The Bible also warns of more insidious forms of false worship, namely, religious syncretism and religious hypocrisy. Not only did they worship these gods, but they worshiped these gods with acts of sex in the temples and called it holy and righteous. Today the church is not called to execute justice on the wicked in the same way. God saves and delivers and grants success, portrayed as military victory over the Egyptians and the Canaanites respectively, based on faith. There were laws against bestiality but only for certain animals. The land that was then vacant after the conquest was to be given to Israel as a blessing for their obedience, but if they sinned as Canaan had, then they too would lose the land. The ideas of pairs of mountains seem to be quite common in Canaanite mythology (similar to Horeb and Sinai in the Bible). Anat, Ba’al’s wife and goddess of war and love, fought her way into the grave to rescue her husband. 26-27; 2 Cor. But Yahweh is also a merciful God who loves us. [41][42], According to The Encyclopedia of Religion, the Ugarit texts represent one part of a larger religion that was based on the religious teachings of Babylon. Not only did they declare these acts as righteous morality, but they also participated in these acts in the worship of their gods as a means of gaining the gods’ approval. Kirsi Stjerna, p. 33. The overriding concern in all the episodes was remaining holy, found in Yahweh’s demand for holiness, obedience, and purity of worship. The Canaanites, as a whole culture, committed sins of idolatry, holy temple prostitution, adultery, homosexuality, incest, murder, bestiality, gang rape, and child sacrifice (see The Nature of the Canaanites’ Sin excursus at the end of the article). After the palace is constructed, Ba'al gives forth a thunderous roar out of the palace window and challenges Mot. None of the inscribed tablets found in 1929 in the Canaanite city of Ugarit (destroyed c. 1200 BCE) has revealed a cosmology. The commands about how Israel was to conduct themselves in war with the surrounding nations appear in two major passages—Deut. Philo of Byblos states that Atlas was one of the Elohim, which would clearly fit into the story of El Shaddai as "God of the Mountain(s)". 20). For whatever reason, Yahweh chose to use Israel as His tool of judgment in the same way He had used the flood (Gen. 6), plagues (Ex. Bodies were buried with grave goods, and offerings of food and drink were made to the dead to ensure that they would not trouble the living. One must understand when we talk about the sin and practices of the Canaanites that we are not talking about a small group of people in these nations; we are talking about everyone. Canaanite religion was influenced by its peripheral position, intermediary between Egypt and Mesopotamia, whose religions had a growing impact upon Canaanite religion. Evans, Annette H. M. "Monotheism and Yahweh". 7:31; 19:5; 32:35; Isa. Yahweh was extremely patient, waiting for hundreds of years for them to reach a certain point of immorality before He judged them, for Yahweh is “slow to anger” (Ex. Anat goes to the Underworld, attacks Mot with a knife, grinds him up into pieces, and scatters him far and wide. 16:4-22). The become points of offensive operations, which are hard to remove, unless concerted effort is made to remove them. When one reads records of the other nations’ conquests, they are self-glorifying and graphic. This does not mean that Yahweh has changed His mind on what He considers wickedness or on how to execute justice. A new discovery in Israel backs up claims in the Book of Judges that the ancient Israelites contended with the Canaanites for parts of the land promised to Moses. It is in the death of Yahweh’s Son that His mercy and justice are seen together clearly. James B. Pritchard, in The Ancient Near East: Supplementary Texts and Pictures Relating to the Old Testament, p. 519. Ba’al, one of his sons, was married to his sister Anat. Ba’al, the Canaanite storm god, became the high god by defeating Yamm, the sea god. Jericho should have served as an example of Yahweh’s mercy to the rest of the cities, but, unfortunately, it did not. Thus while "Phoenician" and "Canaanite" refer to the same culture, archaeologists and historians commonly refer to the Bronze Age, pre-1200 BCE Levantines as Canaanites; and their Iron Age descendants, particularly those living on the coast, as Phoenicians. The Hittite law states: “If anyone has intercourse with a pig or a dog, he shall die. 17; Amos 1-2). The destruction of the children is much harder to understand. Yahweh showed this same patience with Israel when He warned them in 1406 BC that if they lived like the Canaanites, He would, through another nation, send them into exile (Deut. This idea continues in the book of Judges with the many different foreign nations, including the Canaanites, that Yahweh allowed to oppress Israel for their sins of idolatry and social injustice. [28], It is considered virtually impossible to reconstruct a clear picture of Canaanite religious practices. With Mot defeated, Ba'al is able to return and refresh the Earth with rain. Most readers can understand the men being killed, but Yahweh’s command of the death of the women and children is much harder to understand. As a just and righteous God, Yahweh cannot tolerate evil and sin. To be the rape victim was so humiliating that no one would ever show respect to that person. Josh 7:11 shows the seriousness of the situation. Papyrus seems to have been the preferred writing medium, but whereas in Egypt papyrus may survive centuries in the extremely dry climate, Canaanite records have simply decayed in the humid Mediterranean climate. [5] Martti Nissinen, Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective, trans. He forces the reader to deal with the tension between a wicked city that must be destroyed in obedience to Yahweh’s commands and a city of humans, the children of God, some who are willing to come to Yahweh in faith. 