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Baal Worship: Difference between revisions

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From [[Canaan]], worship of Baʿal spread to Egypt by the Middle Kingdom and throughout the Mediterranean following the waves of Phoenician colonization in the early 1st millennium BCE. Baʿal Hammon was worshipped in the Tyrian colony of [[Carthage]] as their supreme god. He has been variously identified as a moon god and as Dagan, the grain god. Rather than the bull, Baʿal Hammon was associated with the ram and depicted with his horns. The archaeological record seems to bear out accusations in Roman sources that the Carthaginians burned their children as human sacrifices to [[Baal]] and [[Moloch]]. He was worshipped as Baʿal Karnaim ("Lord of the Two Horns"), particularly at an open-air sanctuary at Jebel Bu Kornein ("Two-Horn Hill") across the bay from [[Carthage]]. His consort was the goddess Tanit. Baʿal Hammon is identified with the Greek Cronos and the Roman Saturn as the Zabul Saturn. See [[Saturn Blood Cult]].  
From [[Canaan]], worship of Baʿal spread to Egypt by the Middle Kingdom and throughout the Mediterranean following the waves of Phoenician colonization in the early 1st millennium BCE. Baʿal Hammon was worshipped in the Tyrian colony of [[Carthage]] as their supreme god. He has been variously identified as a moon god and as Dagan, the grain god. Rather than the bull, Baʿal Hammon was associated with the ram and depicted with his horns. The archaeological record seems to bear out accusations in Roman sources that the Carthaginians burned their children as human sacrifices to [[Baal]] and [[Moloch]]. He was worshipped as Baʿal Karnaim ("Lord of the Two Horns"), particularly at an open-air sanctuary at Jebel Bu Kornein ("Two-Horn Hill") across the bay from [[Carthage]]. His consort was the goddess Tanit. Baʿal Hammon is identified with the Greek Cronos and the Roman Saturn as the Zabul Saturn. See [[Saturn Blood Worship]].  


[[Baal]] was a title and honorific meaning "owner", "lord" in the Northwest Semitic languages spoken in the Levant during antiquity. From its use among people, it came to be applied to gods. The Hebrew Bible includes use of the term in reference to various Levantine deities, often with application towards Hadad, who was decried as a false god. That use was taken over into Christianity and Islam, sometimes under the form Beelzebub in demonology.
[[Baal]] was a title and honorific meaning "owner", "lord" in the Northwest Semitic languages spoken in the Levant during antiquity. From its use among people, it came to be applied to gods. The Hebrew Bible includes use of the term in reference to various Levantine deities, often with application towards Hadad, who was decried as a false god. That use was taken over into Christianity and Islam, sometimes under the form Beelzebub in demonology.