2 - Mesopotamia and Canaan

This chapter begins by describing the limited influence of Egyptian religious beliefs on the Canaanites, Egypt’s northern vassal state to the north and gateway to the significant ancient empires of the Near East. Canaanites and Egyptians held much less in common than did the Canaanites and the Mesopotamians. The Israelites also shared a common Mesopotamian cultural, mythological, and linguistic tradition.

Mesopotamian and Canaanite conceptions of an afterlife were much more pessimistic than those of the Egyptians. The dead were believed to exist underground, estranged from both humanity and the gods. The influence of these traditions on the Hebrew Bible is debatable since other Semitic religious traditions also influenced it. The original inhabitants of Mesopotamia were the Ubaidians. Sumerians arrived in the last quarter of the fourth millennium BCE (3300-3000 BCE). Etana, King of Kish id the first recorded ruler (and presumptive consolidator) of this civilization. Soon afterwards, the city of Urik under the rulership of Lugalbanda (an ancestor of Gilgamesh) became dominant. The city of Kish succeeded the Sumerians, and Kish was supplanted by the city of Ur. Ur was supplanted by the city of Lagash. These municipalities were conquered by Semitic which led to the final revival of Sumerian rule (2100-1720 BCE). Gudea of Lagash reigned during this period and produced a statue of himself that has become representative of Sumerian art in its entirety,

Long before the Hebrews returned to Canaan, Mesopotamian politics had shifted considerably. A blend of semitic-language speakers infiltrated the land (presumably from Arabia) who were collectively termed the Amorites. The religious texts of this “classical” Mesopotamian period were written in a semitic language called Akkadian (named for Akkad, the city of King Sargon) which included the Babylonian and Assyrian dialects.

Like Egypt, the civilizations of Mesopotamia were dependent on fertile river valleys. Mesopotamia means “between rivers” in Greek. This land was turbulently bounded by the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. But while predictable annual floods were regarded as a blessing for Egyptians, floods were seen as a curse by Mesopotamians. Much land remained fertile without regular deposits of alluvial soil. Swamps and marshes served as reservoirs. Agriculture was based on channeling and diverting these waters with canals. Floods destroyed, rather than nourished croplands.

Also like Egypt, various creation myths existed. Conflicts between these tales were ovrlooked. Some were based on sexual reproduction. Others were based on the separation primordial matter into distinctive forms. The creation story Enuma Elish, like the creation stories of the Hebrews and Canaanites, combines both of these elements. It states that the universe was born when the god of sweet water, Apsu (the cosmic ocean above and below the earth) and the goddess of saltwater, Tiamat, were first locked in sexual embrace.

When on high, the heaven had not been named,

Firm ground below had not been named,

Naught but primordial Apsu, their begetter,

And Mummu-Tiamat, She who bore them all,

Their waters comingling as a single body,

No reed hut had been matted, no marsh land had appeared,

When no gods, whatever had been brought into being,

Uncalled by name, their destinies undetermined-

Then it was that the gods were formed within them.

Later Marduk, the god of Babylon, destroys Tiamat who is brutally killed while bound, split asunder, and then refashioned into the cosmos. Marduk fashions regions of the world from Tiamat’s body parts. From the divine blood of Tiamat’s general Kingu, Marduk creates humanity. This emphasis on blood in the Babylonian creation story mirrors that of the Hebrews, who believed that “the life is in the blood.”

A more common Babylonian creation story features the mixing of clay with water. Living beings fashioned of clay (analogous to the Hebrew “dust of the earth”) is imbued with the breath of life (napistu, cognate with the Hebrew term nefesh), and often with zaqiqu, another wind-like quality. Zaqiqu was depicted as a bird and associated with dreams which alight upon and depart the body as if they possessed wings. In the Atranhasis creation/flood story a further theme is introduced. Newly created humans are infused with etemmu, the Babylonian term for ghost. Rather than a divine spirit or immortal soul, etemmu departs the body when it dies to reside underground. As is the case with the Hebrew Bible, etemmu, based on temmu, the word for wisdom, is associated with death.

Most Mesopotamian gods lived in the sky. A notable exception was Ereshkigal, or Cutha, who lived with her male consort in the underworld. Demons and monsters dwelt in the regions between the sky and the underworld. Tales of journeys between these various realms describe a variety of often conflicting religious doctrines, travel narratives which reveal the structure of the cosmos. The oldest text which names Adapa, the first human being and a trustworthy guide for the afterlife.

