Yam (god)
Yam is the name of the
Ugaritic god of Rivers and Sea, and in some myths he is one of the 'ilhm (
Elohim) or sons of
El, the name given to the
Levantine pantheon. Despite linguistic overlap, theologically this god is not a part of the subregional monotheistic theology, but rather is part of a broader and archaic Levantine
polytheism. The name
Yam means "sea" and he is also called
Nahar meaning "river". In the Epic of Ba'al he is also called
Yaw in one verse.
Yam is the deity of the primordial
chaos and represents the power of the sea
untamed and raging; he is seen as ruling tempests and the disasters they wreak. Yam shares many characteristics with Greco-Roman
Ophion, the serpentine
Titan of the sea whom
Kronos cast out of the heavenly
Mt. Olympus. Likewise, the gods cast out Yam from the heavenly mountain
Sappan (modern
Jebel Aqra; "Sappan" is
cognate to
Tsephon (
Tsion). The seven-headed
dragon Lotan is associated closely with him and
the serpent is frequently used to describe him.
Of all the gods, Yam holds special enmity with
Hadad,
THE LORD over the divine assembly. Yam is a deity of the sea and his palace is in the
abyss associated with the depths, or Biblical
tehwom, of the oceans. (This is not to be confused with the abode of
Mot, the ruler of the netherworlds.) In
Ugaritic texts, Yam's special enemy Hadad is also known as the "king of heaven" and the "first born son" of
El, whom ancient Greeks identified with their god
Kronos. Yaw wished to become the Lord god in his place. In turns the two beings kill each other, yet Hadad is resurrected and Yam also returns.
Since Yam wishes to raise himself to the lofty heights of the gods whom he hates, and since he is the lord of chaos and destruction, the nearest equivalent to Yam in modern religions is the Christian
Satan. Moreover, a comparison with the evil
Jörmungandr (
Norse world-serpent and deity of the
sea) is accurate, given his description. Like Yam and Hadad, he and
Thor slay each other at the end of the world (
Ragnarök or Twilight of the Gods). There are also many similarities with the Egyptian chaos serpent,
Apep. A relevant passage in the
Christian book of Revelation reads: "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the
Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world." (Revelations 12:9,
KJV)
In the
Epic of Ba'al (
Hadad the Most High),
El the Ancient of Days adopts Yaw, the deity of the primordial
chaos, and changes his name to Yam. KTU 1.2 iv reads:
`El appoints as deputy his son. :The Bull proclaims as Master Yaw. :And Kindly `El the Beneficent speaks: :"I do not call my son by the name of Yaw, O goddess
`Elat, :but Yam shall be his name!" :And he pronounces the name Yam...:"I, myself, Kindly `El the Beneficent, have taken you upon my hands. :I proclaim your name. :Yam is your name,:Your name is Beloved of `El, Yam."
El then urges Yam, to fight Hadad the king of heaven:
"[Go against] the hand of the Mighty Lord Most High
(´Aliyan Ba´al ) —:Because he spoke ill to me —:[And] drive him from the throne of his kingship, :From the resting place, :the cushion on the seat of his dominion.:But if then you do not drive him from his throne of kingship, :from the seat of his dominion,:He will beat you like...:He slaughters oxen and sheep. :He fells bulls and fatted rams, yearling calves, :sheep by the flock, he sacrifices kids."
Ba'al Hadad warns Yam that the gods will not allow him to usurp the throne of heaven. In KTU 1.2 iii, the Lord warns:
"From your throne of kingship you shall be driven,:from the seat of your dominion cast out!:On your head be Ayamari (Driver) O Yam, :Between your shoulders Yagarish (Chaser), O Judge Nahar :May
Horon split open, O Yam, :may Horon smash your head, :´Athtart-Name-of-the-Lord thy skull!
After a great war in heaven involving many of the gods, Yam is roundly defeated:
And the weapon springs from the hand of the Lord,:Like a raptor from between his fingers. :It strikes the skull of Prince Yam, :between the eyes of Judge Nahar. :Yahm collapses, he falls to the earth; :His joints quiver, and his spine shakes.:Thereupon the Lord drags out Yam and would rend him to pieces; :he would make an end of Judge Nahar.
