On the Goddesses of Canaan: A Short Essay.

On the Goddesses of Canaan: A Short Essay.

A essay contribution to the Synchroblog, Women In Greek Myths blog site

By A. D. Waymn

“Then Anat went to El, at the source of the rivers, in the middle of the bed of the two oceans. She bows at the feet of El, she bows and prosternates and pays him respects. She speaks and says: “the very mighty Ba’al is dead. The prince, lord of the earth, has died” Found by C. Schaeffer in 1933

In a recent Biblical Archeology Review magazine article there was a discussion on several finds concerning house shrines. The small house shrine, published by Biblical Archeology Review1, launched even more support for the hypothesis that the deity Yahweh may have had a consort. All throughout Old Testament literature the priestly cast wrote against the worship of a goddess and attempted to remove her and all such ideas from the literature and culture. Later in exilic and post exilic texts, the goddess worship was seen as and compared to adultery. It is in these text the even the very idea of womanhood was look poorly upon.

Else will I strip her naked And leave her as on the day she was born: And I will make her like a wilderness, Render her like desert land, And let her die of thirst. I will also disown her children; For they are now a harlot’s brood, In that their mother has played the harlot, She that conceived them has acted shamelessly — Because she thought, “I will go after my lovers, Who supply my bread and my water, My wool and my linen, My oil and my drink.”

(Hos 2:5-7 NJPS-TNK)

Texts like Isaiah, Hosea, and Jeremiah all speak on such topics, and in their chastisements and laments against corruption and injustice, the topic of adultery is a common theme. However, it must be pointed out that the Asherah pole remained in the Hebrew temple until the reformation of King Josiah, also, the Hebrew texts of the duel between Yahweh and Baal on the mountain with Elijah, where the priests of Baal were killed but the priestesses of Asherah were spared. Such an example shows the presence of and toleration, to some extent, the acknowledgement of a goddess, even if the priestly caste of the state religion, and the Yahweh cult disapproved.

“And then Anat went to battle in the valley,

she fought between the two cities:

she killed the people of the coast,

she annihilated the men of the east.

Heads rolled under her like balls,

hands flew over her like locusts,

the warriors’ hands like swarms of grasshoppers.”2

After the Hebrews took over the land of the Canaanites and started to settle in farming communities, the old warrior deity, Yahweh, started to become obsolete, thought through out the literature he is constantly dueling with Baal his Canaanite counterpart, he also had to share the spotlight with the goddesses also, the most popular being Asherah, Astarte, Anat. Research that covers this struggle and debate can be found in the book, The Hebrew Goddess. by Raphael Patai. In the Ugaritic literature and else where we find others that may have been lesser known goddesses that may have a played small functions. Sifting through such a list is difficult because over time, as with gods, the goddesses also were combined together and played the same role. Below in this short essay we will look two of these lesser known goddesses of Canaan and their functions.

Shapshu, goddess of war and the sun We find references to this goddess in Ugaritic literature where she functions as a messenger of El advises Baal in the epic to go to the underworld with his servants and daughters and fight Mot, the god of Death. When Baal does not return she asks Asherah for a son to set up as king in the place of the mighty Baal but the candidate does not meet the requirements. It humorously appears he was to small to fill the role as the text conveys.

“Listen, Lady Asherah-of-the-Sea:

give me one of your sons; .

I’ll make him king,”

And Lady Asherah-of-the-Sea replied:

“Why not make Yadi-Yalhan king?” But El the Kind, the Compassionate, replied: “He’s much too weak to race,

to compete in spear-throwing with Baal,

with Dagon’s son in contest.” And Lady Asherah-of-the-Sea replied: “Can’t we make Athtar the Awesome king?

Let Athtar the Awesome be king!”

Then Athtar the Awesome

went up to the peaks of Zaphon;

he sat on Baal the Conqueror’s throne:

his feet did not reach the footstool,

his head did not reach the headrest.3

Another little known goddess, or goddesses, Kathirat, were associated with wisdom and also of child birth meets with, also plays an important role in Ugaritic literature. Here in the Ugaritic text of Aqhat, we find the hero Danel in want of a son. He entertains and feasts to the goddess and her helpers seven days and then counts the months to the birth of his son. The request is granted.

