El often bears the title, “Bull” (CAT
1.1 III 26, IV 12 V 22; 1.2 I 16, 33, 36, III 16, 17, 19, 21; 1.3 IV 54, V 10,
35; 1.4 I 4, II 10, III 31, IV 39, 47; 1.6 IV 10, VI 26, 26; cf. 1.128.7). In
this connection, the personal name ‘iltr, “El is Bull,” may be
noted (4.607.32). Baal is presented as a bull-calf (1.5 V 17021; 1.10 II-III,
esp. III 33-37; cf. 1.11; see more later), and here we may note P. Amiet’s characterization
of the bull as the storm-gods’ “attribute animal” in Syrian glyptic. In this connection,
the bull or bull-calf mentioned in the Bible may reflect the iconography
associated with El and Baal. El’s iconographic representation may underlie the
image of the divine as having horns “like the horns of the wild ox” in Numbers
24:8, for this passage shows other marks of language associated with El. Many scholars
are inclined to see El’s rather than Baal’s iconography behind the famous “golden
calf” of Exodus 32 and the bull images erected by Jeroboam I at Bethel and Dan
(1 Kings 12), but this iconography has been traced back to Baal as well. Here
we might include not only the depiction of Baal in the Ugaritic texts, but also
the “fierce young bull” (symbol) of the storm-god, Adad. Nonetheless, the
tradition in ancient Israel favors Bethel originally as an old cult-site of the
god El (secondarily overlaid—if not identified—with the cult of Yahweh, perhaps
as the place-name Bethel (literally, “house of El”) would suggest (Genesis
28:10-22). (Mark. S. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic
Background and the Ugaritic Texts [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001], 32)
For the bull iconography at Bethel and
the close relation of 1 Kings 12 and Exodus 32, see [Frank More Cross, Canaanite
Myth and Hebrew Epic], 198-99; Keel and Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses,
and Images of God, 191-92. On p. 194 n. 12 the authors suggest that ‘glyw
in the Samaria Ostracon no. 41 should be rendered not “YH is a bull calf,”
but “Bull calf of YH,” a view that gains in plausibility and sense from the
discussion in section 6 and n. 65 there. (Ibid., 213 n. 39)
The second level of the pantheon
includes the royal children, called the seventy sons of Athirat (1.4, VI 46).
It is possible that this tier also receives he general designation ‘ilm rbm,
“the great gods,” which Mullen compares with Akkadian ilū rabûtum.
According to Mullen, “the Lord of the great gods” (‘and ‘ilm rbm) refers
to El in 1.124.1-2, but this interpretation is open to question. The usage of ‘ilm
rbm is quite limited (1.107.2); an interesting detail, 4.149.1-2 refers to bt
ilm rbm. The deities belonging to the second tier include major figures of
the pantheon: Anat, Athtar, Athtar, YD’-YLHN, Shapshu, Yarih, Shahar, and
Shalim. Here Baal is an outsider, but despite his status as an outsider, he can
claim some sort of familiar relation to El; like the other deities (1.3 IV 54;
1.92.15), Baal can refer to “Bull El” as his father (1.3 V 35; 1.4 IV 47; cf.
1.4 I 5). (Ibid., 45)
. . . El may have been the original God
connected with the Exodus from Egypt and that this event was secondarily
associated with Yahweh when the two gods coalesced. Numbers 23:22 and 24:8 (cf.
23:8) associate the Exodus not with Yahweh but with the name of El: “El who
freed them from Egypt has horns like a wild ox.” (This description also evokes
El’s attribute animal at Ugarit, the ox, reflected in his title “Bull El”). The
poem in Numbers 23-24 contains the name of Yahweh (23:8, 21; 24:6), but it is
considerably rarer than the name of El (23:8, 1, 22, 23; 24:4, 8, 16, 23).
Indeed, El is attested almost three times as often as Yahweh. Accordingly, B.
A. Levine seems correct in suggesting that these poems preserve an old repertoire
of El tradition, now synthesized with reference to Yahweh. If so, these texts
contain a valuable witness to El as the god of the Exodus, at least in one of
the Israelite traditions. (Ibid., 146-47)