This volume provides a lengthy introduction and detailed translation and commentary for the first two tablets of the Baal Cycle, which witnesses to both the religious worldview of Ugarit and many of the formative religious concepts and images in the Bible.

Baal and the Politics of Poetry provides a thoroughly new interpretation of the Ugaritic Baal Cycle that simultaneously inaugurates an innovative approach to studying ancient Near Eastern literature within the political context of its production. The book argues that the poem, written in the last decades of the Bronze Age, takes aim at the reigning political-theological norms of its day and uses the depiction of a divine world to educate its audience about the nature of human politics. By attuning ourselves to the specific historical context of this one poem, we can develop more nuanced appreciation of how poetry, politics, and religion have interacted—in antiquity, and beyond.

The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, Volume II provides a new edition, translation and commentary on the third and fourth tablets of the Baal Cycle, the most important religious text found at Ugarit.

The Ugaritic Baal Cycle offers a translation and the first commentary on the Ugaritic Baal Cycle. The longest and most important religious text from ancient Ugarit, the Baal Cycle witnesses to both the religious worldview of Ugarit and the larger background to many of the formative religious concepts and images in the Bible. The volume treats introductory matters such as date, order and continuity of the tablets, the history of interpretation, and finally a new proposal for the interpretation of text drawing on the insights of previous views as well as newer evidence. The commentary proper provides bibliography, text, textual notes, literary structure and detailed commentary for each column in the first two tablets.

This second volume of the commentary on the Baal Cycle, the most important Canaanite religious text from Ugarit, in Syria, analyzes KTU/CAT 1.3 and 1.4, the tablets that contain the long episode about how Baal secured permission from El to build his royal palace and how the palace was built. It includes a new edition of the tablets, supplemented by a DVD-ROM with 92 images and superimposible drawings, a comprehensive introduction, new translation and vocalized text, and detailed commentary. The authors develop an interpretation of the episode which places it into the larger context of the Baal Cycle as a whole.

Baal, Ashtoreth, Dagon, Molech and Asherah are Canaanite gods who are frequently mentioned in the Holy Bible. Who did the Canaanites believe these gods to be? Why did Israelites make idols of Golden Calves? What was an "Asherah Pole"? What were the "pagan ways" that the prophets of the Lord warned the Israelites not to emulate? Knowing the answers to these questions can deepen one's understanding of the Holy Bible. In 1929 important texts were discovered at Ras Shamra in Syria that told the story of the Canaanite gods. These Ugaritic texts, along with other ancient sources, help us to reconstruct the beliefs of the ancient Canaanites and widen our understanding of the Sacred Scriptures. This book is an illustrated version and extended edition of the story of the "Epic of Baal the God of Thunder."