![]() ![]() Certainly her cult predated the Hebrews by many centuries, and when the Philistines slaughtered Saul, the first king of Israel, they could think of no better tribute than to place his battle armor in her temple as a tribute. The ancient Hebrew prophets denounced her cult many times, most likely because she was worshiped with sexual fertility rites. The Hebrew Bible also calls this same goddess Astarte. He was probably tied to the Mesopotamian cult of Ishtar, which in turn was probably derived from the very ancient Sumerian mother goddess Inanna. In any event, Baal’s cult came to an abrupt end with the Roman sack of Carthage in 146 B.C.Īnother popular goddess worshiped in the days of the Bible was Ashtaroth, a deity associated with sexuality and fertility, and by some peoples war. We are not surprised to find his name incorporated into the name of the great Carthaginian general Hannibal who harried Fabius Maximus and the generals of Rome with his wonderful elephants. In post-biblical archeology, we note that the cult of Baal was taken by the Phoenicians to North Africa, where he was worshiped by the Carthaginian peoples. It was as if to say that even the great patriarch himself did not sacrifice his son, but it was only a test of his faith, and so too good Hebrews must not follow the practice of the people of the land however tempted they were. ![]() It has been suggested that the famous story of Abraham’s sacrifice of his son Isaac, when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son and then forbade the sacrifice at the last moment, was told to the ancients as a dramatic and instructive narrative which commanded the Hebrews not to follow the pagan cults of the land. The god or gods called Baal normally required the sacrifice of children, often the first-born male child, by sacrifice by fire. But the worship of the god was not so easily extinguished. When the prophets of Baal failed to do so, Elijah’s God did so, resulting in the slaughter of the prophets of Baal by an angry mob. It was this Israelite worship of Baal which was challenged by the Hebrew prophet Elijah in his famous conflict with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel in I Kings 18, when he challenged the false prophets to bring down fire from heaven. The best known of these was the cult of the Syrian god Melqart, worshiped by King Ahab of Israel and his “wicked” wife Jezebel. Over the centuries, however, the cults of the “Baalim” became merged and several specific larger cults developed. An example of a local baal cult is called “Baal-peor” mentioned in Numbers 25:3, where the Israelites disgraced themselves in some sexual rites with the Moabites and worshiped the local god, incurring the wrath and punishment of their own God. Perhaps the best known ancient rival to the Hebrew God was the pagan Baal, a term which means “master” or Rlord”, and is probably originally a general term for a variety of local deities in the area in and near the holy land. Even in the pages of the Hebrew Bible, there were many alternatives to the Lord God of Israel, and in this article we will consider three of the now largely forgotten deities who once opposed Him, who alone is most great. Whatever else those three faiths might say, they would agree with Psalm 95:3, that “The Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods.”īut God is not and has not been without his rivals, even in antiquity. The Jews, the Christians and the Muslims, among others, all accord the ancient Hebrew God their devotion. That the Hebrew God is the best known of all gods worshiped in the world today needs no explanation. ![]()
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