While Baal is described battling and defeating Lotan, Gilgamesh, in
his epic, is described as defeating the bull of heaven. The gods then became
offended at Gilgamesh for having destroyed a symbol of their power and kingdom.
This symbolic relationship leads, in Ugaritic texts, to Bull being used as a
title. Frequently, texts will mention Bull El and Bull Baal, not implying some
other version of those deities but emphasizing their might. The bull symbolism
attached to these figures frequently leads to related gods being calves and
goddesses being described as heifers.
That said, it is likely that at some early stage, Baal and his father
were depicted as bulls or as bull-men, but most still-existing images of Baal depict
him in the form of a man with the horns of a bull. The term horn is
often used by itself to refer to the strength of a person or nation. Likewise,
mother goddesses frequently had bovine characteristics and were described as
producing great quantities of milk. A reference to the Greek goddess Hera as “cow-eyed”
survives in the Homeric corpus. (Stephen De Young, The Baal Book: A
Biography of the Devil [Chesterton, Ind.: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2025], 38)
