Ba'al's Relations with Canaanite Goddesses

[ikhet_sekhmet]

A few notes from this chapter of Religion in the Ancient World:

• "It is also striking that Ba'al and Osiris, the dying fertility gods, each have two goddesses caring for them: Isis and Nephthys for Osiris, 'Ashtart and 'Anat for Baal." (Hmm, adds Kate: in the "Contendings of Horus and Seth", Seth gets 'Ashtart and 'Anat as wives. Ishtar and Anat do seem like a natural pairing - or even a redoubling of the same goddess? While I'm thinking out loud, is there any connection between the Sumerian ninan "lady of heaven" and the Egyptian nbt pt "mistress of heaven"?)
  
  
• And in one myth, "El apparently mates with both Athirat and 'Anat". The dirty old man. Colless suggests that the lyre-playing figure at the right of this drawing of "Yahweh and his Asherah" may be 'Anat, as she plays a lyre in the Ba'al myth. ("A tenuous little link", to quote Kenny Everett.)
  
  
• There's a male Ugaritic god, 'Ashtar, whose name is cognate with Ishtar, but is not the same deity as 'Ashtart. Ishtar appears as Ba'al's consort in a myth "only preserved in a tattered state, in a Hittite version."
  
  
• "Deities are like words: some of them maintain their original meaning throughout the ages, but some of them shift their ground and acquire new functions over time."
  
  
• Colless debates whether 'Anat or 'Ashtart was the Biblical "Queen of Heaven", mentioning that 'Anat-Bet'el and 'Anat-Yahu were worshipped at Elephantine alongside Yahweh.
  
  
• Meanwhile in the Sinai peninsula, where the Egyptians got their turquoise, proto-alphabetic inscriptions use the title Ba'alat ("goddess") and name three goddesses: Elat, Tanit, and 'Anat. "Tanit has been variously identified as 'Ashtart, 'Anat, or Ashirat, but she may be a completely separate personage."

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Colless, Brian. "Ba'al's Relations with Canaanite Goddesses." in Matthew Dillon (ed). Religion in the Ancient World. Amsterdam : A.M. Hakkert, 1996.