Bloody Ugaritic cycle of Baal-Anat draws upon famed biblical warriors

by Damien F. Mackey “Just as Anat purges both "field" and "house," so Jehu purges both "field" and "house." Just as Anat adorns herself and puts on paint, so Jezebel adorns her self and puts on paint”. Michael S. Moore As Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky was able to demonstrate, the spectacular corpus of Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra) has been dated far too early by the historians of antiquity. On this, see my article: Ugarit (Ras Shamra), Hebrew, the Greeks (3) Ugarit (Ras Shamra), Hebrew, the Greeks The typical view dates them early. Thus: Ugaritic texts - Wikipedia The Ugaritic texts are a corpus of ancient cuneiform texts discovered in 1928 in Ugarit (Ras Shamra) and Ras Ibn Hani in Syria, and written in Ugaritic, an otherwise unknown Northwest Semitic language. Approximately 1,500 texts and fragments have been found to date. The texts were written in the 13th and 12th centuries BCE. The most famous of the Ugarit texts are the approximately fifty epic poems; the three major literary texts are the Baal Cycle, the Legend of Keret, and the Tale of Aqhat. The other texts include 150 tablets describing the Ugaritic cult and rituals, 100 letters of correspondence, a very small number of legal texts (Akkadian is considered to have been the contemporary language of law), and hundreds of administrative or economic texts. …. Naturally, the commentaries on these texts tend to follow the conventional dating. Thus Michael S. Moore, taking the textbook view, will have the Ugaritic mythology influencing the supposedly later biblical texts. While this is the usual knee-jerk default, the reality is the other way around. JEHU'S CORONATION AND PURGE OF ISRAEL by MICHAEL S. MOORE Fuller Theological Seminary, U.S.A. Michael S. Moore commences: Article-Jehus-Purge.pdf …. This paper will attempt a new reading of the Jehu tradition by reading it alongside the Baal-Anat cycle from Ugarit (KTU 1.3 i-iii). To anticipate my conclusions, I will argue that Jehu's coronation and purge is most likely a multi-leveled parody of a well-known religious tradition, and further, that its primary goal is to narrate an important episode in Israel's history in a way that appropriately ridicules the religious traditions of Israel's enemies. …. Parodying the "purge" What follows next is literarily fascinating. As is well-known, ever since KTU 1.3 came to light in 1930,43 scholars have puzzled over Anat's behavior.44 To explain it, some have tried to tie her myth to a seasonal calendar, supposing Anat's "bloodbath" to be a primitive attempt to revive the land's "vegetative spirit."45 Some have hypothesized that Anat's devotees may have engaged in some sort of homeopathic ritual for which the myth is a blueprint—perhaps a "ritual combat" designed to provoke Baal into ending the sterility of summer and sending down the autumn rains.46 Whatever the anthropological possibilities, others have noticed a number of intertextual parallels between this myth and various sections of the Hebrew Bible.47 Ph. Stern, for example, takes M. Smith's48 suggestions about Anat generally and applies them to Psa. xxiii, pointing out a number of common references to "tables among enemies," the destruction of both "house and valley," and the "house of the deity."49 Before his death, P. Craigie proposed that the Song of Deborah parallels the Anat myth in at least five ways: (1) Deborah, like Anat, has a male warrior assistant; (2) Deborah, like Anat, is a leader of warriors; (3) Deborah "dominates" (tdrkp) on the battlefield, just as Anat is a mistress of "dominion" (drkt); (4) Anat is a "maiden" (rhm), so too Deborah is a "maiden" (rhm); and (5) Deborah, like Anat, commands a military host of stars.50 Craigie believed that Dtr was quite aware of this tradition, whether or not it ever found a home in a specific cult dedicated solely to Anat.51 With regard to the myth's structure, however, J. Lloyd has helpfully suggested that Anat engages in two separate battles because at the root of this myth lies the primordial desire of conquerors to perfect their military conquests with corresponding religious sacrifices. Citing epi graphic and iconographie evidence from Moab, Egypt, and Ugarit, Lloyd suggestively proposes that conquerors cannot declare total vic tory until prisoners-of-war are brought before the (statue of the) appropriate deity, and put to death. "It is only once the actions of war are carried out within the microcosm of the temple itself that perfection is achieved."52 Assuming Lloyd is correct, I am inclined to think that the narrator of II Kings ix-x might be deliberately parodying the Anat tradition in order to propel his anti-Baalist program to a higher intensity-level. Just as Anat purges the earth, so Jehu purges Israel. Just as Anat purges