The Old Testament has many references to gods other than Yahweh, and scholars have spent more than a century trying to sort them all out. Baal is one of the Canaanite gods, mentioned often in the OT without much explanation; the Bible usually only cares that he was an idol that many Israelites worshiped.

Though the OT doesn’t tell us much about the Canaanite’s religion, the people originally writing and reading the OT did know more, and so it can help us understand what’s going on if we’re familiar with the stories the Canaanites told about Baal. Here is a synopsis of perhaps the most popular account. I leave out several characters, but I try to capture the heart of the story:

The story begins with El, the head of the pantheon, pictured as an old many with a grey beard sitting upon a throne as judge of the gods. While the gods pay El respect as a figurehead, his son Baal is the mighty warrior, the storm god and “Rider of the Clouds,” the giver of rain to the earth, and the one whom the gods actually obey.

But El also has another son named Sea, who is alienated from the royal family. At one of the royal feasts, while the gods eat and drink, Sea sends messengers to seize Baal so he can usurp his throne. Most of the gods are terrified, and El quickly acquiesces, ready to hand over his son.

But Baal refuses with an impassioned speech: “Lift up your heads, O gods! –– off your knees, off your princely thrones –– And let me answer Sea’s messengers!” Baal strikes the messengers, then enlists the help of a craftsman named Kotaru to carve two maces for the fight against his brother. Baal finds Sea, strikes him dead, and maintains his princely throne.

In celebration, Baal throws a great feast, after which he demands that a temple be built for him on Mount Zaphon, the great mountain to the north of Canaan. After clearing the idea with El and the chief goddess, the craftsman Kotaru is summoned again, and Baal gets his temple. In celebration, he hosts yet another feast, and the gods eat and drink yet again.

However, feeling proud of his new temple, Baal sends a boastful message to Death, who is king of the underworld and another rival to Baal’s power. Death replies with a threat: “Invite me, Baal…and eat bread with my brothers, drink wine with my kin! Have you forgotten, Baal, that I can pierce you through?” Baal is frightened and backs off his boast, but Death soon finds him and kills him anyway.

Baal’s sister Anatu, distraught at his death, wonders how the world will survive with the rain-god dead. While the other gods try in vain to find an apt replacement to fill Baal’s throne, Anatu goes instead to Death for vengeance. She cuts, burns, and grinds Death to pieces, setting Baal free to return to life.

Though Death somehow survives the drubbing, Baal reemerges as ruler of the gods, taking revenge on the rest of his foes and thwarting Death’s plots against him. The story ends with Baal on his rightful throne as ruler of the gods.

This story raises some helpful points for understanding what mythology is:

  • The names of the gods are often symbolic: Sea and Death make obvious appearances in the translation I’ve used here; also, El means God and Baal means Lord.
  • Symbolism is key for the story. Baal is the storm-god who brings rain to the land of Canaan, which allows the crops to grow so people can feed their children. Sea is a sort of chaos-monster; the ocean has sea-monsters like Leviathan and waves that sink ships. For Baal to conquer Sea means for the powers of order (e.g., predictable crop cycles) to conquer the powers of chaos, so that people can live safe lives.
  • The other key point of symbolism is that Baal is killed by Death, but he only stays dead for a time. In an ancient agricultural society, people had to reckon with life and death every year, and the reality of winters––when crops didn’t grow and the land seemed to die––brought fear and uncertainty. The Baal myth reminds the people that even though a time of death (winter) comes each year, the rain-god only stays dead for a time, after which he comes to life again in spring.
  • I don’t know how seriously people took this as a literal story, but its purpose was religious, not historical. It helped the Canaanites understand the god they worshipped, not specific historical events.
  • Certainly Baal doesn’t live up to the ideas of God in Jewish and Christian scriptures –– for example, that he is just, unchanging, and intimately concerned with people. The portrait of Baal corresponds instead to something the Canaanites perceived: that whoever provided rain was fickle and inconsistent.

The Hebrew scriptures are generally more interested in what God does in history than in myth, which is why the exodus from Egypt receives so much attention. However, the OT also uses mythical images borrowed from Israel’s Canaanite neighbors.

In some passages, the OT texts seem to “demythologize” these myths, at least in part, so that Yahweh isn’t actually fighting a war against other gods. An example of this is Genesis 1: Yahweh brings order (land) out of the watery chaos, but he doesn’t have to fight any Sea-God in order to do it. And rather than describing Yahweh warring against astral deities, Genesis 1 describes how Yahweh created the sun, moon, and stars as objects, such that they’re aren’t gods at all, as other peoples thought them to be.

In other passages, however, OT scriptures use the myths themselves as apparent descriptions of what Yahweh actually did. An example is Psalm 74:12-14: “Yet God my King is from old, working salvation in the earth. You divided Sea by your might; you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan.” Here God basically takes on the role of Baal from the epic above: reigning as king, fighting Sea and the dragons within him. The psalmist also applies this myth to the historical situation (he’s asking why God has allowed Jerusalem to be conquered), but he seems to have no problem with describing Yahweh using myth.

The point here isn’t that the OT is a collection of “myths,” which most people would assume to simply mean stories that aren’t true. Rather, myth is a literary genre used to argue something theological, not to recount something historical. We should consider that some authors can use myths that aren’t meant to be taken literally in order to paint images of their gods, and that in fact our Bible uses some of those images to describe our God, Yahweh.

See also my earlier post on the names of Baal and Yahweh.