Apparent Rituals and Concepts in Canaanite Religion

The archaeology and historical geography of Canaan confirms several religious features known from the Bible. Canaanites often worshiped deities in places which were considered holy—frequently at “high places,” which were associated with gods and divine assemblies. Canaanites often worshiped outside, at altars of unfinished stones and soil. They also considered temples, which often stood on the sacred ground, to be the dwelling of the god(s).

The most common temple design in second millennium bc Canaan, dating to the Chalcolithic era, was the “broadhouse” temple. These temples consisted of one long room, which contained a niche to house divine figures or stelae. Broadhouse temples have been found at Megiddo, Jericho, Lachish, and Hazor. A temple at Hazor includes a platform in the courtyard which contained a channel to drain blood, showing evidence of an altar. Temples sometimes also contained burial pits for bones, votive objects, basins, and raised areas for incense. Several Phoenician style temples from the 9th–8th centuries bc have also been excavated in Syria, often built in the “long house” design of Solomon’s Jerusalem temple.

Priests and temple functionaries cared for and controlled the sacred area and buildings, oversaw the sacrifices and religious rituals, and probably practiced divination. They may also have been the conveyors of mythological and wisdom traditions. The role ascribed to the first millennium bc priest Sanchuniaton fits with what we know about religious functionaries in Canaan. A Punic inscription from Cyprus asserts that religious complexes also employed sacrificers, servants, masons, and scribes; other texts also list singers, musicians, and “holy ones.” Forms of liturgy are difficult to trace in Canaan. While there are sometimes remarkable comparisons of vocabulary, themes, and style between the biblical Psalms and poems from Ugarit, the literary traditions are undoubtedly elitist, and prayers are archaeologically invisible unless figurines can be considered as “prayers in clay” (Dever, Did God Have a Wife?, 106, Coogan, Stories from Ancient Canaan). Deities were believed to be able to reside within cult statues, and votive objects represented the desires and beliefs of the worshipers.

It is impossible to say with any certainty that Canaanites reenacted mythological narratives as a part of rituals and religious festivals in Canaan. However, there is a connection between the myths and rites, so the extant literature can offer information about the Canaanites’ concepts and practices. The Mesopotamians recited the Babylonian Creation Epic—in which Marduk is crowned king—at the New Year Festival in Marduk’s honor. The Baal Cycle from Ugarit, in which Baal’s reign is established as a result of his victory over chaos and disorder, demonstrates that Canaanites likely linked the New Year to mythic traditions; Baal’s reign is celebrated after his resurrection from the dead renews the land. The Israelite Feast of Tabernacles, which marks the end of one year and the beginning of the next, was derived from the Canaanite autumn festival held at the ingathering of fruit, wine, and oil, when Baal had risen again to provide the life-giving rains. The biblical texts also demonstrate that his time spent in the Underworld over the summer was part of the religion; Zechariah 12:11 refers to a mourning rite celebrated in the plain of Megiddo where people mourned the death of Baal (Hadad-Rimmon) and attempted to revive him through prayers and rituals. The Ugaritic texts describe that mourning rites involved laceration, ripping out of hair, and the wearing of sackcloth and ashes; Ezekiel 27:30–31 portrays these actions as Canaanite.

Biblical and Ugaritic texts and recovered animal remains close to excavated altars demonstrate that Canaanite religion centered on slaying sacrificial animals (Pardee, Ritual and Cult at Ugarit, 3). Canaanites offered cattle, sheep, goats, and birds (in addition to grain and wine) to the gods along with prayers. Remains and Punic sacrificial tariffs indicate that this continued in the Phoenician colonies. The biblical holocaust sacrifice is depicted as a Canaanite ritual in 2 Kgs 10:24, and we find burnt offerings presented to the deity (but not consumed by the people) in Ugaritic and Hittite literature. Communion sacrifices—regular offerings in the Israelite tribal period (1 Sam 10:8)—seem to have existed in Canaanite, Moabite, Ammonite, and Greek societies. Ugaritic texts suggest that the ritual had a covenantal quality. Deuteronomy 32:38 states that the Canaanite gods “ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their libations,” indicate that Canaanites viewed the rite as a meal taken with god.