both "field" and "house," so Jehu purges both "field" and "house." Just as Anat adorns herself and puts on paint, so Jezebel adorns her self and puts on paint. The following chart breaks down all the parallels I can find into subcategories of characterization, plot, and theme.53 Jehu's purge (II Kings ix 14-x 36) Anat's purge (KTU 1.3 i-iii) Characterization • One purging tool: Jehu One purging tool: Anat • Two enemies (Joram & Ahaziah) Two "enemies" (Gapnu & Ugar) • Jehu stacks 70 "heads" (rō'šîm) Anat kicks "heads" (riš) around like "balls" • Jehu "fills his hand" with the Anat's signature weapon is her "bow" bow (qešet) (qšt) 54 • Jezebel adorns herself Anat adorns herself • Jezebel uses pûk on her eyes Anat uses ánhb on her eyes ("snail ("antinomy") dye") • Jezebel looks out a window Anat closes "the gates" • Jezebel's "palms" (kap) Anat proudly wears the "palms" (kp) are barely visible of warriors on her belt • Jezebel's "skull," "feet" and "hands" Anat's "liver," "heart," "knees" and are her only remains "fingers" participate in her victory Plot • Two battles: one in the field, Two battles: one in the field, one in the one in Baal's "house" (bêt) "palace" (bht) of Anat • Jehu "meets" (qārâ) several Anat "meets" (qry) "pages" (ģlm) officials before final battle before final battle • Jehu meets Joram at Naboth's Anat meets enemies at the "foot "field" of the rock" (bšt ģr) • Jehu shoots an arrow (hēsî) Anat shoots "old men" (šbm) through sickly Joram's heart with her "shafts" (mt) • House of Baal has a "city" Anat fights "between two cities" in it (îr) (bn qrytm) • Jezebel mocks her enemies Anat mocks her enemies • Jezebel's "blood" (dâm) spatters Anat plunges her knees into "blood" (dm) Theme • Justice Purgation • Prophetic covenant Priestly power • "House" "House" • Reward for obedience Celebration of enemies' defeat Characterization Keeping in mind Jemielity's cautions about satire's "generic instability" and "controlled chaos",56 I want to emphasize at the outset of these comparisons that no literary comparison can ever be "certain,"57 especially when informed scholars cannot agree on matters as basic as tablet placement and/or narrative sequence. Some of these parallels will seem more convincing than others. Still, the main characters in these two traditions enact "flat" roles as purifying agents.™ Anat purges both valley and town on behalf of Baal, her master and lord. Jehu likewise purges Israel on behalf of Yahweh, his master and lord. In the Canaanite myth, Anat "raises her voice" against two low-level deities, Gapnu and Ugar, and vigorously defends her brother Baal from further divine attack.59 In the Hebrew story, Jehu does not even bother to converse with, he simply exterminates the kings of Israel and Judah (Joram and Ahaziah), and by so doing the narrator immediately deflates these kings' exaggerated self-image, paralleling them, how ever subtly, with Canaanite demi-gods at "the lowest level of the divine assembly."60 Moreover, each agent focuses on the "perfection" (Lloyd's term) of their respective purges; i.e., each purges something "outside" (field/wilder ness) as well as something "inside" (city/temple). In the Canaanite text, Anat does this by kicking her enemies' heads around like soccer balls and wearing their palms into battle like war-trophies.61 In the Hebrew text, Jehu stacks up his enemies' heads before Samaria's gate, then forces his foes to look at them while he makes a speech.62 Further, since myths are intentionally designed to be fluid and repetitious, several of these parallels easily shift back and forth between similarly "flat" characters, whether the parallel is between Anat-Jehu or Anat-Jezebel.63 Just as Anat mocks her enemies, so Jezebel mocks hers, calling Jehu "Zimri" (the infamous assassin-king who precedes the Omrides).64 And while we might speculate why Anat adorns herself,65 Jezebel's motives seem a bit more obvious. Jezebel paints her eyes because Anat paints her eyes. Jezebel puts on antimony (pûk) because Anat puts on murex (ánhb). Whether this is warpaint or mascara is never stated in either text, but Dtr seizes on it to heighten his satire and intensify his parody. Apparently he wants to satirize this Phoenician queen on several levels, even down to the details of her personal toilette.66 This parody continues on into the narrative about her death. In the myth, Anat's liver "swells with laughter" as she "washes her hands in the blood of the guards, her fingers in the gore of the warriors."67 In Dtr, however, Jezebel's "skull" no longer laughs, nor do her "hands" write false letters, nor do her "feet" any longer walk on family land stolen away from murdered Israelites. Just as Anat sheds her enemies' blood, so Jehu sheds his enemies' blood. Readers even nominally familiar with the Baal-Anat cycle would have no problem grasping these parallels. ….