[1] Kapelruds early research interest was with oriental languages, including the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi.
[1][6] This publication was followed up by a companion volume, The Ras Shamra Discoveries and the Old Testament (1963), based on lectures given at the University of Oslo in the early 1950s.
[13] Kapelrud returned to the study of Ras Shamra texts in the late 1960s when he published The Violent Goddess.
[1] Kapelruds main contribution to Biblical Studies is his work on the prophets and the ancient texts of Ras Shamra.
Kapelrud sees the book of Joel as a work of liturgy, closesly connected to the cultic context originating from the temple in Jerusalem.
[10] According to Merrill[14] Kapelrud puts forward the theory that the goddess Anat and the god Baal are intimately related, and that there is a cultic context for the major Ras Shamra texts.