“Seize the prophets of Baal!”

With my Christian upbringing, I remember Baal as one of the “false gods” spread through Israel after the reign of David and Solomon. Baal was discredited by Elijah the prophet and the followers were eventually rounded up and slaughtered. Baal was also called Beelzebub, which today is synonymous with Satan himself.

But Baal was just one of many Gods of the many polytheistic religions of the ancient world. In the Punic (Phoenician) branch of the religion, Baal was the god of the heavens, Yamm was god of thunder, Anath was the god of both love and war, and Astarte was the queen of heaven, to name just a few.

These gods were worshipped by several peoples of the Middle East—the Canaanites, the Philistines, and the Phoenicians—and it was not wiped out by the various massacres described in the Old Testament. Indeed, the Phoenicians, who colonized the Mediterranean and founded the city of Carthage in modern day Tunisia, were responsible for spreading the religion across western Europe and northern Africa, even as far as the British Isles. It was eradicated not by crusading Jewish kings but the Roman Empire, and initially replaced by the Pagan religion of Rome.

What does this have to do with future threats and coming anarchy? Nothing much. It’s just an unusual piece of history of which we know little.