Anath: Bible
Anath, sister or consort of the fertility and storm god Baal, early 2nd millenium BCE. From the Walters Art Museum via Wikimedia Commons.
Anath (Anat) is a prominent figure in the Canaanite mythological texts, dating to c. 1400 BCE, discovered at Ugarit on the Syrian coast. She is a maiden/warrior goddess, the sister or consort of the fertility and storm god Baal. She plays a major role in the Ugaritic myths, rescuing Baal from the underworld and defeating Mot, the god of death. Despite her prominence in the Ugaritic texts, she rarely appears in the Hebrew Bible. However, the naming structure used in references to Anath in the Bible indicates that she may have been honored among some Israelites.
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Ackerman, Susan. "24. Mirrors, Drums, and Trees." In Congress Volume Helsinki 2010, pp. 537-567. Brill, 2012.
McCarter, P. Kyle, Jr. “Aspects of the Religion of the Israelite Monarchy: Biblical and Epigraphic Data.” In Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross, edited by Patrick D. Miller, Jr., Paul D. Hanson, and S. Dean McBride, 137–155. Philadelphia: 1987.
Meyers, Carol, General Editor. Women in Scripture. New York: 2000.
Murphy, Kelly J. "Myth, Reality, and the Goddess Anat: Anat's Violence and Independence in the Ba'al Cycle." Ugarit-Forschungen 41 (2009): 525-542.
Tamber-Rosenau, Caryn. "Striking Women: Performance and Gender in the Hebrew Bible and Early Jewish Literature." PhD diss., 2015. See esp., Chapter 2, “Striking Women in Ancient Mediterranean Literature.”
Tamber-Rosenau, Caryn. Women in Drag: Gender and Performance in the Hebrew Bible and Early Jewish Literature. Gorgias Press, 2018.
Walls, Neal H. The Goddess Anat in Ugaritic Myth. Atlanta: 1992.
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