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Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel

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"Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic" is a series of related essays on the composition of the Hebrew Bible. It is conservative in that it takes the general framework of the Biblical chronology as accurate, and Cross refers readily to "patriarchal folk", "the league" of tribes, "the empire of David and Solomon" and the "divided monarchy". Within this conservatism, Cross adheres to the relative conservatism of the Documentary Hypothesis, which is taken for granted by most scholars, but anathema to those who hold to the unity of the scriptures.

The book is radical in that Cross isolates themes and expressions derived from Canaanite mythology, particularly from mid-2nd millenium tablets found at Ugarit, written in an alphabetic script. He delves deeply into the names, titles and attributes of God, as well as into various sources which were united in the Bible as we now know it. "The Song of the Sea" rates a special chapter in which Cross demonstrates the independence of the poem from the story that surrounds it. He also reconstructs archaic precursor poems to various Biblical texts.

The book is challenging in that it is quite difficult and detailed. When I got started reading "Canaanite Myth..." 6 months ago, I quickly realized I didn't know enough to read it, so I took a few months to acquaint myself with the rudiments of Hebrew and middle-Eastern archaeology. Hebrew text, transliterations of Ugaritic, discussions of etymology and usage, sources of scribal error, and so on, using technical terms are the stuff of the volume, so it's not nearly as simple or neat as a least one of the other reviewers has suggested.

Finally, the book is debatable in that the reconstuctions of archaic texts based on the text we now have, the oldest exemplars of which date from the Hellenistic/Roman period, and projecting them backwards a millenium, and deriving political and ritual presumed practices from them seems to me highly speculative and ultimately dubious. For instance, while Cross does successfully demonstrate that "The Song of the Sea" is independent of the J and E sources, without more data, how can anyone possibly know at what point the poem became Yahwistic? The author cites archaic usage in dating, but it does not escape me that in our own culture, which is much less conservative than ancient cultures were, right into the 20th century, virtually all religious texts were translated into pseudo-King James English, which itself was archaic in 1611. Without securely dated copies, how would any future scholars date these? At the same time the book raises a number of issues which merit further study. This is not a book to read once and put on the shelf. It has much to offer for long term study.

As it was written in the 70s, Canaanite Myth is a little behind the times- it assumes, for example, that monolatry was present in Israel from the premonarchic period, and that later prophetic polemics and reforms were directed against "syncretism." We now know that this is probably not the case, and that most of the gods condemned as "foreign" by the prophets and Deuteronomists- Asherah, Astarte, Baal, and the Heavenly Host- were simply pan-Levantine gods that Israel had inherited from its Canaanite ancestors. It is Cross's work that has, in large part, prepared us to deal with this however. Cross's book meticulously examines a wide variety of biblical and extrabiblical texts, early and late, and observes many continuities between Israelite and Canaanite beliefs and modes of worship; poetics, theophanic language, and so on are largely identical between the two cultures, the only real difference being that Israel's public religion was overwhelmingly focused on a single deity (but not, as Cross assumes, completely excluding others, at least until the late monarchy). Cross's reconstruction of the Judean monarchic cultus is based on a lot of evidence both biblical and comparative; the chapters on the development of apocalyptic language are where the analysis really shines. When he extends this reconstruction into the premonarchic period, however, it becomes problematic. His assumption that the Israelite league was a solid and largely unified politco-religious unit, rather than a loose, shifting coalition of tribes as even the Bible itself suggests (the list of tribes in the Song of Deborah includes ten tribes, not twelve, two of which are demoted to the status of sub-tribal "clans" in later lists) largely distorts his analysis. Nonetheless, the book is still a must-read for those interested in understanding the biblical world.

You won't find any value in this book unless you are really into deep scholarship. This book was written by a leading Harvard expert in the field. I found it very helpful for researching some similarties between Ancient Israel and her polytheistic neighbors.

This book treads roughly the same ground as Mark S. Smith's The Early History of God and The Origins of Biblical Monotheism. It is a tour de force of historical reconstruction from biblical sources. It deals with many of the thorny problems of the disparate historical books of the Bible (Chronicles and Joshua-2Kings). It includes the crucial paper on the dual redaction of the Deuteronomic History (Deuteronomy and Joshua-2 Kings). That paper alone is worth the purchase of the book, because it has been so influential over the years. Furthermore, he shreds the fashionable Jebusite hypothesis regarding the origins of Zadok, David's high priest, although his own theory has holes as well.

In order to fully appreciate this book you will need a solid grounding in Biblical Hebrew grammar, ancient Near Eastern history and mythology, and Biblical literature. Some of his discussions get extremely technical regarding paleography, epigraphy, and West Semitic grammar.

This book demonstrates the evolution of the Bible as we eventually wound up with it. This is NOT a book for people in possession of a conclusion searching for a premise. It will definitely offend Christian and Hebrew Fundamentalists, but then they have an enormous stake in maintaing their sense of place and livelihood with the status quo. Buy this book for an IMPARTIAL look at the history of what constitutes the bible.

This book provides valid theories concerning the evolution of the JudeoChristian creed from Phoenician/Canaanite religion.It will dispel many of the misconceptions perpetrated by jewish and christian fundamentalists for many centuries.Includes phonetically translated ugaritic texts semitic names and biblicaltexts, as well as detailed grammatical and linguistc essays on semitic languages.It is a must for anyone interested in near eastern mythology and language.

Cross is a scholar of outstanding merit. That said, the true worth of this book lies not in its bottom line conclusions-that the God of Israel represents an often overt, sometimes absurd, form of continuity with its antecedent Canaanite theogonic fellows--but in the rigor of its proofs and the tools manipulated in arriving there. However, without specific training in the field, one will be at a loss to evaluate exactly this most valuable dimension. In point of fact, I was often unable to so much as check the content of his citations; Cross, in accordance with ancient phonetizations that I could only glean from assorted footnotes, felt (potentially legitimately) no compunctions to adhere to the Masoritic text that I possessed. With this as the state of affairs, I could not critically examine the salience of any particular argument nor sense when Cross was engaged in something truly novel, to be taken note of.

Nonetheless, there is much to be gained about the rules of this primarily academic game simply by taking stock of Cross' presumptions and tools of reference. On top of that, the conclusions are fascinating, and even without fully 'grokking' the rigor of their proofs, they alone will keep you on the edge of your seat.

I bought this book because I am totally ignorant about the history of this area. I found it very interesting, but am not adequate to the task of reviewing the information. I learned a lot and also skimmed through a lot that I had no clue about. It is easy for a beginner to get bogged down, but worth the attempt.

Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel

This is one of the most influential, informative, scholarly works - one of the most important on the subject of Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic and has a prominent place in my personal library.

The Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel are absolutely fantastic - an awesome read - Frank Moore Cross does an absolutely fabulous job with detailed footnotes and a thorough treatment of this all important topic - the ancient council of the gods, the names of deity, their meaning and their influence on the Canaanites and Hebrew people - and on the formation of religion as we know it today, both Jewish and Christian.

A top notch book and one I will highly recommend to all who want to understand GOD more and HIS influence as portrayed through his epitaphs.

The author gives a good look at the religion of the Israel, it's resemblances with the religions of neighbors folks, it's process of transformation and the tragick result.