What do you know of how other religious traditions try to explain it?
Do you mean the non-Abrahamic religions? The East?
For them its a matter of perception. Evil acts result because a person does not realize their true nature. For Hindu Vedanta, which is what most people mean by Hinduism, it’s because the personal self (atman) does not identify with the Impersonal Self (Brahman). For Buddhists the self is the problem. We ignore its fundamental emptiness and so act out of desire or fear. For the Daoist evil results when we do not act in accord with the universe. “Acting” in this case is less a forceful approach than “going with the flow”. In Confucianism when we fail to cultivate virtue in accord with proper social conduct. For all evil is not an external metaphysical force. It is the natural result of ignorance and misperception. Of course these are generalities. There are many nuances.
The Ugaritic texts discovered on the coast of modern-day Syria in 1929 and the years following introduced a new topic in biblical research and played a critical role in studies of the Psalms through the 1960s. Many believe it reached its peak in ** you do not have permission to see this link ** comparison of the Ugaritic texts and the Psalms, which was widely criticized for its speculative method and dubious findings. Research continued nevertheless.
The texts show striking parallels with the Tanakh, including the Psalms. One need only compare Leviathan (Psalm 74:14; Psalm 104:26) and the Ugaritic figure of ** you do not have permission to see this link ** one of Baal’s divine opponents.
In fact, they share so many features that many scholars believe these corpora belong to the same larger cultural milieu. Although the Bible insists on the foreignness of the Canaanites and other peoples (Judg. 3:5), this seems to be a polemic not against a foreign culture or society so much as against Israelites who failed to conform to the monotheistic worship of Yahweh (see Ezek. 16:3).
Although some scholars have used the term Canaanite to label the society and culture of Ugarit, it is, in fact, just north of Canaan and did not consider itself part of it. It should be noted, however, that people from outside of Ugarit sometimes included it as part of Canaan.
Other material available for the Canaanite background of the Psalms includes the ** you do not have permission to see this link ** Phoenician History. If one compares these sources with the Ugaritic texts and the Tanakh, it is possible to pinpoint traditions held in common. Both contain ritual texts with notable shared terminology, although the Ugaritic examples are mostly freestanding, whereas those in the Bible are embedded in the narrative context of the Pentateuch.
Of course, there are differences. When we speak of Israel’s great narratives, they are largely in prose while the Ugaritic narrative is in poetry. With two exceptions, we don’t find self-standing psalms or prayers in the Ugaritic corpus. It also doesn’t include historical narratives, law codes, or wisdom collections. However, it does contain hundreds of administrative texts often consisting of lists of names, largely missing from the Hebrew Bible (see the lists in Num. 13:4-16 and I Kings 4:1-19).
There’s little evidence that the Torah and the structures of the Law were enforced widely in Israel much before the Hasmonean Dynasty (c. 140 BC to 37 BC). Reading Ezekiel and 1 Enoch we see at least some traditions that did not honor Moses or know the Exodus.
My favorite episode recorded in the El Amarna letters is when one ambassador complains that Akhenaten holds court outside and makes everyone stand in the sun for hours! The downside of worshiping the Aten, the solar disk! Ha!
Definitely a downside!
Although I’m not about to take on the sun as a deity, I’ve always thought of it as a rather reasonable object of worship.
By the way, in working on summarizing the chapter, I have wanted to provide actual quotes from the Ugaritic texts instead of just talking about what they said. The author does provide some but often just gives the ** you do not have permission to see this link ** which is free to read online.
Whenever I think of Baal, I can’t help remembering I Kgs 18:20-40.
All this is very fascinating (and enjoyable to me) but I cannot see how it has anything to do with The Psalms. It is my first and only blog/Forum so I’m trying to learn how to fit in though, of course, not being at all intellectual, as Professor Ehrman would say, “That ain’t gonna happen.” I am working on not contributing to thread drift. Just tell me how it is connected.
That’s what I needed in order to understand. Appreciate it. And apologies to all.
No quarrel on my part. I was noticing myself a bit of a drift, albeit an interesting drift! Actually, I once had a teacher Nagels. So now I know from where the name comes from.
And it’ll eventually come back to the Psalms.
Which has been very interesting!
One of the chief characteristics of Canaanite verse is the use of ** you do not have permission to see this link ** in which a single idea is expressed in units of two or three lines by repetition, synonyms, or sometimes antonyms.
Let’s look at these lines from the Ugaritic Baal Cycle:
Let me tell you, Prince Baal,
let me repeat, Rider on the Clouds:
Now, your enemy, Baal,
now you will kill your enemy,
now you will annihilate your foe.
You will take your eternal kingship,
your dominion forever and ever. (KTU 1.2 IV 7–10; SAC 114)
And then, these lines from the Psalms:
For your enemies, O LORD,
for your enemies shall perish,
all evildoers shall be scattered. (Psalm 92:9)
Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and your dominion endures throughout all generations. (Psalm 145:13)
What we clearly see is not only a similar poetic technique but a familiar content.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
1 Guest(s)