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Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

UGARIT*

City in northwest Syria during the second millennium BC. Though the city is not mentioned in the Bible, it is a significant archaeological site that illuminates OT language and history. Ugarit was located just east of the Mediterranean coast, approximately 175 miles (281.6 kilometers) north of Tyre.

Being known previously only from the Amarna letters, the ruins of Ugarit were discovered accidentally by a peasant farmer in 1928. The resulting discoveries were among the most important in the 20th century. Since Ugarit was a political and cultural center, its scribes created and transcribed documents in a wide variety of Near Eastern languages, including a language closely related to Hebrew that was written in an alphabetic cuneiform script. The discovery and subsequent deciphering of “Ugaritic” has influenced biblical studies both linguistically and culturally. Ugaritic has illuminated some otherwise obscure Hebrew passages and given greater attestation to others. For instance, the terms used to describe each of the various sacrificial offerings are very similar in Hebrew and Ugaritic, though the sacrificial systems themselves vary quite dramatically. Hebrew and Ugaritic poetry are quite similar stylistically, thus assisting in the understanding of Hebrew verse and also increasing the appreciation of its ancient heritage. Books like Job that often have been dated late by biblical critics exhibit significant Ugaritic parallels in style, vocabulary, and occasionally in literary allusion as well.

Perhaps the most significant contribution derived from the study of Ugaritic texts and cultural artifacts is the improved understanding of Canaanite culture and religion. The Ugaritic texts provide justification for the strongly negative assessment of Canaanite culture given in the Bible. Three principal religious epics have been discovered in the Ugaritic corpus, written in honor of Keret, Aqhat, and Baal, respectively. The Baal epic describes the way in which Baal becomes lord of the earth after battling Yam, the god of the sea. The epics further reveal a great deal about Canaanite religious ritual, reinforcing biblical contentions concerning the sexual permissiveness and degradation of the society. The strong biblical injunctions against the worship of Baal and the Asherahs and the command to utterly destroy the Canaanites are more easily understood in the context of the Ugaritic religious epics.

Finally, the Ugaritic texts potentially illuminate some historical questions relating to the OT. For instance, when Hezekiah was sick with a boil, he was instructed by Isaiah to treat it with a poultice of figs (2 Kgs 20:7; Is 38:21). This procedure is attested to in a Ugaritic text that prescribes it as a treatment for boils that infected horses.