“Then Danel, the Healer’s man,

the Hero, the man of the god of Harnam,

slaughtered an ox for the Wise Women,

he gave food to the Wise Women,

drink to the Singers, the Swallows.”4

Such ideas may better help us understand Hebrew poetry such as the Song of Solomon, and the texts concerning Abraham and Sarah, for all have the same themes. Another would be the story of Kathirat and Nikkel. Kathirat brings everything that is needed to the wedding of Nillel , the goddess of the “fruits of the Earth” in her marriage to Yarikh the god of the Moon. 5 Also such ideas and texts such as in Isaiah and such announcements of messianic nature may also be influenced by such ideas.

Old gods and goddesses never die. Any an avid reader of anthropology, mythology, and religion will be able to see these Gods and Goddesses morph into other functions and roles as the needs and influences of the society change. As with the gods, so to the goddesses compete for roles of dominance and elbow their way in and get elbowed out of pantheons by the more powerful. Even though in Hebrew literature the references were minimized and at times possibly edited out, we know that the idea of the goddess played an important role in early Hebrew culture 6. At times texts by the Hebrews may have been written in direct contrast to popular epics of their neighbors. We end with a rather humors reply to Jeremiah which underlies the layperson’s view of the Goddess as compared to the priestly view.

Thereupon they answered Jeremiah — all the men who knew that their wives made offerings to other gods; all the women present, a large gathering; and all the people who lived in Pathros in the land of Egypt: “We will not listen to you in the matter about which you spoke to us in the name of the LORD. On the contrary, we will do everything that we have vowed — to make offerings to the Queen of Heaven and to pour libations to her, as we used to do, we and our fathers, our kings and our officials, in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty to eat, we were well-off, and suffered no misfortune. But ever since we stopped making offerings to the Queen of Heaven and pouring libations to her, we have lacked everything, and we have been consumed by the sword and by famine. And when we make offerings to the Queen of Heaven and pour libations to her, is it without our husbands’ approval that we have made cakes in her likeness and poured libations to her?”

(Jer 44:15-19 NJPS-TNK)

1. See: “A Temple Built for Two Did Yahweh Share a Throne with His Consort Asherah?”By William G. Dever http://www.bibarch.org/bswb_BAR/indexBAR.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=34&Issue=2&ArticleID=11

2. Coogan, Michael David. Stories from Ancient Canaan. The Westminster Press. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1978. pg. 90

3. Coogan, Michael David. Stories from Ancient Canaan. The Westminster Press. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1978. pg. 111

4. Coogan, Michael David. Stories from Ancient Canaan. The Westminster Press. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1978. pg. 35

5. Hooke, S.H., Middle Eastern Mythology, Penguin London 1963 pg. 93

6. See the essay by the author on Psalms 23 compared to the text concerning the Canaanite War goddess Anat- http://wayman29.wordpress.com/2007/02/28/psalm-23-you-spread-a-table-for-me-in-full-view-of-my-enemies/

Extra Reading on the topic:

Goddess Worship and Women Priests - http://www.womenpriests.org/classic/swidler3.asp

The Cult of Asherah in Ancient Israel and Judah - http://www.utoronto.ca/wjudaism/journal/spring2002/hadley.html

The Pagan File Blog http://alkman1.blogspot.com/2007/01/canaanite-pantheon.html

A. D. Wayman is the creator of www.religionthink.com

The Battle Within: Embarking On The Hero’s Journey.

The Battle Within: Embarking On The Hero’s Journey.

By: A. D. Wayman

It is interesting for sure on what sort of situation people find themselves in when they realize they are caught in the metaphor and either wile embarking on a mission or finding themselves in the middle of one. Here we will view such an example from Hindu, Judaism and Christianity. Each responds in a different way and each will count the costs of embarking on the Hero’s journey some will be successful and others will not, but all will in the end learn from the experience. Such a journey can be a fair and foul thing.

One of my favorite lines written in the Juan Mascaro’s english translation of the Bahagavad Gita publish by Penguin Classics starts as follows

“On the field of Truth, on the battle-field of life, what came to pass, Sanjaya, when my sons and their warriors faced those of my brother Pandu.”

It seems that all such battles with-in start in such a way and here even at the start of the first lines of the Gita it takes us directly to the place where conflicts arise. Arjuna, sitting between the two lines of friends and family on both sides and one looks this way and that across the divide and falls into despair. For one realizes that the mission you were consumed by or found yourself on will cause great consequences for everyone who meet on such a field. In 1:28-29 of the text we can feel the distress of Arjuna at being in the center of such a conflict, a conflict that we may have found ourselves in at some point in our lives.

