Customer Reviews

Each Man Cried Out to His God: The Specialized Religion of Canaanite and Phoenician Seafarers (Harvard Semitic Monographs)

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The title of Aaron Brody's book is, of course, a quote from the biblical story of Jonah. In the story, the prophet Jonah tries to escape the will of Yahweh by boarding a ship at Jaffa which is bound for Tarshish. It is clear from the story that the sailors are non-Israelites; they are most likely Phoenicians.

Brody has written a comprehensive anthropological study of the religion of the Phoenicians and those whom he considers their predecessors, the Canaanites. The study is divided into five parts; the patron deities, the sacred shrines, the sacred space aboard a ship (Interestingly, sailors ancient and modern believe that their ship is imbued with a spirit), religious ceremonies of the seafarers, and burial practices of the seafarers (See Ezekiel 27 for mourning of fellow sailors lost at sea).

For someone like me who has an interest in sailing and the Ancient Near East, this book was a natural.