The inheritance of Bronze Age Ugaritic mythology by the Iron Age Israelites is well documented in Biblical scholarship. For example, the cloud-rider Baal Hadad was said to battle against Yam, Nahar, and Lotan, and several hundred years later we find the Israelites telling the same story about the cloud-rider Yahweh battling Yam, Naharim, and Leviathan. It seems that no one outside the ivory towers ever talks about Ugarit, so if you've never heard of this before, I recommend spending some time Googling before coming back to this post.

In this post I want to summarize some surprising motifs that were handed down all the way to the New Testament. In particular, we will survey similarities between the Baal Cycle and the Jesus story. My thesis is that major elements of the Jesus story apparently originated in pre-Israelite religion.

1. "El", inherited from the Ugaritic, is one of the many Hebrew names/titles referring to Yahweh (Yahweh was originally a son of El as attested by Deut 32:8 in the Dead Sea Scrolls). Like Jesus, Baal Hadad is the begotten son of El. "Baal is our Lord: and there is none above him! We should all bring his chalice, we should all bring his cup. Groaning he cries to Bull El his father, to El the king who begot him." (KTU 1.3 v 35)

2. In all the Canaanite myths, only two gods are known as the rider/charioteer of the clouds: Yahweh and Hadad. In Daniel 7, this epithet is bestowed to the Son of Man; its otherwise unique application to the chief deity suggests divine status. From there the epithet is picked up by the Gospels and Revelation when Jesus is said to come with the clouds to battle the many headed sea dragon Satan and destroy the sea itself, just as Hadad battled the many headed sea dragon Lotan and destroyed Yam ("drank the sea to the dregs" and "dried him up"). In fact, Revelation is drawing on fulfillment of Isaiah 27, which almost quotes the Baal Cycle as it moves the chaoskampf from the primordial past to the eschatological future. Revelation even notes that the dragon had previously received a fatal head wound as Yahweh/Hadad specifically crush the head(s) of Leviathan/Lotan. I'd also argue that Jesus is identifiable with Michael, see below. (for further reading, check out how Exodus 15 paraphrases the Baal Cycle in relation to the Red Sea narrative; for even further reading, check out how this story of the sky god vs. sea serpent is found everywhere from Scandinavia to Japan to India to Egypt and maybe even the Congo).

3. The chief concern of the middle portion of the Baal Cycle is the construction of his temple: "Valiant Baal rejoiced: 'My house I have built of silver, my palace out of gold!" (KTU 1.4 vi 36) In the LXX Zechariah 6, it is said that the high priest Jesus (who is not to be understood as the historic high priest Joshua but "a symbol" see Zech. 3) will build the temple of the Lord, and of course Gospel Jesus says "I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands." While Christianity reinterprets the prophecy metaphorically, Jesus is temple-builder nonetheless.

4. Baal is killed by Mot, the god of death. According to Paul and other early Christian sources such as the Ascension of Isaiah, Jesus was crucified by the "archons of this aeon" referring to Satan ("the god of this aeon") and his demons. Zechariah 3 features Satan opposing Jesus before he is re-clothed in white (a motif from the flood tablet of Gilgamesh, which also features Adad) while Yahweh brings about the end of all sin in a single day. Daniel 9 shows a dying Messiah. The sole line where Paul clearly attributes Jesus' death to earthly authorities (1 Thess 2) is overwhelmingly regarded as an interpolation: evidently, someone at sometime was bothered by the ambiguity.

5. Baal is "offered up like a lamb" (KTU 1.6 ii 21), the verb referring specifically to ritual sacrifice.

6. A group of women, including one known as the virgin, mourn his death, search for his body, and play a special role in the funeral rites.

7. Baal is buried and descends to the underworld.

8. Baal rises from the dead with the sun. Bart Ehrman points out the oddity that there is no actual resurrection narrative in the canonical gospels: the scene of Jesus rising is not depicted, he's just buried and next the tomb is empty. What's interesting is that what is depicted in Mark 16 is the women coming to the tomb "at the rising (ἀνατείλαντος) of the sun" (YLT) to be told "he did rise" (different verb in Greek). Luke 1:78, in a prophecy attributed to Zacharias, identifies Jesus as the sunrise (ἀνατολὴ) from on high. Focusing on the Zacharias tradition, back in the LXX, the temple-building high priest Jesus is given the name Rising (ἀνατολὴ) and he rises up (ἀνατελεῖ) from beneath. Philo of Alexandria quotes this (Confusion of Tongues 63, 146) and says that it is appropriate that he be called the ανατολή because he is the firstborn son raised up (ανέτειλε) by the father of all, also known as the divine image, Logos, celestial high priest, and ruling archangel of many names (Michael?).

9. Subsequently, both Baal and Jesus attain victory over death.

10. Baal ascends to eternal kingship by the blessing of El. So does the Son of Man in Daniel 7. So does the Jesus of Zechariah 6. So does Jesus in the New Testament.

Source: N. Wyatt, Religious Texts From Ugarit (1998)