Canaan, Corinth, and the Death of Death - Part I

In his 1726 classic, The Political History of the Devil, Daniel Defoe observed, “Things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believed.” Ben Franklin, of course, popularized the saying, spinning it into a modern proverb: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” I am a Bible scholar, not a Political Scientist, so while taxes do affect me (both positively and negatively), my concern here is the certainty of death. [1] 

First Corinthians 15:26 says that “the last enemy to be destroyed is death.” The word used for enemy here is the same word used throughout the New Testament in reference to both human and cosmic adversaries. So, how can death be an enemy? Isn’t death just the absence of life, the natural end to one’s earthly existence? 

Furthermore, katargeitai, the word translated “to be destroyed” is used elsewhere in the New Testament to mean “ineffective, powerless, nullified, abolished, ceasing to exist, passing away.” How can one of life’s certainties no longer exist? How can a non-entity be destroyed?

To answer these questions, let's turn to an unlikely source, the religious writings of ancient Canaan. In 1928 a Syrian farmer accidentally opened a tomb that would later be identified as belonging to the ancient and forgotten city of Ugarit. Since excavations first began in 1929, thousands of texts have been unearthed, chief among them are religious texts with close affinities to the language, culture and religious practices of ancient Israel. The longest and most impressive of these texts is the Baal Epic, whose primary protagonist is one and the same with biblical Baal, the divine antagonist of the prophets of Yahweh in the Old Testament. 

(Baal Epic, Louvre; (c) WikiCommons)

The epic consists of six clay tablets and over 900 lines of Ugaritic text. The Baal Epic tells the tale of how the young storm god Baal overthrew the older god El, the father and creator god, as king of the Ugaritic pantheon by defeating his rival Yamm (deified Sea), sometimes called Judge River and personified by the seven-headed serpent Litan, known in the Bible as Leviathan. As the newly enthroned king, the craftsman god Kothar-wa-Hasis built a palace-temple for Baal and sent messengers to the god called Mot, whose name means “Death,” to brag about his palace and inform Death that Baal was refusing to pay Death his dues. Death responded first with a threat, then with action. Putting one lip to the earth and one lip to the heavens, Death swallowed Baal. Taking revenge on the death of her brother, the goddess Anat brings back Baal from the netherworld, the realm of the dead, and conquered death (in a rather gory fashion). This would appear to be the demise of Death, but seven years later, Death returns, saying

Baal, because of you I experienced shame:

because of you I experienced splitting with a sword;

because of you I experienced burning with fire;

because of you I experienced grinding with millstones;

because of you I experienced winnowing with a sieve;

because of you I experienced scattering in the fields;

because of you I experienced sowing in the sea.

Give me one of your brothers that I may eat, 

and my anger will turn away

If you do not give up one of your brothers…

then I will swallow humans, 

I will swallow the multitudes of the earth.”

In the Baal Epic, Death has an insatiable appetite and a ravenous hunger. Death swallowed Baal and Death seeks to devour all humanity. Death was defeated, but only temporarily. His appetite was too rapacious to control, and too voracious to starve.

Death is an all-too-familiar acquaintance with humanity, which is why Death is not only a villain in the Baal Epic, but also a common character in the biblical drama. In Jeremiah 9:21 Death is depicted as a thief in the night who enters through windows to take life prematurely.

Death has come up into our windows,

he has entered our palaces,

to cut off the children from the streets

and the young men from the squares.

It is no coincidence that in the Baal Epic when the craftsman god laid out the blueprint for Baal’s palace-temple, Baal only allowed windows in the structure after some persuading, not wishing to give Death access to his abode. As it turns out, Baal’s concerns were justified. Death did enter Baal’s house and steal young Baal’s life.

[to be continued...]

[1] This blog series was first delivered as a chapel address at Colorado Christian University, March 3, 2016.