Wise understanding he has perfected for him to disclose the designs of the land,

To him he has given wisdom; eternal life he had not given him.

Once, while fishing, the south wind overturned Adapa's boat. Offended, he broke the wings of the wind, typologically identified with the exorcism of demons who cause disease. The god Anu is displeased by Adapa’s impious act and summons him to stand before him. Adapa’s advisor Ea instructs him to appear before Anu in a posture of deep mourning, and further instructs him not to eat any food that is offered to him during his heavenly interview (anticipating the Greek Demeter/Persephone myth, as well as the Book of Genisis). Adapa receives a favorable reception from Anu and is given clothes, oil, and the bread water of life which grants immortality. Adapa, as instructed, refuses this food and drink, and thereby forfeits humanity’s opportunity to live forever.

Another epic describes the adventures of King Etana of Kish who journeys to heaven to obtain a life-giving plant that will enable him to overcome his childless state. This plant is guarded by the fearsome goddess Inanna (Ishtar in Akkadian). At the outset of his journey, Etana rescues an eagle being threatened by a serpent.  The grateful eagle transports Etana to heaven but offends sun god Shamash when it enters his domain with a mortal. Etana’s anxiety causes him to fall off the eagle, but it is presumed that the eagle intervenes to prevent its passenger’s potentially fatal descent. Icarus of Greek mythology similarly fell to earth when he boldly attempted to ascend to the heavens and perished for this presumptuous act. Mesopotamian myths agree that selected heroic mortals can visit the gods of heaven to obtain wisdom, but every mortal, however wise, ultimately perishes 

Some myths document the journeys of heavenly gods to the underworld, a place of death that is the opposite of their normal habitation. In the underworld even a god can die. The epic of the descent of Inanna (ancient Sumerian goddess of love, sensuality, fertility, procreation, and war) is a familiar example. Inanna (Ishtar) decides to visit her older sister, Ereshkigal, ruler of the underworld. Before entering this world, she instructs her messenger Ninshubur to await her return for three days. If she did not return, he was to plead with Enlil of Nippur for her release. If Enlil refused to help, he was to plead in Ur with the moon god Nanna. If Nanna refused to intervene, he was to plead with Enki, the god of wisdom in his city, Eridu. Inanna then enters the netherworld dressed in her seven distinctive adornments, tools, and weapons which she progressively lays aside so that she may appear before her sister Ereshkigal naked. Her sister immediately condemns her to death.

Inanna’s corpse is hung from a peg and begins to decompose, and famine and infertility plague the earth. Her messenger, as instructed, alerts the gods about her disappearance, but only Enki responds. Enki creates two fly-like creatures and sends them to the underworld with the grass and water of life. In the underworld, Ereshkigal grants these two ostensible mourners access to Inanna’s corpse. They sprinkle it, and it comes back to life. Ereshkigal’s advisors, however, will not permit Inanna to depart until she provides a hostage to replace her. She offers her husband, Dummuzi (Tammuz). Dummuzi’s sister Geshtinanna offers to share her brother’s exile, so each sibling passes half the year in the underworld. Their rotation is symbolic of the production of grain in the winter and spring (Dummuzi) and fruit in the summer and fall (Geshtinanna), and is similar to the Demeter/Persephone myth of the Greeks with its connotations of life, death, and rebirth with the start of a new planting season. 

The epic of Nergal and Ereshkigal inverts that of the Descent of Inanna. The gods of heaven aspire to include Ereshkigal in their heavenly banquets, despite her inability to depart from her underworld realm. When her consort Nergal descended to the underworld, he was obliged (as was Inanna) to remove his clothing. He had been warned not to accept Ereshkigal’s hospitality but fails to heed this warning for the sake of good food and good sex. After a week of continual lovemaking, Nergal determines to escape the underworld. The heavenly gods refuse to permit his escape. His love for food and sex ensures that Nergal will no longer be immortal, fleshly lusts that he holds in common with every other mortal human being.

The superstar of Sumerian mythology, Gilgamesh, has been the subject of epic literature for the past four thousand years. The dominant attitude about death in ancient Mesopotamia, despite the exception of Inanna’s resurrection, was stoical acceptance. Gilgamesh is two-thirds divine and one-third human. He is ruler of the city of Uruk. At the beginning of his story, Gilgamesh's behavior falls short of a kingly ideal. To better teach him good manners, the gods groom his twin bother and former nature child Enkidu to serve as his advisor. Their close relationship is believed to reflect homosexual undertones, like the relationship between Jonathon and David in the Hebrew Bible. But whereas homosexuality is merely implied, heterosexuality is explicitly documented in the epic of Gilgamesh.