5:13-6:27; 8:1-29; 10-12). Yet the majority of Canaanites, in their hardness of hearts, refused to receive His mercy and so fell under his judgment, as had the 3,000 Israelites who were executed in Ex. His companions will stick to him. The women would often fight in battles and participate with the men in the cutting off of their enemies’ heads and hands. Likewise, the Gibeonites (a Canaanite culture) deceived Joshua into making a treaty with them, which spared them from being exterminated (Josh. The Phoenician practice indicates a definition of the ‘family’ and the boundaries belonging to it and alienation from it that was incomprehensible to others in the ancient Mediterranean.”[15], [1] See Daniel Hawk. We already know that certain people are more genetically predisposed to alcoholism and other addictive tendencies; scientists are even trying to find a “gay gene.” Ultimately, this question can be answered only when one comes to understand that Yahweh is good and that a God who is willing to die for us—even for the Canaanites—is a God who can be trusted with where babies and children go when they die. This pattern is seen over and over in Scriptures—how little intercession and prayer it takes to move Yahweh to forgiveness. From the other direction, Jean Bottéro has suggested that Ya of Ebla (a possible precursor of Yam) was equated with the Mesopotamian god Ea during the Akkadian Empire. Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan, p. 211–12. In Joshua 2, the narrator presents Rahab as a godly woman who wanted to be saved. What Deut. A. Kirk Grayson and Donald Redford, Papyrus and Tablet, p. 152:149. Most of Josh. Just as Israel was not to judge the sins of the surrounding nations, we are not called to judge the sin of the unbelievers around us. It means that he will inherit something. Yet the text makes it clear that this second law did not apply to those living in Canaan. El approves, and the palace is built by Kothar-wa-Khasis. 7:1-6, 17-26 and 20:10-18. Even when Israel went into battle they were commanded to consecrate themselves (Josh. Molech was portrayed as a man with the head of a bull standing upright with his arms outstretched. Gen 10:19 And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest, unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha. The human perspective is not always the divine and right perspective. The union of El Elyon and his consort Asherah would be representation of primordial Cronos and Rhea in Greek mythology, or Roman Saturnus and Ops. (1985)"Analyzing the Abominable: Our Understanding of Canaanite Religion" (The Jewish quarterly review, 1985), The Encyclopedia of Religion - Mcmillan Library Ref. No one wants a God or an authority figure who is not angered by evil and does not execute justice. They were to first offer peace, and if the nation refused, they could kill only the adult males, while women, children, animals, and spoils may be taken as plunder. When Israel first entered the land, Yahweh did not immediately send warriors to kill people; rather, he sent two witnesses to give the people in Jericho a chance to repent and escape the judgment (Josh. The Levant region was inhabited by people who themselves referred to the land as 'ca-na-na-um' as early as the mid-third millennium BCE. Yahweh has made it clear that He is willing to relent in His judgment if a nation repents of its sins and changes its ways (Jer. "At the center of Canaanite religion was royal concern for religious and political legitimacy and the imposition of a divinely ordained legal structure, as well as peasant emphasis on fertility of the crops, flocks, and humans."[36][37]. But did he miss the greatest truths of all? [14] John Day. She is described as killing so many that she was wading through their blood. When Achan stole from Yahweh after the defeat of Jericho (Josh. 6 is devoted to the sacred ceremonial rituals. Yahweh is both a just and a merciful God. There are certainly exceptions, but they are the exceptions. That's a bogus diversion. However, in Canaanite culture these sins were pretty much universally practiced and accepted because this is what their gods were like. In fact, the Canaanite people were Semitic just like the Israelites. The earliest Canaanite laws did prescribe the death penalty for those caught in incest or adultery, but by the fourteenth century BC the penalty had been reduced to a financial fine. Just as the Yeshua/Joshua in the Old Testament led his people to victory over the Canaanites, the Yeshua/Jesus in the New Testament led His people to victory over sin and their spiritual enemies. In fact, temple prostitution was a large part of worship in the Canaanite culture. The First Testament also teaches that just as Israel failed to do this because they did not have Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, we, too, will fail if we do not submit to the will of Jesus Christ and depend on the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Mot enters through the window and swallows Ba'al, sending him to the Underworld. 