Textual and archaeological evidence suggests that child sacrifice was also part of Canaanite religion. Various Greek and Latin sources bear witness to Punic child sacrifice. They also attest to a great bronze statue of Kronos, in whose arms children were placed over a fire. Sacred precincts or cemeteries known as “tophets” have been discovered at several sites where the Phoenicians established colonies (e.g., Sardinia, Sicily, and Malta); at Carthage, thousands of burial urns filled with the charred bones of infants or small sacrificial animals and birds (which may have functioned as substitutes for children) have been found (Dever, Did God Have a Wife?, 218).

These discoveries align with the assertions in 2 Kgs 23:10 and Jer 32:35 that children were sacrificed to Molech in Topheth in the Valley of Hinnom. Molech may have been the name of a god of child sacrifice, probably a distortion of the root מלך (mlk), “king,” using the vowels of the Hebrew בֹּשֶׁת (bosheth), “shame” (Heider, The Cult of Molek; Day, Molech). It is possible, however, that the biblical term is simply a cognate of the Phoenician and Punic term molkmulk/, which appears in inscriptions and seems to designate the sacrifice of a child or an animal substitute. The divine element Malik is well attested in names at Ebla. A similar deity at Ugarit appears to be connected with the Underworld and the cult of the dead; while this may support the existence of a Canaanite god of child sacrifice, attempts to equate him with Melqart or Milkom should probably be rejected. In addition, it should be noted that not all scholars are convinced that the archaeological evidence points to child sacrifice in either Phoenicia or the Punic colonies.

It is difficult to determine the Canaanite view of life after death and the nature of dead spirits because there is very little literary and archaeological evidence. Texts and burial rites from Ugarit and throughout Syria seem to attest to a form of ancestor worship. The Ugaritic rpum (Rephaim in the Old Testament), a name probably linked with the root “to heal,” appears to refer to the dead spirits. It is unclear whether these dead spirits should be seen as the “privileged” dead—kings, lower deities, or heroic warriors. They were most likely considered to be deceased ancestors who have achieved a semidivine status, which is why they are defined as “gods” in the pantheon and sacrificial lists (Lewis, Cults of the Dead, 56).

The Hadad inscription (eighth century bc Zincirli) mentions that the heir was obligated to invoke the name of the dead king in Hadad’s temple in a sacrificial context. This notion occurs in the Hebrew Bible as well (2 Sam 18:18) and at Ugarit. The custom of the marzeah, which is still not well understood, may have involved some sort of communion with the dead, and is attested in the Old Testament in connection with mourning (Jer 16:5–7) and excessive feasting (Amos 6:4–7). Although mythological texts from Ugarit describe feasts with the dead ancestors, there is no substantial archaeological evidence that there was a continuing practice of providing food and libations for the dead, or that the marzeah was seen as a banquet with the ancestors, rather than a property owning, feasting society only secondarily associated with funerary traditions (Lewis, Cults of the Dead, 80–94).

Canaanites also erected stone stelae for ancestors. These may have been connected with rows of stone slabs erected at sanctuaries in Gezer, Hazor, and Ugarit. However, these stones were more likely symbols of deities, and seem to have been worshiped as such from the second millennium bc until Roman times. In the second millennium, the Temple of Obelisks was built on top of the sanctuary of Baalat in Byblos, so called because more than 26 votary obelisks stood in its courtyard. The Ugaritic texts describe an announcement and a whispering of stones, which may refer to an oracular purpose. The Old Testament also tells of מַצֵּבוֹת (matstsevoth), standing stones commemorating the appearance or presence of deities, which belong to the Canaanites (Exod 23:24) or are associated with the early stories of the patriarchs (Dever, Did God Have a Wife?, 99–100).