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The primary word for "priest" in the Old Testament is the Hebrew masculine noun kohen [ehoK], for which we have no certain etymology. It occurs approximately 750 times and can refer to priests of the one true God or of other supposed gods that other nations and sometimes also the ancient Israelites themselves worshiped (for the latter, see, e.g ...
Mar 31, 2016 · The Canaanites are best known from the biblical accounts that portray them as a hostile, pre-Israelite indigenous population residing in the “promised land” who were conquered by the tribes of Israel under the leadership of Joshua following their Exodus from Egypt.
Translations of the Ugaritic literary texts provided the first insights into the religion of the Canaanites, known previously mainly from the pages of the Bible. Ugaritic mythological tablets describe the activities of the main gods and goddesses of the Canaanite pantheon.
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1. The name. Biblically the name both of people and the land derives from the ancestor Canaan referred to in Genesis 10:15-18. The same derivation is proposed in Canaanite-Phoenician tradition preserved by Philo of Byblos reporting the statement of Sanchuniathon the Phoen. writer. Parallels to the name kna (an) appear in Gr. sources from Philo of B...
2. Geographical extent. The term Canaan has both a restricted and a more extensive meaning, not merely in the Bible but also in the non-biblical sources.
In some passages the term denotes the area of the Syro-Palestinian coastland, esp. Phoenicia proper to the N of Israel. In Genesis 10:15-19 the sons of Canaan are enumerated as Sidon the first-born, Heth and the Jebusites, the Hivites, the Arkites (modern Tell Arqa in Lebanon preserves the name), the Sinites (modern Nahr as-Sinn, Sinn ad-Darb, Phoe...
Non-Biblical sources likewise refer to the area of Syria-Palestine as the land of the Amorites. Thus the Alalaḫ tablets of the 18th cent. b.c. mention Amurru as part of Syria, and the Mari documents refer to Amorite princes in Hazor, the large Canaanite city in N Pal. The Amarna letters of the 14th-13th centuries b.c. point to Amorite control of th...
In both the Biblical and non-Biblical records two major groups of people occupied Pal. in the early stages of the Israelite conquestAmorites and Canaanites. Solid opposition to the Israelites in Trans-Jordan and in the southern mountain areas W of Jordan came from Amorites (Num 21:21-23; Josh 7:7; 10:5), whereas the Canaanites were in the S at Arad...
4. Archeological discovery. The present cent. has witnessed spectacular archeological discoveries in the area of Canaanite studies. Significant excavations in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria have revolutionized the knowledge of the Canaanites both in regard to their own culture and also to the links between them and neighboring peoples. French and Bri...
5. The language. The Canaanite lit. that has become available makes it clear that Canaanite belongs to the NW group of Sem. languages, as distinct from the NE group (Akkad.), the SW group (N Arab.) and the SE group (S Arab.). There is some evidence that up to about 1750 b.c., there was a broadly Amorite dialect extending from N Mesopotamia westward...
Within this broad classification Biblical Heb. (Isa 19:18), the W Sem. terms in the Amarna letters, Moabite and Phoenician might be termed S Canaanite. Separate, but related is the Aram. group. The language of Ugarit lies between the two, although its exact classification is not clear. Many scholars regard it as belonging to a N Canaanite group and...
Like other Sem. languages Canaanite shows the distinguishing mark of three consonantal roots which give the basic idea, although biconsonantal and quadriliteral roots exist. The verb structure makes use of affixes, prefixes and duplication of the middle radical. The nouns in earlier times were inflected as in Akkad. and Arab., and the case vowel wa...
Canaanite was written first in a special script with an undetermined number of characters, related to the Egyp. hieroglyphic system. Several inscrs., in this script on metal and stone have been found at Byblos. At Ras Shamra (Ugarit) the cuneiform alphabet was used. Ultimately the typical NW Sem. alphabet replaced the others and became standard. Th...
