Ugaritic and Biblical Literature – Mark S. Smith

The Ugaritic texts, first discovered 1929, furnish a rich resource for understanding the kingdom of Late Bronze Age Ugarit, now called Ras Shamra (literally Cape Fennel), located on the north Syrian coast of the Mediterranean.¹ Ugaritic was among the eight different languages and five different scripts attested at Ugarit.²As the first texts were excavated, deciphered, and translated, it became clear that Ugaritic was a Semitic language like Phoenician and Hebrew. The site of Ugarit emerged as a polyglot and cosmopolitan port that included Hittites, Babylonians, Hurrians, and Egyptians, as well as Canaanites that lived to the south of Ugarit.

During the many seasons of excavation conducted at and near Ugarit since 1929, about two thousand Ugaritic texts have been found. Most are clay tablets, often damaged over the centuries. They include myths and legends, lists of gods and goddesses, sacrificial offerings and other rituals, diplomatic correspondence, legal records, remedies for horses’ ailments, lists of word equivalents in the various languages used in the city, and the oldest complete alphabet, with an order substantially the same as our own. The main myths and epics were found in the environs of the city’s temple district, and most had the same scribe, named Ilimilku. His clear, precise touch with reed on damp clay is unmistakable, and he occasionally signed his work in scribal notes called colophons at the end or on the side of a tablet. Ilimilku copied these texts under the aegis of the chief priest, subsidized by Niqmaddu, king of Ugarit, one of at least three kings of the city with that name. This Niqmaddu reigned in either the mid-14th century or the late 13th century bce.³

Unlike biblical literature, the Ugaritic texts show a wealth of narrative poetry, often called myths and epics⁴; a fair collection of rituals (cf. Leviticus); hundreds of administrative or economic lists (cf. the lists in Num. 13, Josh. 12, and 1 Kings 4); scribal exercises, some with the alphabet (cf. the abecedaries preserved in Hebrew inscriptions, as well as biblical poems arranged as alphabetic acrostics, such as Ps. 119 and 145, and Lam. 1, 2, 3, and 4). The Ugaritic texts are lacking in prose narratives and royal annals (like Genesis-Kings, Ezra-Nehemiah-Chronicles), prophetic texts (such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the minor prophets), collections of wisdom literature (such as Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, or Ben Sira), court tales (e.g., Gen. 39–48, Esther, Dan. 1–6) or apocalyptic (e.g., Dan. 7–12). They include some legal texts, but lack the sort of long, legal sections found in the Pentateuch (Exod. 21–23, Deut. 12–26). Love poetry⁵ and laments⁶, as well as curses, blessings, and vows⁷, are embedded in Ugaritic narrative texts (cf. poems incorporated in prose narrative in the Bible in Gen. 49; Exod. 15; Num. 21–24; Deut. 32 and 33; Josh. 10; Judg. 5; 1 Sam. 2; and 2 Sam. 1, 22, and 23). The Ugaritic corpus contains only a single example of a clear prayer (or more accurately, an instruction for prayer in case of a siege) as well as one clear hymn, though other texts have been considered hymns, in contrast to the many prayers, hymns, and other related genres in the books of Psalms and Lamentations.⁸ Overall the genres of the Hebrew Bible show more commonality with Mesopotamian literature, which is suggestive of their formation in the monarchic period and later.⁹ However, Ugaritic texts reflect the older background of the Hebrew Bible’s many literary and religious traditions; even the name of Israel appears to be attested in Ugaritic.¹⁰ The shared materials are mentioned in passing in the following survey of the genres of Ugaritic texts. Afterwards other features are addressed, specifically, language and poetry and Ugaritic and Israelite gods and goddesses.

The Genres of the Ugaritic Texts

Language and Poetry

The preceding summary mentions many biblical parallels for the Ugaritic texts mentioned. These do not fully convey the literary and religious parallels with biblical literature. The following discussion begins with language and poetry, and then turns to the gods and goddesses of Ugarit and ancient Israel.

