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I'm much in agreement with this analysis. The OT/Tanakh contains many supremely skewed accounts of the histories. cultural and folkloric practices of various Near Eastern peoples. The book (more like a sprawling corpus) altogether is a political narrative, not an objective study of anything. From TC:
Good point on Baal, which was just a title among the Northwest Semitic peoples (Canaanites) of antiquity; there were a number of deities which contained the name Baal. It translates as something along the lines of "Lord." In other words, it was something rather generic. We find a similar word, "Bel" in Akkadian, which was another ancient Semitic tongue. Idiot conspiracy nuts, usually of the fundamentalists evangelical Protestant persuasion, like to throw around "Baal" as being a name for Satan or whatever. Actually, they believe anything that isn't 100% their version of "God" or Jesus to be Satan. These mouth-breathing sorts know absolutely zilch about history, comparitive religion, philosophy or really anything that's intellectually a single notch above believing in their Bible in the most literal, word-by-word manner.
I do not recommend using the Bible for reference when trying to learn about ancient worship practice. The Bible is a mixture of false histories and plagerized [sic] scripture from other civilizations. And the Bible perverts most of what was stolen. Baal is a title not a Gods name, but so you will see many references to Baal because they simply site him by title. So Baal can be different Gods depending on source and context. Even the alleged Yahweh of the Hebrew has seven different names in the old testament and may not always be the same God. The ancient Hebrews were not monotheistic as is commonly taught.
Good point on Baal, which was just a title among the Northwest Semitic peoples (Canaanites) of antiquity; there were a number of deities which contained the name Baal. It translates as something along the lines of "Lord." In other words, it was something rather generic. We find a similar word, "Bel" in Akkadian, which was another ancient Semitic tongue. Idiot conspiracy nuts, usually of the fundamentalists evangelical Protestant persuasion, like to throw around "Baal" as being a name for Satan or whatever. Actually, they believe anything that isn't 100% their version of "God" or Jesus to be Satan. These mouth-breathing sorts know absolutely zilch about history, comparitive religion, philosophy or really anything that's intellectually a single notch above believing in their Bible in the most literal, word-by-word manner.
