Freethought & Rationalism Archive

semiopen · 06-11-2009, 02:37 PM

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Originally Posted by Anat

Or the other way around - after all the Omride kings are better evidenced than Solomon - the story of Solomon and Hiram was based on the ties between the Omrides and their contemporary Phoenicians?

Can't argue with that.

But there was a temple that wound up in Jerusalem at some point, which the bible seems to be suggesting may have originally been for Baal.

Clivedurdle · 06-11-2009, 02:50 PM

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Ba'al Hammon was the supreme god of the Carthaginians

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Ba‛al (pronounced: [baʕal]; Hebrew: בעל) (ordinarily spelled Baal in English) is a Northwest Semitic title and honorific meaning "master" or "lord" that is used for various gods who were patrons of cities in the Levant, cognate to Akkadian Bēlu. A Baalist or Baalite means a worshipper of Baal.
"Ba‛al" can refer to any god and even to human officials; in some texts it is used as a substitute for Hadad, a god of the rain, thunder, fertility and agriculture, and the lord of Heaven. Since only priests were allowed to utter his divine name Hadad, Ba‛al was used commonly. Nevertheless, few if any Biblical uses of "Ba‛al" refer to Hadad, the lord over the assembly of gods on the holy mount of Heaven, but rather refer to any number of local spirit-deities worshipped as cult images, each called ba‛al and regarded by the writers of the Hebrew Bible in that context as a false god.

Deities called Ba'al and Ba'alath

Ba'al with raised arm, 14th-12th century BC, found at Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit), Louvre

Because more than one god bore the title "Ba'al" and more than one goddess bore the title "Ba'alat" or "Ba``alah," only the context of a text can indicate which Ba'al 'lord' or Ba'alath 'Lady' a particular inscription or text is speaking of.
Though the god Hadad (or Adad) was especially likely to be called Ba'al, Hadad was far from the only god to have that title.
In the Canaanite pantheon, Hadad was the son of El, who had once been the primary god of the Canaanite pantheon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal

Hmmm - Baal Joshua Messiah.

Clivedurdle · 06-11-2009, 03:05 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_language

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Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region then called Pūt in Ancient Egyptian, Canaan in Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic, and Phoenicia in Greek and Latin. Phoenician is a Semitic language of the Canaanite subgroup; its closest living relative is Hebrew. The area where Phoenician was spoken includes modern-day Lebanon, coastal Syria, northern Israel and Malta.
Phoenician is known only from inscriptions such as Ahiram's coffin, Kilamuwa's tomb, Yehawmilk's in Byblos, and occasional glosses in books written in other languages; Roman authors such as Sallust allude to some books written in Punic, but none have survived except occasionally in translation (e.g., Mago's treatise) or in snippets (e.g., in Plautus' plays). The Cippi of Melqart, discovered in Malta in 1694, were inscribed in two languages, Ancient Greek and Carthaginian. This made it possible for French scholar Abbe Barthelemy to decipher and reconstruct the Carthaginian alphabet.[1]

Punic and its influences

The significantly divergent later-form of the language that was spoken in the Tyrian Phoenician colony of Carthage is known as Punic; it remained in use there for considerably longer than Phoenician did in Phoenicia itself, arguably surviving into Augustine's time. It may have even survived the Arabic conquest of North Africa: the geographer al-Bakrī describes a people speaking a language that was not Berber, Latin or Coptic in the city of Sirt in northern Libya, a region where spoken Punic survived well past written use. [1]. However it is likely that Arabization of the Punics was facilitated by their language belonging to the same group (the Semitic languages group) as that of the conquerors, and thus having many grammatical and lexical similarities.
The ancient Lybico-Berber alphabet still in irregular use by modern Berber groups such as the Tuareg is known by the native name tifinaġ, possibly a declined form of the borrowed word Pūnic. Still, a direct derivation from the Phoenician-Punic script is debated and far from established, since both writing systems are very different. As far as language (not the script) is concerned, some borrowings from Punic appear in modern Berber dialects: one interesting example is agadir "wall" from Punic gader.
....

[edit] Phonology, grammar and vocabulary

It is difficult to evaluate sound-changes in Phoenician dialects over time because writers continued to use archaic "book-spellings" that did not mark vowels in any way. Punic writers fitfully added a system of matres lectionis (vowel letters) at a very late period, but soon thereafter mostly shifted to Latin- or Greek-based scripts, which had their own failings (i.e., the inability to mark emphatic, laryngeal and guttural consonants).
Certain similarities between Phoenician and its related neighbours include the vowel shifts known en masse as the "Canaanite Vowel Shift": Proto-Northwest Semitic ā became ū (and Hebrew ō), while stressed Proto-Semitic a became o (Hebrew å) as shown by Latin and Greek transcriptions like rūs for "head, cape" (Hebrew ראש rôš). Despite this regional-specific name, Ancient Egyptian underwent this same vowel shift, which is evident in the spellings of late dialects of this language, particularly Coptic.
Phoenician dialects also appear to have merged the three proto-Northwest Semitic sibilants sin, shin and samekh at a fairly early stage. This process was irregular in Hebrew and Aramaic (see shibboleth), leaving later dialects of those languages with two distinct sounds, s and š. In later Punic, the gutturals seem to have been entirely lost (thus merging tzade with unmarked s as well). The loss of emphatic and laryngeals was also present in certain Roman-era Hebrew dialects as well as in some Aramaic dialects.