The local language of Ugarit is closely related to biblical Hebrew and other ancient languages of the region, including Phoenician and Aramaic. The twenty-seven consonants of Ugaritic match closely to other Semitic languages such as Arabic (Aramaic, Hebrew, and Phoenician have twenty-two to twenty-three consonants). The grammar and vocabulary of Ugaritic likewise correspond closely with Phoenician and Hebrew. Like most documents written in those languages, the Ugaritic texts were written almost entirely without vowels, like texts written in modern Hebrew and Arabic.

The poetic techniques used by the ancient authors of the Ugaritic texts have much in common with those employed in the Bible.¹⁹ As in biblical poetry, the chief formal characteristic of Ugaritic verse consists of matching lines (what scholars often call parallelism), a characteristic not lost in translation. A parallelistic unit typically consists of two or three lines (called a bicolon or a tricolon). They often match in terms of meaning (what scholars call “synonymous parallelism”), as in the following lines:

• Let me tell you, Prince Baal,
• let me repeat, Rider on the Clouds:
• Now, your enemy, Baal,
• now you will kill your enemy,
• now you will annihilate your foe.
• You will take your eternal kingship,
• your dominion forever and ever.

This speech consists of a tricolon framed by two bicola; each is marked by repetitive and synonymous parallelism. Not only the technique but the lines themselves are familiar from the Hebrew Bible:

• Behold your enemies, Yahweh,
• behold, your enemies perish,
• all evildoers are scattered. (Psalm 92:9 [Hebrew 92:10])
• Your kingship is an eternal kingship,
• your dominion is forever and ever. (Psalm 145:13)

This similarity in style and formula is not surprising, given the shared tradition of Ugaritic and Israelite poets.

Synonymous parallelism may cause some puzzlement, as in the divine command to Kirta:

• Take a lamb in your hand,
• a sacrificial lamb in your right hand,
• a young animal in both your hands.

A literal reading of this poetic unit might lead readers to think that the hero is to handle three animals at once. However, the parallelism is impressionistic, not cumulative, and only one lamb is in question.

The use of numbers in parallelism may also be confusing. The synonym for any number (x) is the next higher unit (x + 1). The favorite numbers used in this way are three and four, seven and eight, and one thousand and ten thousand; ten thousand is the next unit after one thousand. Extended use of this technique is found in Proverbs 30:18–31 and Amos 1:3–2:8, and individual examples in both Ugaritic and biblical poetry are too numerous to catalog here.

Also characteristic of Ugaritic poetry is the use of epithets; such titles are common in the Iliad and the Odyssey as well. Thus, Baal is often called “the Rider on the Clouds” (compare the designation of Zeus as “the Cloud-gatherer”) or “Dagan’s son”; Sea is given the parallel titles “Prince Sea” and “Judge River”; El is “the Kind, the Compassionate,” “the Bull,” “the Father of Time,” and “the Father of Humanity” (see The Odyssey 1.28); and Danil is regularly described as “the Hero.” There are standard descriptions of banquets and journeys, the saddling of a donkey for riding, the offering of a sacrifice, and the arrival of a deity at El’s home. Such often-repeated formulas may seem like clichés, but it should be kept in mind that ancient audiences, whether Ugaritic or Greek, heard such texts rather than read them. Repetition organized the narrative for audiences, and it also provided a canvas for presenting occasional dramatic departure from expected norms of storytelling.

There are also many common motifs, such as the measurement of time in periods of seven days or seven years. This occurs five times in the story of Aqhat, as well as elsewhere in the texts. One application of the seven-year formula is to alternating periods of plenty and famine, as in Pharaoh’s dream in the biblical story of Joseph (Gen. 41:26–32); the same motif is found in Egyptian and Mesopotamian sources. In the Baal Cycle, Baal’s victory over Death extended for seven years, during which the land was productive. Throughout a corresponding seven-year cycle the forces of sterility prevailed over the storm god, as Danil’s curse implies:

• For seven years Baal may fail,
• eight, the Rider on the Clouds:
• no dew, no showers,
• no surging of the two seas,
• no benefit of Baal’s voice.