It is certain that the Canaanites and the related Amorites were well established in the region by 2000 b.c. when Syria-Pal. was divided among a varying number of Canaanite/Amorite city states. After the Amorite invasions had subsided, cultural influences from the N produced the standard Palestinian Middle Bronze Age Canaanite culture which was only...
The Israelites soon gained control of the highlands, but possession of the valleys and coastal regions was a slow process. In Canaan as a whole, areas to the SW of old Canaan fell to the Sea Peoples (Philistines), Syria itself was occupied by Arameans, and the Canaanites were confined to the coastal areas that became known as Phoenicia. In Pal. the...
There were several strata in society, such as freemen, semi-freemen (clients), and slaves. The slaves comprised war captives, foreign slaves, and native Canaanites who became slaves because of debt, unemployment, or because parents sold them or exposed them as children. Slaves might belong to the state, to the temple, to private landowners, or to c...
The economy was based on agriculture. All land was owned by the state, the temples and private landowners, although tenant farmers, the ḫupši, possessed small areas. One of the Amarna letters of Rib-Addi of Byblos tells how hupši farmers were forced at times to sell the wood of their houses and even their children to buy food.
The population was distributed in the larger towns and their numerous associated villages or suburbs (many references in Josh 13ff.).
a. The pantheon. The OT gives hints of a Canaanite pantheon which is now known to have been extensive. The senior deity was El to whom matters were referred by other gods. For practical purposes, however, Baal (Lord) was more significant. He is known in the OT in his various local manifestations as the fertility god par excellence and is to be equa...
b. The cult. The Ras Shamra texts enable one to make some kind of reconstruction of the cult at Ugarit. One text gives a list of gods and their appropriate offerings. Among the offerings were the šrp or burnt offering wholly offered to the deity and šlmm or communion offering in which both worshipers and deity shared. Among the technical terms whic...
c. Cultic personnel. At Ugarit there was a high priest and no less than twelve families of priests (khnm). In ancient times the king exercised some priestly functions which he retained in part in later times. Among the cultic functionaries were priests (khnm), consecrated persons (qdšm), singers (šrm), makers of vestments, sculptors and others. The...
10. Israel and Canaan. Israel owed a great deal to Canaan on the level of material culture in which the Canaanites were superior. It is not easy to say how much Israel owed to the Canaanites in the area of lit. although Canaanite themes and meters and language are common in the Psalms. There was considerable correspondence between Hebrew and Canaan...
(b) Literature, Religion, Language. Z. S. Harris, Development of the Canaanite Dialects (1939); W. F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (1953); A. van Selms, Marriage and Family Life in Ugaritic Literature (1954); G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends (1956); J. Gray, The Legacy of Canaan (1965); W. F. Albright, Jahweh and the Go...
(c) Archeology. R. S. Lamon, Megiddo I (1939), Lachish II, The Fosse Temple (1940); E. Lund, Megiddo II (1948); Mission de Ras Shamra various volumes by J. Nougayrol, C. Virolleaud, C. F. A. Schaeffer; Les fouilles de Ras Shamra, Preliminary Reports of first to tenth Seasons, Syria, X, XII-XX; O Tufnell, Lachish IV (Tell ed-Duweir), The Bronze Age ...
May 6, 2024 · In the earliest periods of their history, the Israelites shared many religious practices and beliefs of the Canaanite culture they belonged to. This included the worship of a pantheon of gods (e.g. the god El). The transition from polytheism to monotheism in the Israelite religion was gradual.
Oct 18, 2018 · What it does reveal, however, is exactly what the Biblical authors in the Old Testament stated was happening and had happened in Israel — that Canaanite gods and idolatry would cause Israel to stumble in her pure worship of Yahweh (Ex. 23:32-33). Archaeology does indeed affirm this in a major way.
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The main source of knowledge about Canaanite religion before the new sources became available after 1930 (primarily the Ugaritic materials) was Philo of Byblos, the Greek name of ancient Gebal on the Mediterranean (Josh. 13:5, 1 Kings 5:18), forty-two miles north of Sidon. Philo lived around 100 AD.
