7/27/2019 Phoenicia - Canaan
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According to Britannica, the origin of the term Canaan
ca-na-na-um is disputed, but it may derive
from an old Semitic word denoting reddish purple, referring to
the rich purple or crimson dye
produced in the area or to the wool coloured with the dye.
Biblically, Canaanites erroneously are
identified in Genesis as descendants of Canaan, a son of Ham and
grandson of Noah.
The Hebrew cana'anithe word meant merchant, an occupation for
which the Canaanites were well
known.
According to Niels Peter Lemche book The Canaanites and Their
Land, it meant the Lowlands. The
Greeks and after them the Romans called it Phoenicia, which
means, the Land of Palms.
As my understanding, Canaan syndicates a reference to a
Geographical, Cultural and Religious and
not Canaan the son of Ham and the father of Sidon as the Old
Testament indicate.
The territory of Canaan has been described as the Levants
southern part, comprising Palestine,
Lebanon, and southern Syria (A. Mazar 1990). More specifically,
Canaans boundaries began in the
south at Wadi al-'Arish and reached north to the Lebanon and the
Anti-Lebanon Mountain ranges.
The western border was, of course, the Mediterranean, and the
eastern was Transjordan and the
Jordan River and Dead Sea farther south (Hackett 1997).
The first written reference to Canaan or Canaanite was found in
a contemporary text from Mari. The
term did not appear again until the late fifteenth century booty
list of the Egyptian pharaoh
Amenophis II.
In later centuries, it appeared several times in the Amarna
letters and in a text from Alalakh. It was
also found in two texts from ca. the year 1200 B.C.E., a list of
merchants discovered at Ugarit and the
Egyptian Merneptah Stele.
Several issues thus require resolution for the term. One is
geographic, another is ethnic and last
cultural.
The main authentic source should be Ugarit Ras Shamra and not
the Old Testament, the Old
Testament is a mimic of the discovered tablets of Ugarit as
history is revealing.
These discovered tablets describes authentic stories, like the
attack of the Sea People, another one
describing the birth of the saviour, a third telling the story
of the flood etc
Ugaritic texts almost always provide the essential datum for
describing Canaanite religion because,
while the Ugaritians distinguished themselves from Canaanites,
Ugaritic religious literature has
enough links with later biblical literature to place Ugarit on a
cultural continuum with Canaan.
Sources:
Gibson, Canaanite Myths and Legends .
J. A. Montgomery, Notes on the mythological epic texts from Ras
Shamra .
T. H. Caster, A Canaanite ritual drama: The Spring festival at
Ugarit.
L. A. Waddell , The Phoenician Origin Of Britons Scots &
Anglo-Saxons.
