This may sound silly to us, but this is how the Israelites understood the supremacy of their God in an ancient polytheistic world. We also see God’s people “increasing and multiplying” throughout Genesis (e.g., 8:17; 17:2; 26:4; 28:14). Donate, Exodus, the Plagues, and the Cosmic Battle, B.B. When you think of Zeus, you probably imagine a bearded old man with a lightning bolt — not a horned demon from the gaping pits of hell. By trying to reduce the number of Israelites and then refusing to let them go, Pharaoh is putting himself in direct conflict with Israel’s God. Here again we have a “habitable” place for the people of God, a place where they are kept safe from the chaos. So it’s not surprising that the Phoenicians’ most recognizable god came to be cast as a symbol of pure evil. Go further west a few centuries later though, in the Phoenicians’ North African colony of Carthage, and it is pretty clear that another Baal did receive children as burnt offerings. The Greeks, for their part, associated Baal-Hamon with their primordial deity Cronus. “The message of Yam, your lord, of your master, Judge Nahar: ‘Give up, O gods, him whom you harbor, him whom the multitudes harbor! Like Marduk in Enuma Elish or Ugaritic Baal, conflict ends in the building of a residence suitable for the high god. One god in particular seems rather slighted by the Baal Cycle’s narrative: El, the high father god and former head of the Canaanite pantheon. What is for certain is that the ancient Israelites were not fans of Baal. Attend an Event In fact, Genesis 1:21 even mentions that God created the “great sea monsters” (another Hebrew word tanninim, taken from Canaanite mythology). Annual Reports Frogs come out of the Nile and multiply like rabbits. We have evidence that ancient Israelites elsewhere adopted the theomachy The plagues have been one long, deliberate movement toward a climax, the last stage of the battle—the parting of the Red Sea. The Red Sea is the final battle in Exodus, but there is one more scene we need to look at: Mt Sinai. After Marduk beats Tiamat, he is elevated as the high god of the Mesopotamian pantheon. Scene of her trail of destruction, her claims that she destroyed sea, -Anat and Baal approach Asherah; Anat and Asherah approach El to get “house” (i.e. The exodus was the formative experience for ancient Israelites—it is what made them a nation. It is very important that we resist a common Christian misconception of the law. But when Baal cooperates with others, he does have his uses. Now, this is how a people like you are to conduct themselves, toward me and toward others. on tablets found in Ugarit, a Canaanite city in what is now western Syria. We will look at other aspects of this theology in Exodus in my next post. It is also reflected in other portions of the Old Testament, like Ezekiel and Genesis 1. Sinai? This is already announced in 3:12 when Yahweh first appears to Moses in the burning bush: “When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”. And this was to be a reminder to them not to follow the Canaanite gods once settled in the land. But that does not mean that Genesis 1 escapes the cultural influence as we saw above. As Psalm 95 puts it “Yahweh is the great God, the great king above all gods” (v. 3). It’s unclear what exactly precipitates the first fight between Baal-Hadad and Yam, but fight they do, and what a battle it is. One example from Carthage: “It was to the Lady Tanit [Baal’s consort], Face of Baal and to Baal-Hammon that Bomilcar son of Hanno, grandson of Milkiathon, vowed this son of his own flesh. In the previous section, we looked at the “cosmic battle” motif in the Old Testament. If we approach the Old Testament expecting from it a “literal,” “historical,” “accurate” account of creation, we will (1) misrepresent reality in the name of faith, and (2) miss the theology that the biblical authors were so intent on putting there. Some examples are the following: It is clear that Israel’s understanding of creation included a “cosmic battle” where Yahweh is victorious over the sea. As we have seen, the plagues describe a battle scene between Yahweh and the gods.

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