Michael Coogan is Lecturer in Hebrew Bible / Old Testament at Harvard Divinity School and Director of Publications for Harvard Semitic Museum. He has taught at a number of prestigious universities and colleges, and has participated in archaeological excavations in Israel, Jordan, Cyprus, and Egypt.
INTRODUCTION
Introduction:
... lines that were written 3,000 years ago; the speaker is the storm god Baal, and the text in which he is quoted comes from ancient Ugarit, a city destroyed not long after 1200 BCE and rediscovered in 1928 thanks to a Syrian plowman who accidentally opened a tomb.
Ugarit, now called Ras Shamra (Cape Fennel) is located on the north Syrian coast of the Mediterranean and was one of the major Canaanite city-states during the second millennium BCE. The vaulted tomsb and painted pottery of Ugarit's cemetery initially led archaeologist to think that the city was a Mycenaean colony, but as the first texts were excavated, deciphered, and translated it became clear that Ugarit was Semitic. There were Mycenaeans there, but they were only part of a polyglot and cosmopolitan port that included Hittites, Babylonians, Hurrians, and Egyptians, as well as the native Canaanites (think of one of the opening scenes in the "original" Stars Wars movie franchise.
Canaanite: a group of Semitic peoples who during the third and second millennia BCE occupied parts of what is today Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan. There were never organized into a single political unit; nevertheless, the relatively independent city-states such as Ugarit, Byblos, Sidon, Tyre, Shechem, and Jerusalem had a common language and culture (with local idiosyncrasies), which we call Canaanite.
To give just one example, the same type of alphabetic cuneiform writing used int eh texts translated here has turned up at several sites in Israel and Palestine. According ot ancient Egyptian geography, Canaan's northern border was just south of Ugaret, it it is clear from innumerable religious and literary features that Ugaret had enormous cultural overlap with Canaanite society. With this in mine, we call its literature "stores from ancient Canaan."
The tablets at Ugarit, since 1929, thousands.
In this book: seventeen (17) tablets translated.
The Scribe
Found in the environs of the city's temple district, and most had the same scribe, Ilimilku from Shuban. see page 4.
King Niqmaddu, king of Ugarit -->
Chief Priest Attanu -->
scribe Ilimilku from Shuban (simply copied them).
The gods and goddesses of Ugarit.
El: head of the pantheon
Baal cycle.
El / Baal overlapped: as if El was the executive power and Baal was the military power in the cosmos.
Baal: Ugaritic god of agricultural fertility and the city's divine patron. Baal: "Lord of Ugarit."
Baal associated with Mount Zaphon which can be seen from Ugarit.
The language of Ugarit in relation to other languages at the time. Like modern Hebrew and Arabic, Ugarit a written language without vowels.
Bicolon / tricolon: p. 9.
Also used in the Bible.
A synonym for a number (x) is the next unit higher (x +1). Page 10.
The measurement of time: seven days; seven years. How that developed is unknown. May be related to Joseph's dream of seven years feast / famine.
"Seventh day God rested."
Most amazing, the fall of Jericho: "... occurred on the seventh day after seven priests with seven trumpets marched seven times around the city."
Seven days is the standard length of a journey and a wedding feast.
Relationship between Ugarit tablets and the bible.
El, Baal, Yahweh closely related, p. 15.
Mount Zion associated with both Yahweh and Baal.
Three goddesses, Ugarit: Astarte, Asherah, and Anat.
Also, in the Bible, allusions, references, p. 17.
As this brief overview has shown, Canaanite motifs permeate the Bible. Most significant is the fusion of Baal language and El language in the descriptions of Yahweh and his activity; the god of Israel may be unique, but the formulas that Israel used to express its understanding of him were not. The more we learn of the cultural context in which the Israelites lived, the more the prophetic remark rings true:
By origin and by birth you are the land of the Canaanites. (Ezek. 16:3)
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Seventeen Tablets
Aqhat: three fragmentary tablets (3)
The Rephaim: three tablets (3)
Kirta: three tablets (3)
Baal: six tablets (6)
The Lovely Gods: one tablet (1)
El's Drinking Party: a short text. Found in 1961; the latest found of those translated in this book. (1)
Seventeen tablets.
Glossary of names.
The question is this: like the Dead Sea scrolls, why were these tablets lost for so long? It's almost as if there was a concerted effort by Israelites (Jews), Muslims, and Christians to do what they could to literally and figuratively "bury" the scrolls and the tablets.
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