Don’t Know Much About® Mythology (24 page)

With these many groups and influences merging and mingling, Canaan was a land of many gods and cults, but one group of Canaanite gods was most widely worshipped. Its chief deity was known as
El
—which means “god” in ancient Semitic languages. The supreme god El, often depicted as a man wearing bull’s horns, was creator of the universe. Benevolent and all-knowing, El was a somewhat remote god. His consort was Asherah, a goddess who is related to Ishtar (Inanna).

At some point in this region’s history, the Canaanite El was merged with the one god of the Hebrews, called
Yahweh
, who gave Moses the Ten Commandments. The significance of the divine name El is clear from the Hebrew words that include it, such as Beth-El, which means “house of God.” This was the name given to the spot where the biblical Jacob dreamed of a stairway to heaven—often interpreted as a ziggurat. Jacob took the stone on which his head was lying when he dreamed, stood it upright, and anointed it with oil. Piles of standing stones were traditionally constructed in Canaanite fertility cults. In a later scene in Genesis, Jacob wrestled with a mysterious stranger—also a typical mythical theme—who proves to be El himself. After this wrestling match Jacob’s name was changed to Isra-el, interpreted as “he strives with God.” He became the father of twelve sons, each of whom headed one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Again, the influence of “pagan” mythology on biblical faith is no small matter.

While the Canaanite El would be merged into the Jewish ideal of one god, Canaan’s other chief deity did not fare so well. Canaanite mythology was especially concerned with fertility, and to the Canaanites,
Baal
was the most significant abundance god. Baal (which means “lord”), whose name is connected to the Mesopotamian Bel (another name for Marduk), would go down in biblical history as a figure of supreme evil.

In a story that mirrored the victory of Marduk over Tiamat, Baal defeats Yam, another dragonlike sea god. With that victory, Baal—like his Babylonian counterpart Marduk—assumed the role of chief god. When his archenemy,
Mot
, lord of the underworld, invited Baal to come to the underworld, Baal accepted the invitation, hoping to overcome Mot and take control of the underworld, too. But when Mot forced Baal to eat mud, considered the food of the dead, Baal died. With the death of the god of plenty, all of the crops on earth died as well.

While El and the other gods in heaven mourned the dead Baal, Baal’s wife
Anat
(the Canaanite counterpart to Inanna-Ishtar), descended to the underworld, and killed Mot with a sickle. Anat then burned him and ground him, treating the god of the dead like harvested wheat. With Mot’s death, Baal was revived, life returned to earth, and the crops grew once more. But Mot returned to life and fought with Baal until the latter agreed to return to the underworld for a few months of the year, establishing the mythical reason for the season change.

Canaanite religion centered on worship of Baal, who was also responsible for the rain. According to their beliefs, the rains came when Baal had sex, with his semen falling in the form of life-giving rain. Most likely, Canaanite rituals included priests having sex, apparently coupling with women, men, and even animals, if the Hebrew accounts are to be believed. Many of the Mosaic Laws of the Old Testament included laws against incest, bestiality, transvestitism, temple prostitution, and idol worship, all of which may have been typical elements of Canaanite worship. The famous scene in
The Ten Commandments
in which the Jews melt their jewelry, which is then turned into a golden calf, was a reference to Baal worship—and, by extension, to Marduk, who was also called the “bull of heaven.”

Many of the Old Testament accounts of Jewish history continue the theme of two contending beliefs—the one god of Judaism against the many false gods of the Canaanites. The final insult paid to Baal by the Hebrews was a pun that changed his name and connected it to another familiar biblical word, Beelzebub. In an Old Testament story, an evil Jewish king, who is sick, requests help from the god he calls “Baalzebub.” This is a wordplay on the Canaanite name meaning “Lord Baal,” because in Hebrew, it was mockingly translated as “lord of the dung” or “lord of the flies.” By New Testament times, Beelzebub became associated with the name of Satan.

What’s a Canaanite demoness doing at a rock concert?

The third intriguing figure from Canaanite myth is a character who entered the American pop-culture pantheon in the 1990s through a series of female-oriented summer concerts called the Lilith Fest. The name Lilith comes from the Canaanite storm demon Lilitu, with perhaps deeper connections to the Mesopotamian goddess Ninlil. She has a most intriguing side story—Lilith was once thought to be Adam’s first wife, the predecessor to Eve.

There is no mention of Lilith in Genesis—and the only biblical reference to her at all is a single mention in the Book of Isaiah. But in folklore and in the Talmud—which is a collection of ancient commentaries on the Bible made by Jewish rabbis over many centuries—Lilith has a rich history.

