestingly, I've seen scholarly suggestion that that particular myth might be heavily influenced by Canaanite mythology; in an alternate version, Set is instead married to Astarte (who was given to him as a sort of consolation prize after he lost the throne to Horus) and it's her he's saving from the ocean, which therefore probably refers to Yam, the Canaanite sea-god who's always startin' shit. This is probably a result of the fact that Egyptian and Canaanite territories overlapped and that Set and Baal, being both bad-tempered storm gods, might have been slightly conflated or worshiped together by some Egyptians in that area. If you wanted to, you could probably consider it a purely Canaanite myth and decide that it's referring to Baal, not Set, when it talks about going out to fight the sea.
Either way, though, the sea, whoever he is, is going to take a serious pounding to the face if he keeps these shenanigans up.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Storytime!
Question: Your post "Old Man Winter" where you told the story of Stribog got me thinking - another reason why not having family trees for some of your Anne-created Pantheons on the site is an inconvenience is they don't come with a few myths and legends. Could you perhaps share a myth of the Elohim? Baal and Moloch appear as false Gods and nemeses to the Hebrew God in The Bible, but what about through the eyes of their own people?
I love storytime, so yes!
Unfortunately, Moloch doesn't have much going on; he's one of those gods with a ridiculously strong cult presence but very few myths of his actual exploits, similar to other strong-cult gods like Cernunnos. He was especially popular in the areas in close proximity to the Hebrews, which is why he turns up so often and with such censure in the Bible, and that probably contributed to the lack of remaining written record of him, as the Israelites were hardly about to preserve his filthy, filthy behavior for future generations.
Baal, on the other hand, has super fun tales, usually having to do with him electrocuting people he's related to. The most famous sets up the delicious continuing rivalry between him and his brothers, Yam and Mot, which scholars are often impressed by because they really want to relate the Baal-Mot-Yam triad to the Zeus-Hades-Poseidon one but then they realize that there is nowhere near this level of animosity among the gods of Olympus.
El led the Elohim, his innumerable children, for many millennia, but his son Baal was ambitious and chafed against his rule, wanting to seize power for himself. Worried that he might rise up against him and angry that anyone would dare defy him, El turned to one of his other sons, the sea-god Yam, and crowned him king of the Elohim, informing him that if he wanted to rule securely he would have to kill Baal, who was plotting treachery. Yam and Baal waged a massive battle that destroyed large parts of the local countryside, and Baal was beginning to lose badly when Kothar, the smith-god and an ally of Baal's, saw what was happening, crafted two incredibly powerful clubs, and ran into battle to help him. He passed the clubs on to Baal, and Baal was then able to finish the fight, defeating Yam (and, though his excitable sister Astarte called on him to kill him, he left him alive because he was pretty sure his mother would kick his ass if he didn't).
El, having been watching all this go down, immediately claimed that he had always liked Baal best and crowned him king of the Elohim; at the urging of his wife Asherah and Baal's sister/wife Anat, he allowed that Baal should build a new palace for himself and invite all the Elohim to a celebratory feast. Baal called on Kothar to build his palace, but insisted that it have no windows (the myth does not discuss why, but it was a common belief in Canaanite myth that death always enters via a window, and additionally it's implied that without windows Baal won't be able to let out the rain the world needs to survive); Kother in turn insisted that it had to have windows, and eventually Baal gave in rather than have Kothar not finish the project. The palace was excellent, the feast was splendid, and he invited everyone over.
Unfortunately, Baal does not know how to not be an insulting dick to people, so his invitation to his oldest brother Mot, the god of death, offended him by not providing appropriate food and drink. Mot sent a messenger back, refusing to attend and taunting Baal that even though he had defeated Yam, Mot would eventually defeat him as death defeats all living things. Baal, having a storm-god temper, immediately abandoned his feast and marched into the Underworld to fight his brother, where he was summarily murdered because it is a bad idea to fight death gods on their own turf (see also: Ishtar, Ereshkigal).
His wives, Astarte and Anat, mourned him, but Anat is an angry war goddess and swore vengeance, and in turn marched into Mot's realm while he was still weak from battle, killed him, and cut his body into little pieces in retaliation before going home. Mot did not remain permanently dead (it's his underworld, after all), but it took him seven years to recover, and due to his weakened power Baal was able to return to the gods, where he was hailed and beloved by everyone. Furious at this further insult and interference in the realm of death, Mot challenged Baal to fight, and the two were so evenly matched that their battle shook the world and they fought until they both collapsed. At that point, Shapshu, the sun-goddess and messenger of El, arrived and informed Mot that El was officially going to back Baal now, so fighting him would be fruitless. Mot conceded that Baal would be king with extraordinarily bad grace and went home.
The entire story is extremely fascinating from an interpretive point of view, because there's so much going on in it; there's the idea of Death as the final conqueror, Baal as a death/rebirth deity like Tammuz or Persephone (the seven-year time period is about the usual length of time between droughts in the area; lacking as much of a fixed seasonal change, the Canaanites needed their rebirth god to show up when they were having droughts, rather than every winter), the father-god playing his sons off each other, Sky, Water and Death as the preeminent triad of powers, a female war-goddess being the final conqueror rather than the male sky-god, possibly suggesting the female's ability to give birth to new life, the shenanigans with the window and Baal's reluctance to invite danger to himself so that he could nurture the world, the suggestion that Baal's death is a symbolic requirement because of his destruction of the natural order in harming/killing Yam, and so on and so forth.