Enkidu commences his mentorship of Gilgamesh by engineering a series of heroic diversions and quests which serve to cement their friendship. Their shared adventures, however, provoke the anger of Inanna. Gilgamesh has spurned her amorous advances and the companions have killed her sacred bulls. He was not interested in sharing the fate of Inanna’s previous litany of rejected lovers, nor was he anxious the become forever trapped in the underworld. Aspirations for war and fame on earth triumph over those of immortal domestic bliss below the earth. In later versions of this epic Gilgamesh becomes a ruler of the underworld. In the principal version, Inanna swears that one of the pair of friends must die, and Enkidu is the one who dies, not honorably on the field of battle, but rather from disease. A mournful Gilgamesh determines to discover a remedy for death.

In the accepted Mesopotamian manner, Gilgamesh commemorates Enkidu’s death by laying aside his decent garments and ceasing to groom and bathe himself, denials augmented with fasting, cuttings of the flesh, and self-flagellation. When the prescribed period for these afflictions ends, rites of purification again fitted Gilgamesh for everyday existence. A quest for the key to immortality begins so that Enkidu might live again. The death of his boon companion causes Gilgamesh to reflect upon his own death. Since death is unavoidable, a warrior becomes glorified when they die on the battlefield.

Gilgamesh now sets out on a series of journeys to search for his ancestor Utnapishtim, legendary king of the ancient city of Shuruppak who, according to many narratives, survived the Flood by making a boat. Utnapishtim Ives at the mouth of the rivers and has been given eternal life. This Noah-like hero advises Gilgamesh to abandon his search for immortality yet gives him a trial to defy sleep if he wishes to obtain immortality, a trial that Gilgamesh ignominiously fails. Utnapishtim next tells him about a plant that can restore youth. Gilgamesh obtains the plant from the bottom of the sea, but a serpent steals it from him (an episode that scholars compare to Biblical descriptions of the Tree of Life). Gilgamesh returns home to Uruk, abandoning hope of either immortality or renewed youth. Gilgamesh’s acceptance of his own mortality serves as model for every human who has similarly abandoned hope.

Goddess and barmaid Siduri advises Gilgamesh to make the best of a bad situation:

As for you, Gilgamesh, let your belly be full,

Make merry day and night.

On each day make a feast of rejoicing,

Day and night dance and play!

Let your garments be sparkling fresh,

Your head be washed, bathe in water.

Pay heed to a little one that holds on to your hand.

Let a spouse delight in your bosom,

For this is the task of a woman.

This Babylonian ethos finds its Judaic counterpart in Ecclesiastes 8:15:

Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labor the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun.

Fragmentary texts describe the death and afterlife in the underworld of Gilgamesh which seem to contradict the practical advice of Siduri (and Solomon). Enlil, the supreme god of gods, confirms that Gilgamesh will indeed die, but his death will be commemorated annually by the living. Gilgamesh learns the benefits of a proper burial and envisions an underworld banquet scene whose participants are seated without regard to rank or social privilege. Gilgamesh is depicted as a judge of the underworld, having ultimately attained, through much hardship and toil, a kingly demeanor 

In the well-ordered, but generally gloomy underworld, the wellbeing of the dead is influenced by the actions (or lack thereof) of their living descendants. Regular offerings (kipsu) of bread and water were occasionally augmented by more elaborate provisions. It was believed that the dead could provide rain, protection against witchcraft, and increase the herds of the living. Kipsu rituals were performed by the families of the deceased and included a communal meal that was shared among the living and the dead. The Canaanite evolution of this ritual was called a marzih, and is believed to have included sexual elements which both offended and attracted their Israelite neighbors.

 The story of Enlil and Ninlil offers further details about the underworld. It begins with a description of the city of Nippur, its walls, river, canals and well, portrayed as the home of the gods. It continues with the goddess Nun-bar-ce-gunu warning her daughter Ninlil about the possibility of romantic advances from Enlil if she strays too near the river. Ninlil resists Enlil's initial advances, but soon the couple meet and float downstream, either during bathing or in a boat, then lie on the bank together. They kiss, and then conceive Nanna-sin (later called Sin), the moon god. The other gods arrest Enlil for his relationship with Ninlil and banish him to the underworld for being ritually impure. Ninhil decides to follow Enlil, who tries to retard her descent by disguising himself as the gatekeeper to Nippur, the gatekeeper to the underworld, and the ferryman to the land of the dead. On all three occasions he impregnates Ninhil, who gives birth to three gods of the underworld. Enlil is unwilling that his consort and his firstborn remain imprisoned, In addition, the absence of the moon god from heaven and earth was wreaking climactic havoc. As was the case in the story of Inanna, Enlil devised a strategy to provide hostages to take their places.  