For the alternation of famine and plenty the entire seven-year period was significant; in other instances the emphasis is on the seventh day or year itself. Thus, it was on the seventh day of Danil’s incubation rite in the temple that Baal intercedes for him and El blesses him, just as it is on the seventh day that God called to Moses on the cloud-covered mountain (Exod. 24:16). Similarly, only on the seventh day of the Kotharats’ ritual in the story of Aqhat did Danil and his wife succeed in conceiving a son; one of the themes of the first account of creation in the Bible is the importance of the seventh day, the Sabbath; and, in a final dramatic example, the fall of Jericho occurred on the seventh day after seven priests with seven trumpets marched seven times around the city (Josh. 6:12–20). Seven days is the standard length of a journey (Kirta, tablet 1; Gen. 31:23) and of a wedding feast (Judg. 14:12); the firing of Baal’s palace takes a week as well. In these and other examples it is difficult to see more than literary convention in the choice of seven. But the alteration of the traditional mourning period from seven days (as in Job 2:13) to seven years after Aqhat’s murder is a dramatic one.

As this examination of parallelism, epithets, and formulas illustrates, ancient poets, whether Ugaritic or Israelite, were conventional.²⁰ So were literary type scenes as noted above with the divine council scene in both the Baal Cycle and Psalm 82. Traditional techniques and motifs were preserved, with modifications, for at least a millennium. Yet the Israelites’ indebtedness to their predecessors was not merely linguistic and literary.

Gods and Goddesses of Ugarit and Ancient Israel

Despite biblical prohibitions against other gods and goddesses, the Bible contains many references to many deities known also in the Ugaritic texts. The Bible’s references suggest that despite its proscriptions, other deities were worshipped by Israelites. These deities are often major characters in the Ugaritic stories, and they are the focus of many other texts, especially rituals, not to mention architectural remains and religious art. Here is a brief introduction to the Ugaritic pantheon that draws on various sources.²¹

The presiding head of the pantheon was El as his titles, “the King” and “the Father of Gods,” indicate. In the lists of deities and of the offerings made to them, El generally precedes the other major gods. El’s name is a common noun meaning “god.” Its precise etymology is uncertain: two major theories derive it from roots meaning “strong” and “first.” In his role as head of the pantheon, El is attested elsewhere. Compare, for example, the Arabic cognate “Allah,” which literally means “the god” or simply “God”; the epithets “the Merciful” and “the Kind” used of Allah are strikingly close to the Ugaritic designations of El as “the Kind, the Compassionate.” The home of El, “the Creator of Creatures,” is a mountain from whose base flow the two rivers that are the source of all fresh water in the world. In Ugaritic art, El is depicted as a bearded patriarchal figure. His behavior at a drinking feast, as described in one tablet, is hardly dignified.

One of the issues connected with El is how to assess his importance in Ugaritic religion. In the Baal Cycle, Baal becomes king of the pantheon, expressed in his boast, “I alone rule over the gods.” This claim is echoed by the goddesses Anat and Asherah. Yet in the surviving stories El is not an impotent ruler. It is he, and no other god, who can cure Kirta; it is he to whom Baal turns for help for Danil and whose permission Anat requests to take her revenge on Aqhat; and, significantly, it is he who sides against Death in Baal’s favor. While El was the presiding head of the pantheon, and active in stories such as Aqhat and Kirta, Baal is likewise an important god, and the Baal Cycle perhaps reflects this view. There seems to be a sort of co-regency between El as the executive power and Baal as the military power in the cosmos.

Baal,whose name means “lord,” is the Ugaritic warrior god, a storm-god whose rains generate agricultural fertility and whose lightning and thunder may terrify enemies. He is also the city’s divine patron, as expressed by his title “Lord of Ugarit.” One of the two large temples discovered at Ras Shamra is dedicated to him. Baal’s home is on Mount Sapan (Saphon in Hebrew), a high peak north of Ugarit that is likely the modern Mount Aqra, and is visible from Ras Shamra. Mount Sapan itself had divine status, as Baal conveys in his invitation to Anat in the Baal Cycle: “Come, and I will reveal it: in the midst of my mountain, divine Sapan.” Baal is depicted on a stela from Ras Shamra with a club in one hand and a lightning bolt in the other, and in the texts he is often given the accouterments of a storm—clouds, wind, and rain.

