Gods

**Sigurd** · 10-03-2005, 15:49

I have some theories about this god Baal.
Reading entries in dictionaries et al, we begin to understand that the word Baal means many things and can refer to many gods. One of the suggestions is that it simply means “Lord” and that the early Israelites used this word to describe Yahweh.
In the Canaanite pantheon Baal was the god Hadad, meaning “the Lord”. He was the son of the God of gods; El.
Another god who was called Baal was the Tyrian god Melqart who Josephus claims was Baal.
Many prominent ancients had names signifying that they were blood relatives of gods as the cognates bel/bal found in Jezebel, Hasdrubal or Hannibal gives hints of.
If we take as a hypothetical starting point that all ancient religion have a common lost religion; let’s call it the religion of Adam to give us westerners a common picture in our minds. You will find a host of similarities in the break offs of this ancient, but lost, first religion.
One would be the hierarchy of gods, their purpose and story.
There is always an assembly of Gods, where a father god gives a problem that needs to be solved. A son figure steps forward or is chosen to be the executor of the plan that the gods gives as solution. He becomes the hero and the savior of man, because the problem is always with man.
This even applies with the Judaic religion and hence Christianity. This is true for the Sumerian, Egyptian, Babylonian et al religions.
Even the religion of Judaism and early Christianity conforms to this. An assembly gathers, a plan is devised, a devil revolts, a son is chosen as savior, and he is Yahweh the son of Eli (eloihim), the Lord or the Son. The similarities are quite striking to Baal the son of El. Baal, meaning the Lord, being a son of a father god. That Baal was interchangeable with Yahweh in the Palestine area signifies that they are the same.
At some point the religion of Baal became a break off from the true religion of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and became corrupted. Something that falls from truth and are shamed sometime in the history got the word baal associated with it. Examples would be Ish-bosheth to Esh-baal, Jerubbesheth to Jerubbaal, Mephibosheth to Merib-baal and particularly notable is Baal-zebub.

Feel free to scrutinize and find flaws in this theory.

**master of the puppets** · 10-03-2005, 17:11

its a good thing your not worshiping Baal lest you have to sacrifice some babies

really all i know about him is he was the parton of lightning and of justice. law and justice were a big thing for his followers.

**Gurkhal** · 10-04-2005, 13:42

Baal's main roll was as a powerful fertility god and a thunder god, he manage to defeat both the sea god Yam and the god of death, Mot.

Also note that to sacrifices children was, as far as I know not something of a daily practice, only when thing were really, really, really bad would the people do this as the ultimate sacrifice to turn things around.

Also the names which feathers bel or bal in them arn't any declaritions that they would be related to the gods, it's names with positive divine meaning, as Hannibal for example means Favour/loved of Baal, and Hamlikar means the same except that it's towards Melkart rather than Baal that one turns.

**Kraxis** · 10-04-2005, 20:18

Originally Posted by Gurkhal

Also note that to sacrifices children was, as far as I know not something of a daily practice, only when thing were really, really, really bad would the people do this as the ultimate sacrifice to turn things around.

And the Romans were horrified not because the sacrifices were made, they did practice human sacrifice now and then, but it was the fact that the sacrifices were the noble children, not just some poor dreg at the bottom of society. That went fully against the Roman system, making the Carthies abnormally different.