Canaanite religion
Prior to the emergence of Levantine archaeology in the late 19th and early 20th century, the knowledge of Canaanite religion came mostly from the accounts of the Hebrew Bible.
This was supplemented by some secondary and tertiary Greek sources (Lucian's On the Syrian Goddess, fragments of the Phoenician History of Philo of Byblos, and the writings of Damascius).
The earliest evidence of Canaanite religions come from the Ebla tablets, a series of texts inscribed on clay, found at Tell Mardikh, Syria and dated to the second half of the 3rd millennium BCE.
[5] Throughout the Hellenistic period, in the non-Jewish parts of Canaan, Greek religion spread alongside pre-existing Canaanite traditions rather than replacing them.
This marriage of the divinity with the city would seem to have Biblical parallels too with the stories of the link between Melqart and Tyre; Chemosh and Moab; Tanit and Baal Hammon in Carthage, Yah and Jerusalem.
The union of El Elyon and his consort Asherah would be analogous to the Titans Cronus and Rhea in Greek mythology or the Roman Saturnus and Ops.
W. F. Albright, for example, says that El Shaddai is a derivation of a Semitic stem that appears in the Akkadian shadû ('mountain') and shaddā'û or shaddû'a ('mountain-dweller'), one of the names of Amurru.
In the Baal Cycle, Ba'al Hadad is challenged by and defeats Yam using two magical weapons (called "Driver" and "Chaser") made for him by Kothar-wa-Khasis.
[9] A group of deities in a four-tier hierarchy headed by El and Asherah[a][b] were worshipped by the followers of the Canaanite religion; this is a detailed listing:[12] Archaeological investigations at the site of Tell es-Safi have found the remains of donkeys, as well as some sheep and goats in Early Bronze Age layers, dating to 4,900 years ago which were imported from Egypt in order to be sacrificed.
[37] Canaanite religious practice had a high regard for the duty of children to care for their parents, with sons being held responsible for burying them, and arranging for the maintenance of their tombs.
[39] Funerary rites held an important role in Canaanite religion and included rituals to honor the deceased and to feed the "npš" (the origin of the Hebrew word ״נפש״ and usually translated as soul) as it moved on to Mot, the land of death.
The presence of grave goods may suggest similarities between Canaanite practices and the Ancient Egyptian custom of providing the deceased with supplies for the afterlife.
Like other people of the Ancient Near East Canaanite religious beliefs were polytheistic, with families typically focusing on veneration of the dead in the form of household gods and goddesses, the Elohim, while acknowledging the existence of other deities such as Baal and El, Mot, Qos, Asherah and Astarte.
"At the center of Canaanite religion was royal concern for religious and political legitimacy and the imposition of a divinely ordained legal structure, as well as peasant emphasis on fertility of the crops, flocks, and humans.
For example, during the Hyksos period, when chariot-mounted maryannu ruled in Egypt, at their capital city of Avaris, Baal became associated with the Egyptian god Set, (Sutekh or Seth) and was considered identical.
From the other direction, Jean Bottéro and Giovanni Pettinato[44] have argued that Ya of Ebla and the more familiar Yah (or Yahweh) were related to the Mesopotamian god Ea during the Akkadian Empire.
Canaanite divinities seem to have been almost identical in form and function to the neighboring Arameans to the east, and Baal Hadad and El can be distinguished amongst earlier Amorites, who at the end of the Early Bronze Age invaded Mesopotamia.