Three goddesses appear regularly in the stories: Astarte, mentioned mostly in passing, Asherah, and Anat (the meanings of their names are debated). The latter two have significant though not dominant roles in the myths, for Ugaritic religious thought, like Ugaritic society, was patriarchal. Asherah is El’s consort and the mother of the gods. The only goddess with a vivid character is Anat.²² She is Baal’s sister, and is closely identified with him as a successful opponent of Sea, Death, and other destructive powers. Her fierce temper is directed against gods and mortals alike. With her thirst for violence and her macabre trappings—a necklace of human heads, a belt of human hands—Anat resembles the Hindu goddess Kali.

The craftsman of the gods, Kothar-wa-Hasis, whose double-name means “skillful and wise,” was thought to live far away, either in Crete to the west or in Egypt to the south. This corresponds to a dependence on foreign artisans for both inspiration and execution. Mycenaean painted pottery was discovered at Ugarit, but the most significant source of motifs in the local art was Egyptian. Like Hephaestus, the divine craftsman of the Greek pantheon, Kothar is a master artisan whose skill provides the gods—and occasionally chosen mortals—with weapons and palaces, but unlike his Greek counterpart he also offers prophetic words and divinatory spells.

Finally, Mot (death), Baal’s adversary and antithesis, embodies the forces of sterility and drought. The Levantine landscape is divided into three general areas along its eastern and southern borders: the arable land; semi-desert, the territory where nomads graze their flocks of sheep and goats; and the desert itself. This last is Death’s domain, and the “desert pasture” in front of it is “Death’s shore.” His underworld home could be reached by raising the two mountains that block its entrance. The underworld is a damp, watery place called “the Swamp,” “the Pit,” and “Filth.” Another of its designations, “isolation ward,” is used for a leprosarium in 2 Kings 15:5.

As a group, the Ugaritic gods and goddesses are larger than life. Deities embody realities beyond human understanding and control: the overarching cosmic order; the storms necessary for prosperity and survival, the powerful drives of sex and violence, and the final mystery of death. The gods and goddesses belong to a divine society that corresponds to society on earth; for example, both share the patriarchal institution of kingship. The stories relate how deities and humans struggle with a range of problems, and thus express hope for the present and future.

The Religion of Ugarit and Ancient Israel

Until the discovery of Ugarit, the sources for the study of the religion of what the Bible polemically calls “the Canaanites” were both sketchy and late. There were distorted and fragmentary accounts in classical Greek and Roman authors and in some early Christian apologists; there were also dedicatory and funerary inscriptions of the Phoenicians and of their Punic cousins in western North Africa. Even when this literary evidence was synthesized with archaeological remains (such as figurines and statues, the temples and shrines), it was impossible to reconstruct a coherent account of what the local people believed. The discovery of Ugarit and its thousands of texts has provided an extensive and primary source for the study of local religion. At the same time they deepen modern understanding of the Hebrew Bible, for the Ugaritic tablets are the best available witness to the background from which the religion of ancient Israel emerged, and to the beliefs that it shared, adopted, compromised with, and sometimes rejected.