However, Athtart pleads for Yahm, who acknowledges the Lord as king of heaven:
Then up speaks Yam: "Lo, I am as good as dead! Surely, the Lord now reigns as king!"
Hadad holds a great feast, but not long afterwards he battles
Mot (death) and through his mouth he descends to
his realm below the earth. Yet like Yam, Death too is defeated and in h. I AB iii the Lord arises from the dead:
For alive is the Mighty Lord,:Revived is the Prince, Master of Earth.":'El calls to the Virgin Anat::"Hearken, O maiden
Anat!"
Research in
comparative mythology shows a possible linguistic correlation between Levantine Yaw and monotheistic Yahweh, suggesting that it is possible, though unlikely, that the god may in some manner be the predecessor in the sense of an evolving religion of
Yahweh.
The first historical mention of Yahu/Yah/Yaw is associated with the
Ebla (Tel Mardikh) archive of 20,000 tablets, dating back to the destruction of that Syrian city by
Naram-Sin in about 2250 BC. In his "Archaeology of the Bible Lands"
Magnus Magnusson states:
"All names like Ishmael, Michael and Israel are theophoric in form - that is to say, the suffix element (-ilu or -el) represents a divine name, in this case the paramount god El. But during the reign of Ebrum, Dr Pettinato noted a change in the theophoric element, from -el to -ya(w), so that Mi-ka-ilu became Mi-ka-ya(w) and so on. It is quite clear that both of the endings are divine names, either names of gods or words simply meaning 'god'; so it looks as if Ebrum made some major alteration in the religion of Ebla at this time. Whether -ya(w) is related to the Biblical Yahweh, the one God of Israel whose name replace the earlier form of El, is a matter for debate..."The research involves identifying Yaw as an etymological
cognate to Yahweh. Since the 1950's, religious scholars have identified Yahweh with Yaw by
etymology; this important theory is not without debate. However, scholars such as Johannes De Moor believe it firmly established that Yaw and Yahweh are in fact derivatives of the same Semitic appellation.
Jean Bottero goes further to suggest that Eblaite Yah is in fact the same divinity as
Akkadian Ea, whose worship as God of water (the
Abzu) was spread north and westward by the armies of
Sargon and Naram Sin of
Akkad. If this is the case, the rivalry between Yaw/Yamm and Baal Hadad resembles the fraternal rivalry between Ea/Enki and Ellil/Enlil in the Sumerian and Babylonian pantheons.
The relationship may help evaluate the goals of
textual redaction of the Masoretic
Old Testament. The
redaction theory involves the differences between the putative
E narrative and the
J text, and it is gaining majority support. Linguistics, textual criticism and archæology are together useful tools in understanding how Yahwism developed in a region with a long and ancient history of polytheism.
Findings in documents and archæological sites illustrate the research: "Texts from the Persian period mention Baal and link
Yehouah with Asherah and a letter from Elephantine in Egypt refers to him. Surprisingly, for a hidden, faceless and ineffable god, coins of the Persian period were minted with the image of Yehouah and his symbols. A god,
Yeho, was worshipped in the eastern Mediterranean at least until the end of the Hellenistic period." Further,
Porphyry writes about
Sanchuniathon learning about the Jews from "Hierombalus the priest of
Yeuō (Ιευω)", and this may refer to some
Jerubbaal, priest of
YHWH (quoted by
Eusebius in
Preparation for the Gospel, Book 1, Chapter IX).
Although the theological differences between the polytheism of the larger Levantine culture and the evolving monotheism of the
Old Testament are noteworthy, the concept of Yaw helps explain some obscure passages. For example, a fragment in Deuteronomy 32.8-9 as it reads in the
Septuagint and
Dead Sea Scrolls, provides a special status to the cognate deity Yahweh.:When the Most High (
`Elyon) allotted peoples for inheritance,:When He divided up the sons of man,:He fixed the boundaries for peoples,:According to the number of the
sons of El:But Yahweh's portion is his people,:Jacob His own inheritance.