Seriously, these guys are batshit insane, but they are one of my favorite pantheons ever. We've only had the one Scion of Baal show up in-game, as an NPC, but even that was enough to completely foxtrot what the PCs were trying to do thanks to unscheduled flame/lightning battles.
The Baal Cycle was found on tablets unearthed in the ruins of Ugarit in modern-day Syria, and there are a lot of good translations and annotated interpretations floating around out there. For a really simple and fun to read one, I'd recommend Michael Coogan's Stories from Ancient Canaan (which also includes the tale of Anat murdering some poor Scion over a relic, Asherah ruining some poor king because he failed to honor her properly, and other tales of godly misconduct).
I love storytime, so yes!
Unfortunately, Moloch doesn't have much going on; he's one of those gods with a ridiculously strong cult presence but very few myths of his actual exploits, similar to other strong-cult gods like Cernunnos. He was especially popular in the areas in close proximity to the Hebrews, which is why he turns up so often and with such censure in the Bible, and that probably contributed to the lack of remaining written record of him, as the Israelites were hardly about to preserve his filthy, filthy behavior for future generations.
Baal, on the other hand, has super fun tales, usually having to do with him electrocuting people he's related to. The most famous sets up the delicious continuing rivalry between him and his brothers, Yam and Mot, which scholars are often impressed by because they really want to relate the Baal-Mot-Yam triad to the Zeus-Hades-Poseidon one but then they realize that there is nowhere near this level of animosity among the gods of Olympus.
El led the Elohim, his innumerable children, for many millennia, but his son Baal was ambitious and chafed against his rule, wanting to seize power for himself. Worried that he might rise up against him and angry that anyone would dare defy him, El turned to one of his other sons, the sea-god Yam, and crowned him king of the Elohim, informing him that if he wanted to rule securely he would have to kill Baal, who was plotting treachery. Yam and Baal waged a massive battle that destroyed large parts of the local countryside, and Baal was beginning to lose badly when Kothar, the smith-god and an ally of Baal's, saw what was happening, crafted two incredibly powerful clubs, and ran into battle to help him. He passed the clubs on to Baal, and Baal was then able to finish the fight, defeating Yam (and, though his excitable sister Astarte called on him to kill him, he left him alive because he was pretty sure his mother would kick his ass if he didn't).
El, having been watching all this go down, immediately claimed that he had always liked Baal best and crowned him king of the Elohim; at the urging of his wife Asherah and Baal's sister/wife Anat, he allowed that Baal should build a new palace for himself and invite all the Elohim to a celebratory feast. Baal called on Kothar to build his palace, but insisted that it have no windows (the myth does not discuss why, but it was a common belief in Canaanite myth that death always enters via a window, and additionally it's implied that without windows Baal won't be able to let out the rain the world needs to survive); Kother in turn insisted that it had to have windows, and eventually Baal gave in rather than have Kothar not finish the project. The palace was excellent, the feast was splendid, and he invited everyone over.
Unfortunately, Baal does not know how to not be an insulting dick to people, so his invitation to his oldest brother Mot, the god of death, offended him by not providing appropriate food and drink. Mot sent a messenger back, refusing to attend and taunting Baal that even though he had defeated Yam, Mot would eventually defeat him as death defeats all living things. Baal, having a storm-god temper, immediately abandoned his feast and marched into the Underworld to fight his brother, where he was summarily murdered because it is a bad idea to fight death gods on their own turf (see also: Ishtar, Ereshkigal).
His wives, Astarte and Anat, mourned him, but Anat is an angry war goddess and swore vengeance, and in turn marched into Mot's realm while he was still weak from battle, killed him, and cut his body into little pieces in retaliation before going home. Mot did not remain permanently dead (it's his underworld, after all), but it took him seven years to recover, and due to his weakened power Baal was able to return to the gods, where he was hailed and beloved by everyone. Furious at this further insult and interference in the realm of death, Mot challenged Baal to fight, and the two were so evenly matched that their battle shook the world and they fought until they both collapsed. At that point, Shapshu, the sun-goddess and messenger of El, arrived and informed Mot that El was officially going to back Baal now, so fighting him would be fruitless. Mot conceded that Baal would be king with extraordinarily bad grace and went home.
The entire story is extremely fascinating from an interpretive point of view, because there's so much going on in it; there's the idea of Death as the final conqueror, Baal as a death/rebirth deity like Tammuz or Persephone (the seven-year time period is about the usual length of time between droughts in the area; lacking as much of a fixed seasonal change, the Canaanites needed their rebirth god to show up when they were having droughts, rather than every winter), the father-god playing his sons off each other, Sky, Water and Death as the preeminent triad of powers, a female war-goddess being the final conqueror rather than the male sky-god, possibly suggesting the female's ability to give birth to new life, the shenanigans with the window and Baal's reluctance to invite danger to himself so that he could nurture the world, the suggestion that Baal's death is a symbolic requirement because of his destruction of the natural order in harming/killing Yam, and so on and so forth.
Seriously, these guys are batshit insane, but they are one of my favorite pantheons ever. We've only had the one Scion of Baal show up in-game, as an NPC, but even that was enough to completely foxtrot what the PCs were trying to do thanks to unscheduled flame/lightning battles.
The Baal Cycle was found on tablets unearthed in the ruins of Ugarit in modern-day Syria, and there are a lot of good translations and annotated interpretations floating around out there. For a really simple and fun to read one, I'd recommend Michael Coogan's Stories from Ancient Canaan (which also includes the tale of Anat murdering some poor Scion over a relic, Asherah ruining some poor king because he failed to honor her properly, and other tales of godly misconduct).
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