One way to illuminate this relationship between Ugarit and Israel is to return to the principal Ugaritic deities and to examine their biblical analogues.²³ The head of the Ugaritic pantheon, El, also appears in the Bible. His name (and its variant Elohim) is generally used as a term for God, but in a few passages it serves as a proper name. Thus, Psalm 82 begins: “God [Elohim] has taken his place in the Assembly of El, in the midst of the gods [elohim] he holds judgment.” Similarly, Isaiah 14:13 (although in a polemical context) speaks of the “stars of El,” and Deuteronomy 32:8 (following the reading of a Dead Sea scroll and the Greek text) of the “sons of El.” In Exodus 6:2–3 a distinction is made between earlier and later names of the god of Israel: “God [Elohim] spoke to Moses, and he said to him: ‘I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shadday, but by my name, Yahweh, I was not known to them.’” The title “El Shadday,” often mistranslated “God Almighty,” means “El of the Mountain,” or “El, the One of the Mountain.” In the Ugaritic texts El lived at the “cosmic mountain” that was the source of fresh water, and the biblical epithet reflects this mythology. Moreover, like El, the god of Israel presided over the assembly of the gods, as in 1 Kings 22:19 and Job 1–2.

Other titles of El in the Ugaritic texts also have echoes in the Bible. Thus, in Genesis 21:33, Yahweh is styled “El, the Eternal One,” similar to El’s title “the Father of Time.” The phrase “the Mighty One of Jacob” (Gen. 49:24 etc.) should probably be rendered “the Bull of Jacob,” recalling El’s identification as “the Bull.” The liturgical phrase “Yahweh, Yahweh, a merciful and gracious god [el], slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exod. 34:6 etc.), is a variant of “El the Kind, the Compassionate.”

The popularity of the worship of Baal in Israel is illustrated both by repeated attacks on it by biblical writers and by the use of Baal as an element in personal names. Among others, Saul and David gave their children names containing Baal (an example is Baalyada’, meaning “Baal knows”). As with the name of El, which may also mean “god,” Baal also means “lord,” and so this word does not always refer to the god. One reason for Baal’s appeal for the Israelites is that many of Yahweh’s characteristics and much of the language used to describe him either resemble Baal’s nature or were derived from him. Both gods are called “Rider on the Clouds” (or the like; see Yahweh in Ps. 68:4), and Yahweh in Psalm 29 is remarkably similar to Baal in the Baal Cycle.²⁴ Like Baal, Yahweh was the victorious warrior who had shown his mastery over the sea; like Baal, Yahweh revealed himself on a mountain in the midst of a storm; like Baal, Yahweh had a temple built of cedar.

Parallels with Baal extend to the motif of the mountain where Yahweh revealed himself. The primary mountain of revelation was Sinai; when Yahweh appeared, “there was thunder and lightning and a heavy cloud on the mountain. … And Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because Yahweh had descended upon it in fire. … And the whole mountain trembled violently” (Exod. 19:16–18). The same imagery is used of Baal’s theophany:

• Then Baal opened a break in the clouds,
• Baal sounded his holy voice,
• Baal thundered from his lips …
• The earth’s high places shook.

The association of Yahweh as storm god is echoed in Judges 5:4–5:

• Yahweh, when you went out from Seir,
• when you marched from the highland of Edom,
• the earth shook,
• and the heavens, too, streamed,
• and the clouds streamed with water;
• the mountains shook
• before Yahweh, the one of Sinai,
• before Yahweh, the god of Israel.

The other mountain central to Israel’s theology was Mount Zion. Jerusalem had been a center of El worship, as Genesis 14:18–24 illustrates: there Melchizedek was a priest of El Most High (El Elyon). Like the mountain of El in the Ugaritic texts, Zion was, especially in apocalyptic vision, the source of fresh water: “On that day living waters will go out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea, half of them to the western sea, both in summer and in winter” (Zech. 14:8). This theme recurs in Ezekiel 47:1–12, Joel 3:17–18, and Revelation 22:1–2.

But just as elements associated with El and Baal appear in the figure of Yahweh, so too Zion became identified with Saphon, the name of Baal’s mountain just north of the city of Ugarit:

• His holy mountain, beautiful in height,
• joy of all the earth;
• Mount Zion, in the recesses of Saphon,
• city of the great king. (Ps. 48:2–3; see also Ps. 50:2-3)

The descriptions of El and Baal as well as their homes find strong resonances in the figure of Yahweh, despite some notable differences. For example, Yahweh’s southern home in Seir and Edom in Judges 5:4–5 quoted above, and the tradition of the Exodus from Egypt.