The newer
Masoretic manuscripts read "sons of Israel" in place of "sons of El," to conform to later Judaic theology. These manuscripts predate the oldest
Masoretic texts by
about 700 years. The older reading implicates an original polytheist context at the birth of Judaism. Within this framework, humanity was divided into seventy peoples, each with its own patron god. Yahweh takes Jacob as his, shedding additional light on the textual meaning of the
chosen people. This older text of the passage is now used in the most current Biblical translations, including those based on the textual project led by
Bruce Metzger.
The passage as it reads here and in the Septuagint clearly indicates that Yahweh was one deity among many and was lower in status than El the Most High, suggesting that his rise to supremacy was a later innovation. This is similarly suggested by the
theophory in the story of
Deborah (
Judges 4.4-5.15), in which
Jael kills
Jabin's commander (
Sisera) " Jael (usually translated as
Yahweh is God) can be translated as
Yahweh the god whereas Jabin (usually translated as
son of Yahweh) can be translated as
Yahweh the son. Thus the fight between Jael and Jabin's commander may represent a war between one faction that regarded Yahweh and El as different deities and another faction that worshipped Yahweh who has assumed the attributions of El. Similarly, if the story of
Samuel superseding
Eli is a theistic allegory, then Eli may represent El, (to whom Hannah prayed and so forth), and Samuel, which by tradition is translated
name of God, representing Yahweh, since one of his sons is named Abiah, meaning
Yahweh is my father. Moreover, Gnostic commentary likewise identifies Samuel with Yahweh but defines the name as the
blind god.
Another passage,
Psalm 82, confirms Yahweh's status as exceptional within a pantheon as an accuser of the divine brethren. In LXX, v. 1 reads: "God stands in the assembly of gods; and in the midst of them will judge gods;" the
NRSV also reflects this older reading. Mark S. Smith of
New York University writes, "Psalm 82 also presents the god El presiding in a divine assembly at which Yahweh stands up and makes his accusation against the other gods. Here the text shows the older religious worldview which the passage is denouncing."
Other hard data support the linguistic identification of Yahweh with Yaw, the ophidian deity of the sea. Jewish archaeologist Richard Freund notes that a Judean patera (
liturgical incense shovel) discovered by
Yigal Yadin in the
Cave of Letters depicts the Greek goddess
Thetis (Levantine
Asherah, Yaw's consort), the mother of the oceanic
nereids, as does the seven-headed
Menorah that is depicted on the
Arch of Titus in Rome. On the arch, the Menorah's base has six panels, one displays two cherubim with eagle's wings facing each other over the cover (arc) of the covenant, and others display each a sea-dragon, sea-horses or fish (minus the spines which cause the dragon to choke).
Thus, Ugaritic texts, linguistics and archaeology are useful in understanding of the origins of Biblical monotheism, particularly for their treatment of the god Yaw. Some scholars see the changing religious view as originating in the monotheism of
Zoroastrianism in the
Persian Empire which conquered the Levant and colonized it with
Mede,
Persian and
Babylonian settlers. As Persia conquered, she exalted local deities to the status of supreme deity as local equivalents to the one
Ahura Mazda. Thus, each district in the empire would worship the imperial high god of the Persian Empire while retaining some local religious traditions. Others, however, believe local monotheism to be a more independent development.
In the philosophy of religion and theology, the problem of evil is the problem of reconciling the existence of evil or suffering in the world with the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent god. This is an issue that has troubled many religions.
In the pantheon of
Ugarit and
Ebla, enmity to the benevolent gods is represented by the deities
Mot and Yam. Mot, the god of death, was defeated definitively, but Yaw lived on. Since in some texts they are both sons of El, they are therefore brothers of Hadad, the lord of Heaven. This is much like
Zoroastrian belief that the Evil Spirit (
Angra Mainyu) was something of a brother of God the creator (
Ahura Mazda). Ugaritic Yaw may also help explain
Gnostic denouncements of Yahweh.
Moreover, Christian imagery depicts the sea as the bed of evil spirits. In the
Gospels after healing the centurion's palsied servant at Capernaum,
Christ and his
Disciples are beset by a violent tempest on the sea and when making land, Christ casts out the devils which possessed two men into a herd of swine, which immediately runs down into the sea, apparently the devils' home.
