Here are some fallacies that I would like to nip in the bud...
1. John: "Baal was never a 'God of the Underworld'"
Wrong. According to Ugaritic mythology, there are the two stories dating to
at least 1400 BCE linking Baal firmly to the Underworld - The Battle of Yam
"The Sea" and The Battle of Mot. Yam is associated with Leviathan, a
serpent, and lives in a palace UNDER THE SEA (!!). Mot is inarguably an
UNDERWORLD (!!) god of the dead.
The battle of Baal versus Yam is parallel to the story of Marduk and Tiamat
as well as the IE story of Above-Man (supposedly *Tritos) slaying the
Three-Headed Serpent with the help of the magic of the war god *PexwrGnnos.
Although Baal's palace was on Mount Zephon (and therefore in the sky)
according to Canaanites, the two stories serve to show that he is the MASTER
OF THE UNDERWORLD and is therefore surely without question an underworld god
in act, from most ancient times.
Since you clearly state, John, that the story of a battle between Yam & Baal
"came originally from Sumeria during the Ubaid and later
spread of Sumerian myths northwards into Syria", you are supporting the
ancient prehistoric connection that Baal had with the Underworld. Thank you
for agreeing with me :)
The following article may be of interest. It links Mars with destructive
forces and attempts, as I do, to put forth the likelihood that the deities
we are talking about on this list have been founded on cosmology at an early
date.
http://netropic.speakeasy.org/strand/3/apollo.html
2. Arkugal's claim that Venus-Mars links only go back to the "Hellenic
Period"...
Sorry Arkey dude, the Ugaritic myths go back to at least 1400 BCE. The myths
include Athtar, Venus, son of Ashera (aka Astarte). The Battle of Mot
provides a link between Athtar and Baal. This is already at the very start
of any Hellenic period.
In Canaanite tradition, Athirat is generally married to El except in Qatra
where she is married to Baal-Hadad (!). She frequents the ocean shores
(WATER and UNDERWORLD!). Again, Athirat sends her son Athtar (associated
with the planet VENUS again!) to be ruler of the UNDERWORLD when she
discovers that Baal has supposedly died IN THE UNDERWORLD. On a side note,
the battle of Mot is related to the stories of a dying son, Tammuzi, "child
of the Abyss", raccounting the origin of the seasons. There appears to also
be Athtart, a consort of Baal(!!!), a goddess of FERTILITY as well as WAR
and chase. Aka: Inanna's Descent. Question: Why does Inanna (Venus) set her
heart on ruling the underworld? The dying god story and thus the connection
between Venus and Mars goes back as far as the 4th millenium in Mesopotamia.
Plus, since John has already stated that these myths are based on even
earlier Sumerian ones whose tradition had only been taken over by Akkadians
from as early as 2000 BCE, all I can do is just sit back on this one and
gloat knowing that Arkugal is wrong, wrong, wrong. :)
3. Cosmology originates with the Sumerians.
What a load of BS! How can we possibly assert this claim with proof or
logic? Is there a specific historical date at which the Sumerians discovered
the planets? If not, we can't be so bold to presume that the Sumerians
invented everything, especially when they have been prehistorically
influenced by the Ubaid culture from the north, derived from the Halaf
culture which John associates with the spread of agriculture in the
MiddleEast. If agriculture truely did originate in Eastern Anatolia starting
at around 9000 BCE, then we should expect that the real and mythological
importance placed on the sky and its objects is also from this date and
location.
4. John: "Glen, see my point about the late insertion of Nergal as divinity
of the underworld in post Sumerian times"
And so what was he in Sumerian times then? A god of hot air? :P
5. Nergal was never a fire god.
Why does this site disagree with you?
http://sunsite.org.uk/packages/Project-Gutenberg/etext00/7rbaa10.txt
It states: "It is in consequence of this side of [Nergal's] character that
he appears also as god of fire, the destroying element,[...]"
John:
>Interesting Glen, Baal was a storm god, not a mountain or underword
>god as you assert.
Oh John, get real. The very fact that Baal is a storm god means that he is
linked with Chaos, the Chaos of the Underworld as shown by his association
with Mot and Yam. These are stories to demonstrate that Baal in the end is
the ruler of his underworld domain.
>Mot was god of the underword, a dark and gloomy place, not a place of
>fire and red. Nergal's colour was black (read the site you
>quoted again Glen) not red.
Right, black like in Steppe mythology in connection with the earth because
they both share a bipartitive worldview where the sky is bright and the
EARTH is dark without a concept of Underworld like in SemitoEuropoid belief.
Nergal would partly have been confused with the local tradition of this more
ancient colour symbolism. A quote from
(
http://sunsite.org.uk/packages/Project-Gutenberg/etext00/7rbaa10.txt)
yields:
"The identity [of Nergal] with the Greek Aries and the
Roman Mars is proved by the fact that his planet was
/Mustabarru-mutanu/, 'the death spreader,' which is
probably the name of Mars in Semitic Babylonian."
Again, Mars is a red planet and can be seen as such by the naked eye.
John goes on a rant:
>Old Europe monotheistic! Surely you jest. Even Gambutas makes no
>such claim. There is a huge gap between henotheism and monotheism.
>There is no examples of monotheism anywhere in the world until the
>closure of the Oecumene in the Axial Age of Karl Jaspers (post 700
>BCE).
What should we be looking for as a characteristic of "monotheism" then?
>As Zaehner shows, it was Zarathushtra who developed the first
>monotheism, [...]
An emotional plea and an unverifiable assumption, typical of your input thus
far.
- gLeN
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