Was there a cult of El in the LB Ugarit? (original) (raw)
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This volume is the outcome of my fifty years of study in Ugaritic language. I began my Ugaritic study at Brandeis University with Professor Cyrus H. Gordon in 1969 and wrote my dissertation on KTU 1.23 (UT 52) under his supervision, finishing in 1973. After that, I taught Semitic linguistics, especially comparative linguistics, at the University of Tsukuba. After fifteen years there I switched the center of my research to Biblical studies, and since then have taught Biblical exegesis as a full-time teacher at Japan Bible Seminary. During the past decades I have worked especially on the Chaoskampf problem in Genesis 1 and published The Earth and the Waters in Genesis 1 and 2 (Sheffield Academic Press, 1989), as the outcome of the Genesis Project of Tyndale House, Cambridge, revised as Creation and Destruction (Eisenbrauns, 2005), as well as various articles, as those in Conversations on Canaanite and Biblical Themes (De Gruyter, 2022) and Congress Volume Aberdeen 2019 (Brill, 2022). While teaching the Bible and writing commentaries on 1 and 2 Samuel (NICOT; Eerdmans, 2007, 2019) in the cultural context of Japanese polytheism, I became more and more aware of the many similarities between the Canaanite-Ugaritic religion and the Japanese polytheistic religious traditions such as ancestor worship and kami-worship, that is, god-worship, both of which are real and active religious practices even in modern Japan.
Foreigners and Religion at Ugarit
Studia Orientalia Electronica 9(2); Special Issue: Identity and Empire in the Ancient Near East, 2021
During the Late Bronze Age, Syria was mostly dominated by the larger powers of the ancient Near East-Mitanni (the Hurrians), the Hittite Empire, and Egypt. The ancient city of Ugarit yielded numerous texts and artifacts that attest to the presence of foreigners and their influences on local religious traditions. Textually, the best-preserved influences are those of Hurrian origin, although these were probably promoted thanks to the Hittites, who incorporated many Hurrian deities and cults. Hurrian traditions thus influenced both Ugaritic cults and divine pantheons. Egyptian influences, in contrast, are observable mostly in art and material evidence. Art of Egyptian origin was considered prestigious and because of that was prominently seen in trade and international exchange gifts, but it also entered the religious sphere in the form of cultic statues and ex-voto gifts for deities. Egyptian art was also often imitated by local artists. The same can be said of art from the Mediterranean area. Some evidence suggests that foreigners actively related to local traditions as well. Ritual tablets from Ugarit (namely KTU 3 1.40 and its variants) illustrate that there were always frictions in a multicultural/national society. These tablets also indicate that such frictions could have been dealt with through ritual action, and thus emphasize the role religion played. The city of Ugarit is used in this paper to illuminate some processes that can be observed in the whole of ancient Syria. Nevertheless, every site has its own outcome of interactions with other cultures.
EAS Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies Abbreviated Key Title: EAS J Humanit Cult Stud
2019
Many works have observed how deadly intra-and or inter religious conflicts have been, but hardly, or so to say, minute are works written on how it would thoroughly be curtailed. Intrareligious conflict has had a devastating repercussion to the people living in the Hausa geographical destinations. These conflicts claimed and destroyed many precious lives of the same religion. Hardly a day past without a report of intra religious clashes. Causes these conflicts abounds; the research believed that the major thrust of the conflict is doctrinaire and syncretism. However, the findings showcased that dialogue served as best mechanism for resolution of the Muslim Hausa intra religious conflict.
E-sangil and E-temen-anki, the archetypal cult-centre
Babylon: Focus mesopotamischer Geschichte, Wiege früher Gelehrsamkeit, Mythos in der Moderne, ed. J. Renger, 1999
This paper discusses the sanctuary of the god Marduk in Babylon as the archetype of the Babylonian cult-centre and examines the repercussions of its unique status on first-millennium temple builders.