As noted, the religious beliefs of Canaan are mostly drawn from Mesopotamia but include Egyptian influences as well. Due to their environment, herding livestock, rather than agriculture was the main support of the Canaanite economy. Heavy, but short rains occurred in the early fall. Longer, gentler rain fell in the winter that permitted the raising of wheat. Rains that formerly fell in late spring ceased, but dew proved adequate to raise barley. Periodically, no rain fell at all. Consequently, the gods that intrmittantly controlled the climate took prominence in the Canaanite pantheon.

Ba’al, the storm god, produced rain and influenced the fecundity of livestock, but grew weak every seven years despite his usual omnipotence. Canaanites believed that Baal engaged in mortal combat with Mot, the god of death and sterility. If Baal triumphed, a seven-year cycle of fertility would ensue; but, if he were vanquished by Mot, seven years of drought and famine would ensue. In some years enough rain fell on the eastern coastal mountain slopes to provide spring grazing for the herds. In any given year the rains might fail, or arrive too late, or last too long. Too much or too little moisture laden dew could damage the barley crop. Life was more toilsome and vexatious in Canaan than it was in the river valley cultures of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Canaan was also an easily defended and narrow land bridge connecting Africa to Europe and Asia. Three roads facilitated war and commerce; the easy Royal Road that ran along the coast, a less easy road passing through the rift valley, and a difficult road along the mountain passes of Judea and Samaria. At the height of their power, the Israelites briefly controlled all three roads. For most of its history, however, Israel occupied highlands that were safe from attack by the chariots of their belligerent and powerful neighbors to the north and south.

‘El was the chief god of Canaan, held court in the snowcapped mountains of the north and was ruler of a group of divinities sometimes known as the circumpolar, never setting stars of ‘El. ‘El was known as the Bull, symbolizing both strength and virility, but typically absented himself from the affairs of humanity. He was portrayed as a grandfatherly, bearded old man seated on a throne, the “Father of Years” and the “Ancient of Days” reflected in Daniel 7:9 of the Hebrew Bible:

I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire.

‘El delegated his duties to son Ba’al, who warded off chaos, sea storms, drought, and death. Ba’al, assuming like ‘El the guise of a bull, also brought fertility to the land and herds. An epic of Ba’al describes his conflict with Yam (the sea), an influencer of the weather and winter storms, and important to the seafaring Phoenicians of Canaan and their Carthaginian descendants. Another epic describes the defeat of Mot (death), God of the underworld by Ba’al. This feat entitled Ba’al to receive the throne of his father ‘El. Titles for Ba’al were Ba’al the Mighty” and “He Who Mounts the Clouds.” This reflected in Psalm 68:4 of the Hebrew Bible:

Sing unto God, sing praises to his name: extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his name Jah, and rejoice before him.

As the lord of vegetation, Ba’al was styled as the “son of Dagan.” He wore military garb, reminiscent of depictions of YHWH as Lord of Hosts, but was mostly portrayed wearing the horns of a bull.

After having conquered the forces of nature (particularly Mot, or death Yam, or the sea, and Yam’s sea serpent ally Lotan) Ba’al hoped to obtain a palace as magnificent as those of other gods. Ba’al persuaded Asherah, his mother, to intercede with her husband ‘El to authorize the construction of a palace. The god of arts and crafts, Kothar, proceeded to design and construct a splendid 10,000-acre palace complex. Parallels exist between this story and the building of Solomon’s Temple. Both were authorized by a deity and completed and dedicated at the beginning of the rainy season. Scholars identify Yam’s ally Lotan with the biblical Leviathan. Isaiah 27:1 predicts God’s conquest of this creature:

In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.

Correspondences between Canaanite mythology and the text of the Hebrew Bible reflect an Israelite identity crisis. Scripture reflects many Canaanite traditions and cultural motifs, despite its many prophetic admonitions that the Israelites have nothing to do with the inhabitants of Canaan and their gods.

