Canaanite Religion

The Levantine world of El and Baal from which Israelite religion first emerged.

c. 2000 – 500 BCE · Levant · Ancient Near East

Known largely through the Ugaritic tablets, Canaanite religion honored a divine council led by the father-god El, with the storm-god Baal and goddess Asherah among its major figures. Its vocabulary and imagery — even the name and titles of El — carried directly into early Israelite religion, which gradually distinguished itself by elevating one god, Yahweh, above and then against this shared pantheon.

Key figures

• El, the high father-god
• Baal, storm and fertility
• Asherah, the mother goddess

Texts

• Ugaritic tablets
• Ras Shamra myths

Beliefs

• A divine council under El
• Cycles of storm, drought, and fertility
• Sacrifice sustaining the cosmic order

Rituals

• High-place altars and sacrifice
• Seasonal fertility rites
• Offerings to a pantheon of gods

Grew from

• Mesopotamian Religion

Connections in the atlas

• The Mesha Stele
• Anat
• Eye of Horus (wedjat)
• ? How were Baalbek’s giant stones moved?
• Parallel texts: The god who dies and returns
• The word Allah
• The divine smith
• The Incense Route
• ▶ When the Bronze Age fell
• The Phoenicians
• ♀︎ Venus
• Rebirth and transformation