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This masterly book is the climax of over twenty-five years of study of the impact of Canaanite religion and mythology on ancient Israel and the Old Testament. It is John Day's magnum opus in which he sets forth all his main arguments and conclusions on the subject. The work considers in detail the relationship between Yahweh and the various gods and goddesses of Canaan, including the leading gods El and Baal, the great goddesses (Asherah, Astarte and Anat), astral deities (Sun, Moon and Lucifer), and underworld deities (Mot, Resheph, Molech and the Rephaim). Day assesses both what Yahwism assimilated from these deities and what it came to reject. More generally he discusses the impact of Canaanite polytheism on ancient Israel and how monotheism was eventually achieved.
This volume provides a lengthy introduction and detailed translation and commentary for the first two tablets of the Baal Cycle, which witnesses to both the religious worldview of Ugarit and many of the formative religious concepts and images in the Bible.
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This groundbreaking, first basic reference work on ancient religious beliefs collects and organizes available information on ten ancient cultures and traditions, including Greece, Rome, and Mesopotamia, and offers an expansive, comparative perspective on each one.
There are a multitude of female figures represented in the art of the ancient Near East and it has often been proved difficult to differentiate them. This study presents a collection of visual source material on godesses from Egypt, Ugarit, Syria and Palestine from c,1500 to 1000 BC. An introduction to the subject and previous research precedes a discussion of iconographic types (armed, seated, standing, equestrian and named women holding objects) and media (including reliefs, seals and amulets, bronze figurines, ivories and ostraca). Cornelius devises a typology of attributes for the goddess Anat, Astarte, Qedeshet and Asherah in order to define their individual qualities and provide a means by which these goddesses can be differentiated. Includes a large descriptive catalogue.
Religion.
There is still much disagreement over the origins and development of Israelite religion. Mark Smith sets himself the task of reconstructing the cult of Yahweh, the most important deity in Israel's early religion, and tracing the transformation of that deity into the sole god - the development of monotheism.
A revised edition containing new chapters on the Shekhina.
One of the leading scholars of ancient West Semitic religion discusses polytheism vs. monotheism by covering the fluidity of those categories in the ancient Near East. He argues that Israel's social history is key to the development of monotheism.