Asherah was the great “Mother Earth” goddess of ancient semitic peoples and was often depicted as the tree of life. This suggests an affinity with both biblical Eve and the tree of life described in the Book of Genesis. Her sacred tree, the Asherah, was named after her and remained popular among Israelite agriculturalists despite biblical warnings against it. Deuteronomy 16:21 commands this:

Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees [sacred poles, or Asherah] near unto the altar of the Lord thy God, which thou shalt make thee 

‘Anat, consort of Ba’al, was goddess of both love and of warfare which entertained, seduced, and then slaughtered young men. Like Inanna, ‘Anat’s cult animal was a lion. Sumerian Inanna, Akkadian Ishtar, Greek Aphrodite, and the Roman goddess of love were all identified with the planet Venus, the morning and evening star, an erratic and unpredictable luminous object whose failure to move with the stars was perceived to be due to the controlling hand of a deity. Like Inanna’s descent into the underworld, Venus occasionally drops below the horizon, only to reappear. A version of Inanna’s story from Ninevah hints that its agricultural metaphor held the promise of a ritual revivification of the dead. Ishtar herself was transformed into a male deity, Ashtar, by the Canaanites but alternately maintained her gender as the goddess Ashtoreth, patroness of crop irrigation. The Hebrew Bible thrice condemns for embracing Ashtoreth, an accommodation he made for the Sidonian members of his populous harem. First Kings 11:5 unflatteringly records this::

For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.

An Israelite of the First Temple period was better acquainted with the gods of Canaan than they were with those of distant Mesopotamia. This changed in the wake of the Babylonian captivity, but Canaanite religion persisted as an influence and continued to merit condemnation. Hebrew prophets condemned the ritual sexual activity and divinely sanctioned temple prostitution of Canaanite religion and were also scandalized that adults and children were sacrificed. Disturbing quantities of the bones of children have been discovered near the sites of Carthaginian temples. Contemporary scholars argue that in an era of high infant mortality, these bones might be those of children that died a natural death. The authors of the Bible, however, record these sacrifices as historical events. Second Kings 3:27, for example:

Then he [King Mesha of Moab attempting to ward off an attack by the Israelites] took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall. And there was great indignation against Israel: and they departed from him, and returned to their own land.

Other passages from the Hebrew Bible condemn the Canaanites for sacrificing human beings but concede that this occurred only as a last resort. The 22nd chapter of the Book of Genesis records that Abraham, no Canaanite, was commanded by God to sacrifice his son Isaac but this example of human sacrifice was providentially interrupted. Deuteronomy 18:10-12 is especially critical of Canaanite traditions:

There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee. 

Other references to the Hebrew Bible provided by the author mostly cite reports of human sacrifices performed by the Hebrews themselves, the most controversial of these being the story of Jepthah and his daughter from the 11th chapter of the Book of Judges. Verses 30 and 31 state:

And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.

Jephthah is victorious in battle, but he soon regrets having made the vow that assured this victory. Verses 34-36 record the victor’s homecoming:

And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter. And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back. And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon.

Scholars debate whether Jephthah’s daughter literally became a burnt offering, or instead passed the rest of her life as a virgin. Despite Gad’s admonition that the possessors of the land promised to Abraham and his seed be entirely eliminated, this never happened. In Canaan, human sacrifice did not occur every day, but the continued proximity of the Israelites and Canaanites assured that when it did occur, both parties would catch wind of it. When a king of Israel or Judah engaged in human sacrifice, the biblical record of this is much more credible. Evil King Manasseh, eldest son of good King Hezekiah, ruled Judah during the height of its economic prosperity. According to the Book of Kings, Manasseh reversed the centralizing reforms of his father Hezekiah, and re-established local shrines, possibly for economic reasons. He restored polytheistic worship of Baal and Asherah in the Temple and sponsored the Assyrian astral cult throughout Judah. So zealous was he in his worship of the foreign gods, he is said to have participated in the sacrificial cult of Moloch which consisted of sacrificing young children or passing them through fire. Second Kings 21:6 mentions this procedure: 

And he [Manasseh] made his son pass through the fire, and observed times, and used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards: he wrought much wickedness in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger.

Ba’al, like Inanna, visited the underworld by invitation of Mot, god of death. The details of his journey vary depending on which account of this visit is read. Following a gap in the record, Ba’al’s death is announced to his father ‘El. ‘El and his court mourn the passing of Ba’al, establishing a pattern that persisted into the Hellenistic era. The ritual significance of this mourning was to assure the return of Ba’al to earth to facilitate autumnal rainfall that dwindled to mere dew whenever he departed the earth. Ba'al's return was a result a rituals performed by the Canaanite priesthood, but every seventh year Mot challenged Ba’al to mortal combat. When Mot prevailed, the world was subject to drought. Like Inanna, Ba’al truly died, and subsequently was truly resurrected, despite their both being presumably immortal gods. Their return from the underworld was only accomplished through proper ritual commemoration of the dead, and a subsequent restoration of the world’s fertility was always a cause for celebration.

