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KTU

Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit

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El's Feast

KTU 1.114

In his house El gave a feast of game, the produce of the hunt in the midst of his palace.
He cried: To the carving, gods! Eat, O gods, and drink!⁠
Drink wine until satiety, foaming wine until intoxication!
Yarih arched his back like a dog; he gathered up crumbs beneath the tables.
Any god who recognized him threw him meat from the joint.
But any god who did not recognize him hit him with a stick beneath the table.
At the call of Athtart and Anat he approached.
Athtart threw him a haunch, and Anat a shoulder of meat.
The porter of El’s house shouted: cLook!
Why have you thrown a haunch to the dog, to the cur have you thrown a shoulder?”
He shouted at El his father. El summoned his drinking-companions;
El took his seat in his feasting house.
He drank wine to satiety, new wine until intoxication.
El went off to his house; he stumbled off towards his dwelling;
Thukamun and Shanim supported him.
A creeping monster approached him, with horns and tail!
He floundered in his own faeces and urine:
El fell down as though dead; El was like those who go down into the underworld.
Anat and Athtart went out hunting.
[…] Baal […]
[…]
Athtart and Anat returned and they brought back meat.
When they had cured him, he awoke.
This is what needs to be put on his forehead: dog-hair and the knot of a vine and its juice.
and the head of a […] and its juice.
They should be applied together with virgin olive oil.

Texts in conversation

Compare KTU 1.114:2 and Amos 6:7

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Amos condemns ceremonial banquets where revelers sprawl on couches, drinking wine. The Ugaritic text KTU 1.114 describes the same marzeah ritual where the gods drink wine to intoxication.

Passages

KTU 1.114:2

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
In his house El gave a feast of game, the produce of the hunt in the midst of his palace. He cried: To the carving, gods! Eat, O gods, and drink! Drink wine until satiety, foaming wine until intoxication! Yarih arched his back like a dog; he gathered up crumbs beneath the tables. Any god who recognized him threw him meat from the joint.
1350–1185 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in KTU

Amos 6:7

Hebrew Bible
6 They drink wine from sacrificial bowls and pour the very best oils on themselves. Yet they are not concerned over the ruin of Joseph. 7 Therefore they will now be the first to go into exile, and the religious banquets where they sprawl on couches will end. 8 The Sovereign Lord confirms this oath by his very own life. The Lord God of Heaven’s Armies is speaking: “I despise Jacob’s arrogance; I hate their fortresses. I will hand over to their enemies the city of Samaria and everything in it.”
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Amos

References

"... Another funerary repast thought to have figured at times in the cult of deceased kings (as well as commoners) is the rite associated with the institution known from the Bible as the marze’ach (Jeremiah 16:5; Amos 6:7). It too may be attested as early as the texts from third millennium Ebla. In the second millennium it is attested at Ugarit, in the first in Israel and Judah, and in the ‘Israelian’ colony at Elephantine in Egypt. At the turn of the millennium it is known from Phoenician and Punic settlements in the Piraeus near Athens and at Marseilles, and in Nabataean settlements at Petra in Jordan and Avdat in the Negev. Thereafter, it is frequently found in Palmyrene inscriptions, on the Madeba map, and in Rabbinic literature. ..."
William W. Hallo, Origins: The Ancient Near Eastern Background of Some Modern Western Institutions (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996), 209.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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KTU 1.114:2 and Amos 6:7

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