“When Arjuna thus saw his kinsmen face to face in both lines of battle, he was overcome by grief and despair and thus he spoke with a sinking heart. When I see all my Kinsmen, Krishna, who have come here on this field of battle, Life goes from my limbs and they sink, and my mouth is sear and dry: a trembling overcomes my body, and my hair shudders in horror.”1

Jumping across the spectrum of heroes we find a text about one who seems something other then such, but it speaks volumes on the different reaction to the journey and the trials that face us. Unlike Arjuna, who is distressed and finds himself in the middle of a conflict we find one who decides that running might be an option. Even though he runs, he is still consumed and is forced to take the journey. The task at hand was only delayed for a short time. In the account of Jonah, from the Hebrew Tanakh, we read of the distress of Jonah from the belly of the Whale that again many of us have found our selves in at some point in our lives. Whether it is represented as death or a whale in literature, it is a long, hard, dark, and frightening path to walk.

“Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish. He said: In my trouble I called to the LORD, And He answered me; From the belly of Sheol I cried out, And You heard my voice. You cast me into the depths, Into the heart of the sea, The floods engulfed me; All Your breakers and billows Swept over me. I thought I was driven away Out of Your sight: Would I ever gaze again Upon Your holy Temple? The waters closed in over me, The deep engulfed me. Weeds twined around my head. I sank to the base of the mountains; The bars of the earth closed upon me forever. Yet You brought my life up from the pit, O LORD my God! When my life was ebbing away, I called the LORD to mind; And my prayer came before You, Into Your holy Temple. They who cling to empty folly Forsake their own welfare, But I, with loud thanksgiving, Will sacrifice to You; What I have vowed I will perform. Deliverance is the LORD’s” Jonah 2:1-9 NJPS-TNK

And as we know from this beautiful piece of literature Jonah then completes his mission, although he is unhappy with the results, which in its self might be a great lesson about what, or how we interpret the outcome of our journeys. It may not always make us happy or turn out the way one expects.

Crossing into more modern times we come to the beginning of the text Dante’s Inferno.

“Midway the path of life that men pursue

I found me in a darkling wood astray,

For the direct way had been lost to view.

Ah me, how hard a thing it is to say

What was this thorny wildwood intricate

Whose memory renews the first dismay!

Scarcely in death is bitterness more great:

But as concerns the good discovered there

The other things I saw will I relate.

In the midway of this our mortal life,

I found me in a gloomy wood, astray

Gone from the path direct: and e’en to tell,

It were no easy task, how savage wild

That forest, how robust and rough its growth,

Which to remember only, my dismay

Renews, in bitterness not far from death.

Yet, to discourse of what there good befel,

All else will I relate discover’d there.” 2

Many other texts would qualify for such a place here, the Epic of Baal, the Decent of Ishtar, the Decent of Ra, the Odyssey of Homer and many more. What is interesting about Dante however as he presses on to the lower depths, he seemingly becomes less and less afraid of the horrible sights he encounters. Possibly he is becoming immune to the horrors of the under world and is becoming desensitized to its horrors? We find a moving passage near the end of the epic poem when Dante climes out of the pit, after scaling Satan himself. Which at times is where such a journey might lead us.

“I clipp’d him round the neck; for so he bade:

And noting time and place, he, when the wings

Enough were oped, caught fast the shaggy sides,

And down from pile to pile descending stepp’d

Between the thick fell and the jagged ice.

Soon as he reach’d the point, whereat the thigh

Upon the swelling of the haunches turns,

My leader there, with pain and struggling hard,

Turn’d round his head where his feet stood before,

And grappled at the fell as one who mounts;

That into Hell methought we turn’d again.”3

And finally we read of the assent into light, the end of the journey.

“To the fair world: and heedless of repose

We climb’d, he first, I following his steps,

Till on our view the beautiful lights of Heaven

Dawn’d through a circular opening in the cave:

Thence issuing we again beheld the stars.” 4

In other literature some heroes are not so lucky and neither are those heroes in the here and now. Each one of us will have a different outcome; each will have a different wars, whales, or Satans to scale. Some never return and we who are left behind only can say they were brave enough to at least start such an epic journey and be inspired by such acts of heroic deeds. Others after having gone so far to find what we are looking far have it stolen along the way such as in the text of Gilgamesh when the serpent steals the plant of everlasting life. But no matter the outcome we may all be heroes one way or another. But we first have to start the journey.

1. Mascara, Juan. The Bhagavad Gita. Penguin Classics, New York, NY 1962.
2. Cary, Henery F. The Divine Comedy of Dante. Canto I
3. Cary, Henery F. The Divine Comedy of Dante. Canto 34
4. Cary, Henery F. The Divine Comedy of Dante. Canto 34