 A Canaanite myth that addresses the topics of immortality and the afterlife is the Epic of Aqhat, a tale of death and loss, and conceivably also a tale of efficacious commemoration and recovery. Hero Dan’el (like several persons described in the Hebrew Bible) fervently prayed to the gods that he would produce a son. He feasted the gods of conception and birth for six days straight. In return, they ensured that a son, Aqhat, would be born to Dan’el and his wife Danatay. As Aqhat matured, his father received a bow and arrows from Kothar-wa-Hasis (Kothar for short, the same divine artisan that constructed a magnificent palace for Ba’al) which he bestowed to his son. Goddess of war and love ‘Anat coveted this weapon, bargaining with Aqhat in the following manner:

Hear now, O hero Aqhat,

Ask silver and I will give it thee,

Even gold and I will freely bestow it on thee,

But give me thy bow,

Let the sisters of the Prince take thy arrows.

Aqhat was not persuaded to relinquish his weaponry, so ‘Anat now promised him immortality, an promise she was incapable of fulfilling. He replies to this second offer with words that detail Canaanite burial practices which featured the glazing and plastering of the head of a corpse:

Fabricate not, O virgin;

To a hero, thy lives are trash.

As for mortal man, what does he get at his latter end?

What does a mortal man get as his inheritance?

Glaze will be poured on my head,

Glaze will be poured on my head,

Even plaster on my pate,

And the death of all men I will die,

Yes, I will surely die.

An offended ‘Anat received ‘El’s permission to punish Aqhat, but her vengeance exceeded the extent of the offense. Her subordinate, Yatpan, in the guise of a hunting fowl, actually kills Aqhat, and the highly coveted bow plunges into the sea. Hen father Dan’el learned of his son’s death, the crops failed, and a drought began. After seven years of morning, Aqhat’s sister Pagat beseeched a blessing from their mutual father to kill Yatpen, the murderer of her brother. At this point, the record ends, but it is conjectured that ‘Anat revenged the death of Aqhat in the setting of a Canaanite ritual commemoration of the dead, a marzih, which do not result in the resurrection of the dead, but when regularly performed marzih perpetuate remembrance of the dead, a second-grade version of the genuine immortality denied to humanity and to gods, like Aqhat, who have lost their immortal status.

The marzih can be regarded as the foundation and centerpiece of the Canaanite cult of the dead. In addition to having their heads glazed, the corpse was often accompanied with grave goods. Some corpses were dismembered, possibly to limit their ability to cause harm to their surviving relatives. Canaanite gravesites contain archeological evidence of the placement of multiple offerings. Beyond the physical evidence of periodic funerary rituals, literary evidence exists that describes the veneration, appeasing, and feeding of the dead at prescribed intervals and whenever their intervention is required. Marzih commemorations were comprised of living human celebrants, divinities, and deceased ancestors, some of whom may have been transformed into demigods.

These transformed dead represent Canaanite conceptions of the afterlife. They have been “healed.” It was Canaanite hero Dan’el, father of Aqhat, was the namesake of the Hebrew prophet Daniel who first alludes to the afterlife in the Hebrew Bible. Chapter 2 concludes with a restatement of the interconnectivity of Israelite and Canaanite religion. Concerning the afterlife, page 118 provides this analysis:

During the whole First Temple period (970-587 BCE) the battle raged, as we shall see, and the received Bible fought strongly against any articulate notion of an afterlife, beatific or not. The Bible, however, reaches its present form in the Second Temple period (515 BCE-70 CE). Just how much of the portrait of the First Temple period that we read in the Bible is historical is a moot point, as it is actually being filtered through the eyes of a much later and more sophisticated editor. It is quite possible to posit that the First Temple period was much closer to the culture of Canaan than the Bible paints it. On the other hand, when it comes to issues of the afterlife, we cannot fail to admit that there is not much archeological evidence that the Israelites regularly offered food and drink to the dead, as was characteristic of the Canaanite cults.

In the end, however, after notions of the afterlife entered Israel, it was not the notion of contact with the living that persisted as a beatific reward after death. On the contrary, the vision of the afterlife of the Mesopotamian and Canaanite cities became more the model of hell, not heaven, in the Bible.