In 1931, an excavator named Claude Schaeffer on a dig in Ras
Shamra, Syria came across three clay tablets in the ruins of a house belonging
to a high priest of the god Baal that have come to be referred to as the
Krt Epic or the
The Epic of Kret (without any vowels, it’s hard to be consistent
in the transliteration of ancient Eastern names).
If you were to cherry-pick
a few couplets from the Krt
tablets you might observe that they bear a passing similarity to the language
of the Psalms:
“To the earth Baal rained, to the field rained ’Aliy. Sweet
to the earth was Baal’s rain; to the field the rain of ’Aliy.”
“In a dream of Beneficent El Benign, a vision of the Creator
of Creatures, the skies rained oil, the wadis flowed honey. So I knew that
Mighty Baal lives; the Prince, Lord of Earth, exists.”
The deity being worshipped is referred to as “mighty” and “beneficent”; his generosity in providing rain for the crops is called “sweet”. He is the “Lord of Earth”.
Even the bit about flowing honey sounds vaguely familiar.