Revelation further develops this theme. Chapter 13 begins::And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. (13.1-2)This imagery makes an unmistakable allusion to the dragon (also called "the serpent" in 12.15), Yaw, and to his seven-headed beast,
Lotan (also "
Leviathan"). This suggests that Christianity retained much of the symbolism of evil common to the Levant and that mythology surrounding Yaw is relevant to contemporary culture of the West. Since mythology of both Europe and the ancient Persian Empire describe the cosmological earth surrounded by a cosmic sea, the image of the sea as a bed of evil suggests that evil is alien to the world of mankind, but surrounds and besets it with tempests and spirits.
Notes
#Lilinah biti-´Anat,
The Myth of Baal, "Baal Battles Yahm" (1997). (Accessed 2006.2.15). This site has an unusually complete online text based on several scholarly versions cited.#The Septuagint, written in Greek, does not contain the
Tetragrammaton. Since the
original Hebrew texts from which it was translated have long since disappeared, it is not known in which passages YHWH may have been written.#Johannes C. De Moor,
The Rise of Yahwism: The Roots of Israelite Monotheism, (Peeters Publishers, 2001).#Gerald A. Larue,
Old Testament Life and Literature (1968). (Accessed 2005.12.4)#Mike Magee,
"The Truth about the Jewish Scriptures I". (Accessed 2005.12.26)#Michael S. Heiser,
Deuteronomy 32:8 and the Sons of God. (Accessed 2005.12.4)#Mark S. Smith,
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts. (Accessed 2005.12.4)#"Sons of El" is from the
Qumran text,
LXX has "angels of God".#Jim Linford,
Monotheism, (July 17, 2005). (Accessed 2005.12.4)#Joel Kalvemaski,
The Septuagint Online, (October 15, 2005). (Accessed 2006.2.15)#Bryan T. Huie,
The Heavenly Divine Council, (September 28, 2002). (Accessed 2005.12.4)#Smith.#Richard Freund, interviewed by Gary Hochman and Matthew Collins,
NOVA. "Ancient Refuge in the Holy Land". (Accessed 2005.12.26)#Alan Fuller,
"Re: A question about the introducing beasts", Fri, 25 Oct 2002 16:02:20 -0000 (Accessed 2005.12.26), and Jean Philippe Fontanille,
Menorah Coin Project "H426", (bottom of page). (Accessed 2005.12.26)#Mike Magee,
"The Truth about the Jewish Scriptures II". (Accessed 2005.12.26)#_____,
"Jewish Mythology; How Persia Created Judaism". (Accessed 2006.1.16)
Bibliography
*
Cassuto, U., trans. by Israel Abrahams.
The Goddess Anath, (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1951).
* Coogan, Michael D., trans. & ed.,
Stories from Ancient Canaan, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1978), 86-89.
* De Moor, Johannes,
The Seasonal Pattern in the Myth of Ba' lu according to the version of Ilimilku, (1971).
*
Driver, G.R., trans., J. C. L. Gibson, ed.,
Canaanite Myths and Legends, (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark Ltd., 1977).
*_____,
The Rise of Yahwism: The Roots of Israelite Monotheism, (Peeters Publishers, 2001).
*
Gaster, Theodor, trans.,
Thespis: Ritual, Myth & Drama in the Ancient Near East (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 114-244.
*
Ginsberg, H. L., trans., in
The Ancient Near East, An Anthology of Tests and Pictures, James B. Pritchard, Ed., (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958), 92-118.
* Smith, Mark S.,
The Ugaritic Ba'al Cycle; Vol. I: Introduction with Text, Translation & Commentary of KTU 1.1-1.2, (New York: E. J. Brill, 1994).
* Thompson, Thomas L.,
The Mythic Past; Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel, (New York: Basic Books, 1999).
See also
*
Ebla*
Ugaritic religion*
Devil*
Satan*
Demiurge*
YHWH*
IaoueExternal links
*
The Epic of Ba'al - online text*
The Historical Evolution of the Hebrew God*
"Putting God on Trial: The Biblical Book of Job" - a Biblical reworking of the combat motif between Yaw and Baal*
"Baalism in Canaanite Religion and Its Relation to Selected Old Testament Texts" - an overview of primary sources with a list of secondary sources
