Glen (me) wrote of Baal
>No. Baal has characteristics associating him with all four
>qualities:
> FLING/MARRIAGE WITH VENUS,
John:
>Venus, Glen - the Roman Goddess? Or the planet Venus? Certainly not
>the former. And also not the latter. Baal's sister-wife was Anat.
>Astarte was the Ugaritic planet Venus.
Baal wife is Anat, yes. Baal was still associated with Venus (the planet and
goddess associated with it, void of Roman connections). The story of Mot is
an example with Athtar, playing a part.
>ASSOCIATED WITH WAR,
>
>Apart from his battle with Mot and Yam, what war? Zeus also did
>battle with the titans and with Typhon? What does this make him. By
>your logic God of the Underworld.
No, Zeus' battles are secondary creations and unreliable in comparative
mythology.
>SPENDS MOST OF HIS
>TIME IN UNDERWORLD DOING STUFF
>
>Baal, in none of the myths spend most of his time in the Underworld.
>Glen read the prayers to Baal, they prayed to hium as weather god, to
>bring rain for crops, not for the dead.
Well, he certainly ends up dying in the Underworld. If that's not spending
time in the Underworld, I don't know what is. As for his weather god
association, I'm starting to feel that this is a mixup with the native
Sumerian Enlil. In SumeroAkkadian times, the SemitoEuropoid *Ba`alu was
considered equivalent to Enlil and therefore associated with chaotic/stormy
wind because of this new association. The "air/wind" concept comes from
Enlil, god of air. The stormy element comes from *Ba`alu, god of chaos. They
originally would have prayed to him in order that he would not do anything
psychotic and destroy the crops with hail.
>and ASSOCIATED WITH FIRE.
>
>Yes, he roasted the grain. Zeus too was associated with fire. Who
>did Prometheus steal the fire from - it was Olympian Zeus.
But unless Zeus effected the death of the firey Death god, I don't think you
have a case. What kind of fire was it? Underworld fire? Solar fire?
>Glen again
> >These characteristics
> > aren't as readily seen in Zeus.
>
>So you see these characteristics are seen readily in Zeus
No. Secondary creations and indirectly related stories of fire don't count.
>Glen conceeded
> > It can be validly seen both ways although Baal's qualities lean the
> > interpretation in my favour.
John returns:
>Glen, your interpretation of Baals qualities may have vailidity for
>your system of interpretation. But you have to return to what the
>ancients wrote. Look at what they believed. The Bible's Yahweh
>struggled with Baal, not as a god of the underword, but as King of
>the Gods. And Baal FAILED to light fires, not bad for a divinity you >see
>as a fire God.
Failed to light fires? Elaborate. Baal was originally the successor to El,
that's why he is the "King of the Gods".
>Who said Baal Was the ONLY sky God. Baal was weather God, El was the
>creator of all.
Erh, you mixing this with Sumerian myth of Anu versus Enlil... More down
below (in the firey underworld of this message :).
>However, I hope you don't believe that there was
>simply no sun deity in Mycenaean times, that would be absurd.
>
>No but he was not Apollo.
Phew, you scared me for a moment. Good.
>Exactly Enlil god of air, of wind; Anu God of the Vault of Heaven.
>Baal God of the weather; El the Creator God of the Heavens.
>
>In each case (Enlil and Baal) are seen as successor Gods to the older
>Generation (Anu and El). Not much underworld here Glen.
Okay, I can see that you're not understanding what's what here. Enlil/Baal
as god of wind or weather is not from Semitoid beliefs.
The story of Enlil seperating An from Ki is native Sumerian in origin. This
is the bipartitive nature of its belief system where there are the heavens
and the earth. In the middle, the air (Enlil) seperates the two. This is
contrastive to SemitoEuropoid belief (now revised, teehee!):
deities associated
elements
---------------------------------------------------------------
OVERWORLD Ala (Jupiter) = Alita (Saturn) Napis^s^a
MIDDLEWORLD Awilu ArDa
UNDERWORLD Ba`ala (Mars) = `Actarita (Venus) "Waters"
I am starting to get a cooler picture of what went on now. The Sumerians
have a SUMERO-Europoid belief system, a blend of native Sumerian bipartition
(An "sky" versus Ki "earth") combined with Caucasic (Europoid triaspectual)
beliefs (Inanna/Ninlil/Ereshkigal = young maiden/mother/old hag). The two
beliefs were superimposed independently from that which occured with the
SemitoEuropoid mythology to the west, such that Inanna, the young maiden,
_stayed_ associated with the OVERWORLD (instead of the underworld as with
the equivalent *`Actarita) and Ereshkigal, the old hag, also was preserved
in her proper place of the Underworld (aka *Alita). This merger would have
occured by the time Ubaid was making headway in Sumer.
Now, when the Akkadians came over to Sumer, they met up with the already
blended SumeroEuropoid mythology which had become tripartitive because of
the Europoid triaspectual Goddess concept, thus we have a simple merger of
the two beliefs in SumeroEuropoid:
SumeroEuropoid
--------------
Sumerian Europoid
-----------------------------------------
SKIES An "sky" Inanna
EARTH Enlil "air" Ninlil
UNDERWORLD Ki "earth" Ereshkigal
The Akkadians then superimposed their SemitoEuropoid beliefs onto the
SumeroEuropoid ones, obtaining a hodgepodge:
deities associated
elements
---------------------------------------------------------------
OVERWORLD Anu (Jupiter) = Inanna (Venus) Enlil
MIDDLEWORLD Adapa Enki-Ki
UNDERWORLD Nergal (Mars) = Ereshkigal (Saturn) Ea
Instead of *Alu (and *Alitu) being seperated in the primordial waters from
*Ba`alu (and *`Actaritu), we see in SumeroAkkadian belief that first Anu was
born, then Enlil. Thus *Alu = Anu and *Ba`alu = Enlil.
But... *Ba`alu was a not originally a storm god. He's into a broader
dimension of chaos in general. This is Enlil, you're speaking of.
>Monotheism is usually associated with a single, transcendent
>divinity, outside of creation who was omniscient and omnipotenent. >What
>you are referring to is what is normally referred to as pantheism, in which
>the divine is seen as mutable and immanent in all >phenomena. Different
>thing Glen.
Alright, it's a stupid discussion really. The Goddess is still a single
deity with many aspects and therefore can still be termed a monotheism. But
fine, pantheistic it is. Whatever titulates you :P
I wrote:
>Zaehner is irrelevant. Your initial assertion is completely >unverifyable
>whether with or without Zaehner's input and therefore >doesn't constitute a
>proof of anything whatsoever. You're illogical >and furthermore, the
>distinction here is trivial and fruitlessly >argumentative.
John:
>Hello kettle. Try calling the pot black ;-) Zaehner IS relevant to
> >discussing the origins of Monotheism in Iran.
... but you didn't state this. You were asserting that monotheism is a late
concept, which is an absurd assumption and completely unverifyable. The
origins of Iran's monotheism are also irrelevant to this discussion since
they completely postdate the mythologies we are speaking of.
- gLeN
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