Turning to other deities, there are traces of Anat, Asherah, and Astarte in the Hebrew Bible. Anat is the least well attested, occurring only in the place names Beth-anath and Anathoth and in the personal name Shamgar Ben-Anath (Judg. 3:31 and 5:6). In the Bible, most scholars detect the goddess Asherah in 2 Kings 21:7 and 23:4, 6–7. In biblical Hebrew the word asherah is also a common noun, meaning a sacred tree or pole used in the goddess’s worship. The asherah, arguably the symbol of the goddess by the same name, is implicitly associated with Yahweh. The Bible prohibits this form of worship of Yahweh: “You shall not set up an asherah of any wood next to the altar of Yahweh your god” (Deut. 16:21). Because of its disapproval of asherah, the Bible sometimes associates her name with the god considered to be the divine epitome of idolatry, Baal himself (1 Kings 18:19). Astarte also occurs in the Bible, but, as in extant Ugaritic sources, little light is shed on her personality. She is called “the goddess” or “the abomination of the Sidonians” (see 1 Kings 11:5).

The deity Mot (Death) is only occasionally mentioned in the Bible. As in the Ugaritic texts, his appetite is proverbial and his presence is life-threatening (Jer. 9:21). His home in the underworld is a palace fitted with gates (Job 38:17). In Isaiah 25:8, it is said that at the eschatological victory banquet Yahweh “will swallow up Death forever”; this is a reversal of the scene in Baal when the storm god goes down into Death’s mouth, to be crushed like a kid in his jaws.

As this overview shows, literary and religious motifs found in the Ugaritic texts permeate the Bible. The same larger set of literary conventions and motifs, not to mention their religious content, appear in both Ugaritic and biblical literature.

Historiography

Almost all areas of research about Ugaritic and biblical literature continue to be subjects of scholarly research and discussion. The origins of the West Semitic alphabet in general and the origins of the Ugaritic alphabet in particular, remain debated matters.²⁵ The nature of imagery in Ugaritic literature is a matter raised by Pardee.²⁶ The nature of scribal practice and learning in the Levant has entailed a major set of questions about the circulation of literary texts as oral literature and their relation to scribal production and the degree of scribal memorization in the transmission of texts.²⁷ It is commonly thought that the written forms of the literary texts represent oral traditions that may go back centuries or more.²⁸ For example, the Ugaritic traditions about the storm-god Baal are now known to go back at least to the 18th century bce, now known thanks to the discovery of Mari texts of this time that allude to the storm-god’s battle against the Sea. The circulation of this tradition is not only quite old but also quite wide over the Levant. How did this transmission take place?

These questions are related to the issue about the degree of familiarity that early Israelite writers had with the classics of Ugaritic literature. On the one hand, the many similarities between Ugaritic and biblical literature have been thought to indicate that Israelite authors knew copies of the Ugaritic classic texts.²⁹ On the other hand, the destruction of Ugarit c. 1175 as well as the site’s distance from Israel and Judah seems to cast doubt on this scenario. In either case, it remains a question how the many traditions known in the Ugaritic texts made their way into the biblical corpus. Rather than being a matter of direct influence, it would appear given what is known from yet other sources in the region that many of the shared traditions of Ugaritic and the Hebrew Bible were more broadly known across the Levant. Thus the biblical corpus need not reflect Ugaritic literature directly, but may represent a broader fund of literary and religious traditions known up and down the eastern Mediterranean coast and inland. It is notable in this regard that both the Ugaritic texts and the Hebrew Bible seem to know independently something of the same Transjordanian traditions about the Rephaim.

