Baal worship practices
ba...@dmcom.net
>
> I was debating with a Christian about Yahweh's supposed order to the
> Hebrews to invade the Canaanite civilization and kill them all. He
> objected this invasion was justified because Canaanites frequently
> made human sacrifices to Baal. I researched it, but find no mention of
> this in accounts of their practices. Does anyone here know of a source
> about the Canaanite religion?
>
Short answer it appears that children should be passed though fire, not
sacaficed to fire in all cases.
The longer answer.
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/b/baal.html offers in part this:
"The religion of the god Baal was widely accepted among the ancient
Jews, and although it was put down at times, it was never permanently
stamped out. The god was worshipped by kings and other royalty of the
ten Biblical tribes. The ordinary people ardently worshipped this sun
god too because their prosperity depended on the productivity of their
crops and livestock. The god's images were erected on many buildings.
Within the religion there appeared to be numerous priests and various
classes of devotees. During the ceremonies they wore appropriate robes.
The ceremonies included burning incense, and offering burnt sacrifices,
occasionally consisting of human victims. The officiating priests danced
around the altars, chanting frantically and cutting themselves with
knives to inspire the attention and compassion of the god.
In the Bible Baal is also called Beelzebub, or Baalzebub, one of the
fallen angels of Satan."
http://www.pantheon.org/cgi-bin/search/search.pl?Realm=mythica&nocpp=1&Match=1&Terms=Canaanite
offers 12 hits for Canaanite that you might find interesting.
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Ironywaves
Interesting stuff... I got into Baal through Dave Bowie's adaptation of
Bertold Brecht's "Baal"...
Will