18:7-8). They describe their conquests in great detail and brag about how they subjugated and destroyed other people groups. - Page 42, Learn how and when to remove this template message, The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities in Ancient Israel, The Development of Jewish Ideas of Angels: Egyptian and Hellenistic Connections, ca. 87; Isa. [27], Archaeological investigations at the site of Tell es-Safi have found the remains of donkeys, as well as some sheep and goats in Early Bronze Age layers, dating to 4,900 years ago which were imported from Egypt in order to be sacrificed. However, incestuous fantasies were looked upon with favor and seen as a good omen. 32:25-29 because they refused to accept the mercy of Yahweh. The Canaanites, as a whole culture, committed sins of idolatry, holy temple prostitution, adultery, homosexuality, incest, murder, bestiality, gang rape, and child sacrifice (see The Nature of the Canaanites’ Sin excursus at the end of the article). By Jesus being a human, He could represent humanity in their sin. 7-14), and other empires (2 Kgs. Albrecht Goetze, ed. I do not know if sinners—who do not fully understand the righteousness, justice, and greater all-encompassing will of Yahweh—will ever be able to comprehend fully or accept the answer the Bible gives for this issue. The idolatry and the worship of pagan gods would not seem like a sin to most people other than Jews and Christians. 19:23-25; Zech. The special meaning of circumcision in the Bible was for the people of Israel is found in Genesis 17 and occurs within the context of God's renewed covenant promise to Abraham, following the initial contractual relationship. The reason Yahweh repeatedly gives for the extermination of the Canaanites is that it is their judgment for their sin and rebellion against Him (Gen. 15:16; 18:20-21; Lev. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (around 2100 BC) came 600 years before Israel destroyed the Canaanite nation. There was also a form of homosexuality that was far more violent and subjugating than what we know today. Yahweh also placed Abraham and his family in the land of Canaan in order to witness to the Canaanites, as Noah had previously. Later, Mot, the god of the grave, attacked Ba’al in order to gain power. Later Israel did commit the same sins as the Canaanites, and Yahweh took them into exile as judgment, as He said He would. 34:6,7; Ps. The Canaanites’ unwillingness to repent and change even to escape judgment shows how bad they really were (Josh. Carried west by Phoenician sailors, Canaanite religious influences can be seen in Greek mythology, particularly in the tripartite division between the Olympians Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, mirroring the division between Baal, Yam and Mot, and in the story of the Labours of Hercules, mirroring the stories of the Tyrian Melqart, who was often equated with Heracles.[38]. 7:4, 7-11; 9:4-6; 13:16; 29:16-29; Josh. [6] Papyrus Chester Beatty III recto (BM10683) from about 1175 BC, quoted in Lise Manniche, Sexual Life in Ancient Egypt, p. 100. The biblical representation of Canaanite religion is always negative. Ex. 3:1-11; Rev. Not once does the narrator or Yahweh condemn these acts of mercy. 11:19-20). Late Carthaginian Child Sacrifice, p. 75. [3] See “El, Ashertu and the Storm-god,” trans. [7] Godfrey Rolles Driver and John C. Miles, The Assyrian Laws, p. 38. The people of the ancient Near East viewed a sexual act with these priests as sexual union with the goddess herself.[5]. As the creator of all things, Yahweh is sovereign over all creation and has the right to execute His justice in any way He sees fit. The way that one proved his worth to lead others in politics or in the military was through dominating rape. Why prohibit intermarriage if they were to be completely wiped out? A great number of deities in a four-tier hierarchy headed by El and Asherah were worshiped by the followers of the Canaanite religion; this is a detailed listing:. The sovereignty and justice of Yahweh gave Him every right and demanded that Israel be punished for their sin. We, as the Church, are not called to kill lawbreakers since we are not a government; rather, we are called to dis-fellowship believers who refuse to repent in the hopes that they will want to repent and come back (1 Cor. Pidray, goddess of light and lightning, one of the three daughters of Ba'al Hadad. It had everything to do with the judgment of a people for their sins. These are the gods that the Canaanites worship, which means that the people thought and behaved as the gods did. The Gemara (Bava Kama 60a) explains the underlying meaning of the verse (Shemot 22:5): If a fire spreads to weeds (in another’s field) and devours bales of … The “handing over” reinforces the command that the Israelites were to make no treaties, show no mercy, and not intermarry with the Canaanites. [11], The Egyptian dream book also describes which animals bring good omens when you have a dream about having sex with them. The spiritual meaning of 14,882 is: Righteousness (14) of Poor Have Faith (179). It shows that Yahweh did spare Rahab for her faith, and thus this is His true character. But in order to understand why they lived the way they did, one must understand the gods that the people of the ancient Near East worshiped. 