Mot (god) in the context of "Yahwism"

Baal (/ˈbeɪ.əl, ˈbɑːl/), or Baʿal (/bɑː.ɑːl/), was a title and honorific meaning 'owner' or 'lord' in the Northwest Semitic languages spoken in the Levant during antiquity. From its use among people, it came to be applied to gods. Scholars previously associated the theonym with solar cults and with a variety of unrelated patron deities, but inscriptions have shown that the name Baal was particularly associated with the storm and fertility god Hadad and his local manifestations. The Ugaritic god Baal (𐎁𐎓𐎍) is the protagonist of one of the lengthiest surviving epics from the ancient Near East, the Baal Cycle.

Known by epithets like “rider of the clouds” and “Victorious Baal,” he was associated with rain, lightning, wind, fertility, and kingship, and was often depicted in opposition to sea and death deities like Yammu and Mot. Worship of Baal spread throughout the Levant, Egypt, and the Mediterranean via Phoenician colonization, with regional forms such as Baal Hammon in Carthage. The god was also known as "the mighty one", and "the one without equal" ("there is none above him").

Anat (/ˈɑːnɑːt/, /ˈænæt/), Anatu, classically Anath (/ˈeɪnəθ, ˈeɪˌnæθ/; Ugaritic: 𐎓𐎐𐎚 ʿnt; Hebrew: עֲנָת ʿĂnāṯ; Phoenician: 𐤏𐤍𐤕, romanized: ʿNT; Greek: Αναθ, romanized: Anath; Egyptian: ꜥntjt) was a goddess associated with warfare and hunting, best known from the Ugaritic texts. Most researchers assume that she originated in the Amorite culture of Bronze Age upper Mesopotamia, and that the goddess Ḫanat, attested in the texts from Mari and worshiped in a city sharing her name located in Suhum, should be considered her forerunner.

In Ugarit, Anat was one of the main goddesses, and regularly received offerings, as attested in texts written both in the local Ugaritic language and in Hurrian. She also frequently appears in myths, including the Baal Cycle and the Epic of Aqhat. In the former, she is portrayed as a staunch ally of the weather god Baal, who assists him in his struggle for kingship, helps him with obtaining the permission to obtain a dwelling of his own, and finally mourns and avenges his death at the hands of the personified death, Mot. The precise nature of the relation between Anat and Baal is uncertain, and the conventional views that they were lovers, siblings or both remain a matter of dispute among researchers. Another deity who frequently appears alongside her is Ashtart. Interactions between Anat and the sun goddess Shapash and moon god Yarikh are described in myths as well. In Hurrian ritual texts, she appears alongside deities such as Šimige, Aštabi and Nupatik. Elsewhere in the Levant and in nearby regions of inland Syria, Anat's status apparently was not equally high, though she is nonetheless attested in Emar, Hazor and elsewhere.

The Baal Cycle is an Ugaritic text (c. 1300–1100 BCE) about the Canaanite god Baʿal (𐎁𐎓𐎍 lit. "Owner", "Lord"), a storm god associated with fertility. It consists of six tablets, itemized as KTU 1.1–1.6. Tablets one (KTU 1.1) and two (KTU 1.2) are about the cosmic battle between the storm-god Baal and the sea god Yam, where the former attains victory. The next two tablets (KTU 1.3–1.4) describe the construction of Baal's palace that marks his cosmic kingship. The last two tablets (KTU 1.5–1.6) describe Baal's struggles against Mot, the god of the underworld.

The text identifies Baal as the god Hadad, the Northwest Semitic form of Adad. The stories are written in Ugaritic, a Northwest Semitic language, and written in a cuneiform abjad. It was discovered on a series of clay tablets found in the 1920s in the Tell of Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra), situated on the Mediterranean coast of northern Syria, a few kilometers north of the modern city of Latakia and far ahead of the current coastline. The stories include The Myth of Baʿal Aliyan and The Death of Baʿal. A critical edition of the Baal Cycle was published by Charles Virolleaud in 1938. A fragment of the Baal Cycle was discovered in pre-Islamic Arabia.