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KTU

Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit

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Baal Cycle

KTU 1.5 VI

Then they set their faces indeed towards El at the source of the rivers at the midst of the springs of the two deeps. They rolled back the tent of El
and came to the pavilion of the King, the Father of the Bright One.
They lifted up their voices and cried:
We travelled to the ends of the earth,
to the edge of the abyss;
we came to Paradise the land of pasture,
to Delight, the steppe by the shore of death.
We came upon Baal fallen to the earth:
dead was Valiant Baal,⁠
perished was the Prince, Lord of the earth!
Then the Wise One, the perceptive god,
went down from his throne:
he sat on his footstool. And from his footstool
he sat on the ground. He poured the ashes of affliction on his head,⁠
the dust of grovelling on his skull
For clothing he put on a loin-cloth
His skin with a stone he scored,⁠
his side-locks with a razor;
he gashed cheeks and chin.
He ploughed his collar-bones,
he turned over like a garden his chest, like a valley he ploughed his breast
He lifted up his voice and cried:
Baal is dead! What has become of the Powerful One?
The Son of Dagan! What has become of Tempest?
After Baal I shall go down into the underworld. Anat also went out,
and searched every mountain in the midst of the earth,
every hill in the midst of the steppe.
She came to Paradise, the land of pasture,
Delight, the steppe by the shore of death.
She found Baal,
fallen to the earth. For clothing she put on a loincloth.

Texts in conversation

Compare KTU 1.5 VI:17 and Deuteronomy 14:1

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Deuteronomy rejects the mourning cuts shown by El in the Baal Cycle, making Israel's relationship with its God a reason to leave this familiar custom behind.

Passages

KTU 1.5 VI:17

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
Then the Wise One, the perceptive god, went down from his throne: he sat on his footstool. And from his footstool he sat on the ground. He poured the ashes of affliction on his head, the dust of grovelling on his skull For clothing he put on a loin-cloth His skin with a stone he scored, his side-locks with a razor; he gashed cheeks and chin. He ploughed his collar-bones, he turned over like a garden his chest, like a valley he ploughed his breast He lifted up his voice and cried: Baal is dead! What has become of the Powerful One? The Son of Dagan! What has become of Tempest?
1350–1185 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in KTU

Deuteronomy 14:1

Hebrew Bible
1 You are children of the Lord your God. Do not cut yourselves or shave your forehead bald for the sake of the dead. 2 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. He has chosen you to be his people, prized above all others on the face of the earth. 3 You must not eat any forbidden thing. 4 These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, 5 the ibex, the gazelle, the deer, the wild goat, the antelope, the wild oryx, and the mountain sheep. 6 You may eat any animal that has hooves divided into two parts and that chews the cud. 7 However, you may not eat the following animals among those that chew the cud or those that have divided hooves: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger. (Although they chew the cud, they do not have divided hooves and are therefore ritually impure to you.)
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

References

“... 56. This and the following tricolon take the description of El's mourning to its ritual culmination. Self-mutilation is a classic expression of grief and guilt (both emotions are present at funerals!). El gouges his skin with a stone. Cf. Job 2.8. He also shaves. The prohibition against these actions in Lev. 19.27-28 and Deut. 14.1 presupposes that this was hitherto normal practice. An important symbolic aspect may be that to break the skin is to destroy the boundary between self and not-self, thus inviting the irruption of chaos. Boundaries must be maintained! See Job 7.5. Cutting of the hair 'killed' it, again reinforcing the sense of sharing in the experience of the dead. See refs. in de Moor (1971 a: 193). In the final colon, 'cheeks and chin' (Ug. IQm wdqn) is translated 'side-whiskers and beard' by some, e.g. de Moor (1971a: 190, 193). ...”
N. Wyatt, Religious Texts from Ugarit, 2nd ed. (London: Sheffield Academic, 2006), 127.

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 1.5 VI:17 and Deuteronomy 14:1

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