Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Banyai Michael" <banyai AT t-online.de>]

Dave Washburn wrote:

> In Ugaritic, at least as I recall, "the bull" is one of the epithets of El,
> hence we read "The bull, El."  I have no idea what the significance 
> of that is, I just thought I'd toss it out FWIW.

You are perfectly right. But as a matter of fact, Baal is imagined there 
also as a bull. And btw as the Phoenix bird (according to Pettinato) too.

Probably was the bull, for the ancient the utmost in masculine fertility.

However we can not expect El (or if you prefer "The bull El") being the 
same with the biblical bull of El. The second ought be identified rather 
with Baal.

There was clearly a very close association between Baal and El/Yahweh for 
the early Israelites, since laters bull (golden calve) images decorated not 
Baal, but El temples.

Probably was El as a not representational god just imagined as riding 
standing on bulls back- so the golden calf (Baal) acted just as a kind of 
Qibla and secondary statist god, inside the El/Yahweh temple. The believers 
knew were inside the temple to direct their prayers to El.

Best regards,

Michael Bányai