Clivedurdle · 06-11-2009, 03:09 PM

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The historical study of Carthage is problematic. Because its culture and records were destroyed by the Romans at the end of the Third Punic War, very few Carthaginian primary historical sources survive. While there are a few ancient translations of Punic texts into Greek and Latin, as well as inscriptions on monuments and buildings discovered in North Africa,[1] the main sources are Greek and Roman historians, including Livy, Polybius, Appian, Cornelius Nepos, Silius Italicus, Plutarch, Dio Cassius, and Herodotus. These writers belonged to peoples in competition, and often in conflict, with Carthage.[2] Greek cities contested with Carthage for Sicily,[3] and the Romans fought three wars against Carthage.[4] Not surprisingly, their accounts of Carthage are extremely hostile; while there are a few Greek authors who took a favorable view, these works have been lost.[5]
Recent excavation has brought much more primary material to light. Some of these finds contradict aspects of the traditional picture of Carthage, and much of the material is still ambiguous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthage

Anat · 06-11-2009, 03:12 PM

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But there was a temple that wound up in Jerusalem at some point, which the bible seems to be suggesting may have originally been for Baal.

And YHWH was originally not very different from Baal - a local deity, with probably several local variations (YHWH of Samaria, YHWH of Teiman), one of the 70 or so sons of El. The Israelites, Judahites and Phoenicians were all subgroups of Canaanites, various Levantine tribes that diverged culturally, but also had cultural exchange at various points.

Clivedurdle · 06-11-2009, 03:24 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenicia

Fascinatingly this article does not discuss the real capital of Phoenicia - Carthage - Punic is Latin for Phoenicia!- and ends the history of the Phoenicians with Alexander - not the Punic Wars!

Quite good writing an empire out of history, especially one that may have invented the alphabet!

IamJoseph · 06-15-2009, 10:36 PM

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Originally Posted by Anat

And YHWH was originally not very different from Baal .

Pivotally different. Monotheism and Polytheism.

IamJoseph · 06-15-2009, 10:39 PM

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Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Punic is Latin for Phoenicia!- and ends the history of the Phoenicians with Alexander - not the Punic Wars!

Which is a 1000 years after the Hebrew bible is said to be given. It is the reason I asked for Phoenecien alphabetical books equivalent with the Hebrew, as evidence it is older.

Anat · 06-16-2009, 12:14 AM

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Pivotally different. Monotheism and Polytheism.

The Israelites and Judahites before the Babylonian exile were henotheists, not monotheists. they did not believe YHWH was the only god in existence, he was merely the god they worshiped.

IamJoseph · 06-16-2009, 12:41 AM

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Originally Posted by Anat

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Pivotally different. Monotheism and Polytheism.

The Israelites and Judahites before the Babylonian exile were henotheists, not monotheists. they did not believe YHWH was the only god in existence, he was merely the god they worshiped.

This is not the case at all, and only the opinion of one far removed of this issue.

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According to the Five Books of Moses, Abraham is revered as the one who overcame the idol worship of his family and surrounding people by recognizing the Hebrew God and establishing a covenant with him and creating the foundation of what has been called by scholars "Ethical Monotheism".

This is a lacking appraisal. It is not only Abraham who rejected the dieties of Ur, but all subsequent Israelites, Hebrews and Jews in all their generations and with all nations encountered. There is not a single instant where the strickest form of Monotheism was not seen, even when existential threats hovered and occured. The Hebrews in Egypt are said to have remained different from the other belief systems, and from the canaanite religions before that.

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The first of the Ten Commandments can be interpreted to forbid the Children of Israel from worshiping any other god but the one true God who had revealed himself at Mount Sinai and given them the Torah, however it can also be read as henotheistic, since it states that they should have "no other gods before me." The commandment itself does not affirm or deny the existence of other deities per se. Nevertheless, as recorded in the Tanakh ("Old Testament" Bible), in defiance of the Torah's teachings, the patron god YHWH was frequently worshipped in conjunction with other gods such as Baal, Asherah, and El.

This is also a wrong reading of the first Commandment, and also read this way elsewhere in this forum. Monotheism is what Monotheism does, and there is no instance of henotheism. The word El merely means Sir or High One, and the issue of forebearence of other beliefs is sanctioned by the law to respect strangers, but not to emulate them, thus it must be read, NOT TO FOLLOW OTHER GODS AS THE OTHER NATIONS DO. The Torah does deny the existence of other Gods, and claims GOD OF THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE [CREATION], AND 'I AM THE LORD - THERE ARE NO OTHER GODS'.

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06-11-2009, 03:24 PM	#56
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenicia Fascinatingly this article does not discuss the real capital of Phoenicia - Carthage - Punic is Latin for Phoenicia!- and ends the history of the Phoenicians with Alexander - not the Punic Wars! Quite good writing an empire out of history, especially one that may have invented the alphabet!

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