Finally, many issues about religious history remain unresolved. The relationships of Yahweh to El and to Baal remain unclear, especially as scholars have only the remains of the day and not the sorts of texts that indicate religious processes as such. For many scholars, Yahweh was originally a storm-god like Baal and acquired additional features of Baal as well as the identity of El. Other scholars have suggested that Yahweh was a title of El and this Yahweh-El acquired Baal’s characteristics. It has even been suggested that Yahweh was originally an inland god of the desert like Athtar and secondarily acquired features from both El and Baal. The relationship of Yahweh to various goddesses is likewise a subject of ongoing discussion, since Yahweh is associated with the asherah symbol; additionally for many scholars, the goddess was Yahweh’s consort. Anat, too, is an interesting case, as her imagery of bloody battle apparently accrued to Yahweh, despite the apparent lack of her cult for the greater part of Israel’s religious history. Athtart (Astarte) likewise has an unclear religious history in Israel. Her name is known best in polemics against deities considered to be non-Israelite (e.g., Ashtaroth in Judg. 2:13, but see the Asheroth in Judg. 3:7) and perhaps informs the Queen of Heaven (Jer. 7:18 and 44:17–19, 25). Other deities known from the Ugaritic texts belong to the landscape of Israelite religion.

While Israelite polytheism has been recognized, its degree and configuration remains under discussion. Similarly, the nature of family and clan religion relative to the religious practices of temple and national centers is a subject of intense scholarly interest for both Ugarit and ancient Israel. In the past, the Ugaritic texts largely served as a primary source for understanding “the Canaanites,” a people known in the Bible as Israel’s idolatrous enemy. Thus the Ugaritic texts, especially in its representation of polytheism, provided a negative foil to the monotheistic faith of Israel. In recent years both polytheism and monotheism have come in for serious scholarly review.³⁰ On the one hand, the monotheism of the Bible has come to be understood as a feature that was not original to Israel. Otherwise, why would Exodus 15:11 refer to other gods in praise of God or why the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:3 and Deuteronomy 5:7 refer to “other gods” as if they existed (“you shall have no other gods before me”)? Thus, Israel’s “monotheism” or “one-god discourse” emerged in the mid-1st millennium, probably in response to not only internal circumstances within Israel and Judah, but also in response to religious developments in Mesopotamia, including its own forms of “one-god discourse.”³¹On the other hand, polytheism has come to be seen to have its own monism; in other words there are social and political concepts that understand its polytheism in terms of a single unit. The notions of the divine family and divine council headed by El served as “mono-theistic” discourses in Ugaritic literature.³² The very nature of theism in the ancient world is undergoing considerable re-evaluation, which includes both Ugaritic and biblical literature.

Primary Sources

The main collection of Ugaritic texts in English transliteration is Die keilalphabetischen Texte aus Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani und anderen Orten. The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani and Other Places (KTU).³³

The single most accessible collection of myths and epics is Michael D. Coogan and Mark S. Smith, Stories from Ancient Canaan. Also highly recommended is the translation of Dennis Pardee in The Context of Scripture.³⁴ A further resource for myths and epics is a volume with English translation and transliteration of the Ugaritic text on facing pages, edited by Simon B. Parker.³⁵

The single best collection of rituals and related texts is Dennis Pardee, Ritual and Cult at Ugarit.³⁶ Pardee also has an important, more technical treatment of rituals in his two-volume work, Les textes rituels.³⁷

There is no single collection of Ugaritic letters in translation. Many letters are presented by Dennis Pardee, in The Context of Scripture.³⁸ The bulk of the letters were treated in French translation by Jesús-Luis Cunchillos, in André Caquot, Jean-Michel de Tarragon and Jesús-Luis Cunchillos, Textes ougaritiques: Tome II. Textes religieux et rituels, correspondence.³⁹ Similarly, there is no single collection for the juridical texts. The economic texts have been conveniently collected in Kevin M. McGeough, Ugaritic Economic Tablets: Text, Translation and Notes.⁴⁰ The other texts have not been collected in translations.

Many aspects of ancient Ugarit are addressed by Handbook of Ugaritic Studies.⁴¹ The standard resource on gods and goddesses is Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible DDD.⁴² Readers interested in the history of Ugaritic and biblical studies may consult Mark S. Smith, Untold Stories: The Bible and Ugaritic Studies in the Twentieth Century.⁴³ Many relevant studies have appeared in the journal, Ugarit-Forschungen.