The issue of Adam’s first wife arises because there are two Creation stories in Genesis. In the first, which describes the six-day Creation in poetic terms, men and women are created simultaneously, both in God’s image. The second version tells the longer, more folkloric story set in the Garden of Eden. In this version, man is formed first and woman only later, out of the man’s rib. Troubled by this discrepancy or contradiction in the two biblical accounts, early Jewish commentators suggested that the wife in Genesis 1 was a different woman from Eve. Some of these early biblical scholars proposed that she was Lilith.

In this old folk version told outside the Bible, God made Lilith, like Adam, out of clay, but he used unclean earth. When Adam and Lilith had sex, Lilith balked at being on the bottom all the time. Since she thought that they had been created equally, she wanted to be on top and made the mistake of uttering the unspeakable name of God. For this crime, Lilith was sent away and turned into a demon who haunted men in their sleep, causing the nocturnal emissions, which drained their fertility for ordinary women. She was also thought to cause barrenness and create miscarriages, and frighten babies in their sleep—perhaps a mythic explanation for the modern term “crib death” (or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).

With the sexually adventurous Lilith gone, the Jewish folklore went on, Adam was lonely, and God created Eve, a more docile woman. There is even the suggestion in some accounts that it was Lilith who came into the Garden of Eden in the guise of the serpent and tempted Eve to taste the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.

What are three Persian magicians doing in Bethlehem on Christmas?

Perhaps the most beloved of Christian holidays is Christmas, the day celebrating the birth of Jesus, the divine son of God, in Christian belief. It is also a holiday loaded with pagan trappings, hung, like too many ornaments, on the Christmas tree of lore and legend. One vestige of this pagan past is the familiar Nativity tale of “Three Wise Men”—also called “Three Kings”—from the East, who come to honor the newborn Christ child, lying in a manger in Bethlehem, with three famous gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The Gospel of Matthew describes these visitors as “magi,” translated from the Greek as “wise men,” who follow a miraculous star to Bethlehem. Though their number and names are never specified in the biblical account, “three wise men” are presumed because there are three gifts. Only in medieval times were they given the names Melchior, Balthasar, and Gaspar.

So who were these “wise men”?

Magi were the hereditary members of a Persian priesthood, known for interpreting omens and dreams, for their astrological skills, and for practicing magic (“magi” is where the word “magician” comes from). This vast knowledge of rituals gained them the reputation as the true priests of
Zoroastrianism
, a religion founded by a Persian prophet named Zoroaster. Little is known of Zoroaster (the more widely used Greek for the Persian name Zarathustra), except that Zoroastrian tradition places him as living around 600 BCE. But many scholars believe that he lived between 1400 and 1000 BCE.

Zoroastrianism holds a belief in one god,
Ahura Mazda
, who created all things. Zoroaster also taught that the earth is a battleground where a great struggle is taking place between the spirits of good and evil. Ahura Mazda calls upon everyone to fight in this struggle, and each person will be judged at death on how well he or she fought. It is not known whether the magi, whose practices predate Zoroaster, influenced the prophet Zoroaster, or if they became his followers. But the magi became part of Zoroastrian belief and were said to keep watch upon a “Mount of the Lord” until a great star appeared that would signal the coming of a savior. In other words, centuries before Jesus was born, a Middle Eastern religion flourished with one god, a battle between good and evil, a judgment day, and resurrection.

The connection between ancient Persia and Christmas doesn’t end there.
Mithra
was an ancient sun god of the Aryan tribes who settled in ancient Persia. According to Zoroastrian traditions, Mithra was said to be an ally of the supreme god Ahura Mazda, and under Ahura Mazda’s leadership, Mithra and other gods fought against the Zoroastrian god of evil.

The Persians spread the worship of Mithra throughout Asia Minor during the period when they dominated Mesopotamia and the Middle East, from about 539 BCE, under King Cyrus, until they were defeated by the Greeks in two wars fought between 490 and 480 BCE. The Persian Empire later fell to Alexander the Great in 330 BCE. Mithraism survived the Persian Empire’s fall and eventually became popular in Rome, especially among Roman soldiers. Shrines to Mithra often showed the god slaying a bull, a rite that symbolized the renewal of creation. This ritual supposedly bestowed immortality on Mithra’s worshippers, one reason it appealed to soldiers facing combat.

During Roman times, Mithraism ranked as a principal religion competing with Christianity, until the 300s CE. Among its several similarities to Christianity—including a resurrection, judgment day, a Satan-like figure, and guardian spirits much like angels—was a holy day celebrated in Rome on December 25. In 350 CE, Pope Julius I chose this day as the official date of the celebration of Jesus’ birth. (Other connections between Roman pagan traditions and Christmas can be found in chapter 4,
What were the Bacchanalia and the Saturnalia?
)
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