17:7-23) and Judah (the southern kingdom) in 586 BC with the Babylonians (2 Kgs. Thus, that destruction served as a warning to the rest of the Canaanites that if they did not change, they would be judged as well. The point, instead, is to give insight that is never discussed by those who attack Christianity over this issue. There is never a glorification of the battle, only a record of its accomplishment. [10] Hoffner, “Incest, Sodomy and Bestiality in the Ancient Near East,” p. 82. Molech was a Canaanite underworld deity[13] that required child sacrifice in order to prove devotion to him (Lev. Destroying a people is not the main point; rather, remaining loyal to Yahweh and the covenant is the focus. This kind of ritual cleansing before battle is not seen in the surrounding cultures. 11:30-40; 2 Kgs. El, the father of the gods, was married to Asherah, by whom he had seventy children. This is seen in the fact that only the main cities are listed as being defeated in the book of Joshua. (Rom. More recently, detailed study of the Ugaritic material, of other inscriptions from the Levant and also of the Ebla archive from Tel Mardikh, excavated in 1960 by a joint Italo-Syrian team, have cast more light on the early Canaanite religion. Hyksos (/ ˈ h ɪ k s ɒ s /; Egyptian ḥqꜣ(w)-ḫꜣswt, Egyptological pronunciation: hekau khasut, "ruler(s) of foreign lands"; Ancient Greek: Ὑκσώς, Ὑξώς) is a term which, in modern Egyptology, designates the kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt (fl. 10:5) so that we may be loyal to our covenant with Yahweh and free of corruption. Canaanite religion was polytheistic, and in some cases monolatristic. (Not like modern cultures have done much better dealing out justice through prisons today….). He loves us so much that He does not want to punish us to the full extent that justice would require. Tallay, the goddess of winter, snow, cold and dew, one of the three daughters of Ba'al Hadad. [35] The excavation of the city of Ras Shamra (1928 onwards) and the discovery of its Bronze Age archive of clay-tablet alphabetic cuneiform texts provided a wealth of new information. Yahweh did not take pleasure in the extermination of the Canaanites. [1] Yahweh was not interested just in punishing sin but in maintaining the righteous purity of His people. Syria (Arabic: سوريا ‎, romanized: Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية العربية السورية ‎, romanized: al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon to the southwest, the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest. We are to live so righteously and love each other in such a unique way that the world cannot help but want to be a part of the Church. 16:21; 20:31; 23:37; Jer. Furthermore, Israel and the Church have purposes that are different from each other. Incest and adultery were also part of the gods’ lives. Gorelick, Leonard; Williams-Forte, Elizabeth; "alleged but not securely attested", according to Johnston, Sarah Isles. Horon, an underworld god, co-ruler of the underworld, twin brother of Melqart, a son of Mot. The fact that Jesus Christ was willing to be exterminated (Matt. 13:34-35). 7:1-4 does not seem to be focused on the sole extermination of the Canaanites but on the theological principle of separation from the Canaanites and protection of the Israelites from their influence. The Canaanites were a group of people who lived in ancient Canaan along the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea known today as Israel. … having intercourse with his sister: Good. But by the fact that He is a loving and just God, He is also long-suffering and merciful. In a world of no police or prisons, few options existed for dealing justly with these kinds of evils. In our study we assume: all months have 30 days; a leap month is added every 7 years; an additional Some statements in the Babylonian magical text (pre-seventh-century BC) say: “If a man has intercourse with the hindquarters of his equal [male], that man will be foremost among his brothers and colleagues. [9] Mark S. Smith, trans., in Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, ed. For example, during the Hyksos period, when chariot-mounted maryannu ruled in Egypt, at their capital city of Avaris, Baal became associated with the Egyptian god Set, and was considered identical – particularly with Set in his form as Sutekh. [12] Manniche, Sexual Life in Ancient Egypt, p. 100–01. The desire for justice is foundational to the core of every human. Beyond these facts, there is little we know for certain. Similarly Athirat (known by her later Hebrew name Asherah), Athtart (known by her later Greek name Astarte), and Anat henceforth were portrayed wearing Hathor-like Egyptian wigs. 7:1). They describe their mutilation of people and stacking the people’s heads in a self-glorification of their superiority.