The Cults of the Northern Israelite Kingdom and Phoenicia

Are the religious practices of the northern Kingdom of Israel adopted from Phoenician elements or reflected of a broader Canaanite continuity? 

See also Ritual and Power in Northern Israel: The Late Bronze and Iron Ages (Zaphon, 2024).

By Erin Hall
Department of Society, Culture, and Languages
Columbus State University
October 2025

            “Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him. And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, he took as his wife Jezebel daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians and went and served Baal and worshipped him. He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made a sacred pole. Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than had all the kings of Israel who were before him” (1 Kings 16:29–33).

            The Hebrew Bible speaks of Ahab, son of Omri, as evil in the eyes of Yahweh and of his wife Jezebel, daughter of the Sidonian king, killing prophets of the Lord (1 Kings 18:4). There is also a description of Ahab erecting an altar in a house of Baal in Samaria and creating a sacred pole to Asherah (1 Kings 16:32). Connections between Phoenicia and northern Israel are explicitly mentioned in the text, as well as tensions between prophets of Yahweh cult and the cult of the Sidonians (e.g., 1 Kings 16–19). In this essay, my aim is to examine the cults of northern Israel and Phoenicia during the Iron Age, and to question the cultic influence of Phoenicia over northern Israel.

            Most cultic contexts from Iron II northern Israel date to the late Iron IIA (900–830 BCE; Hall 2024), ending with the conquest of the northern Kingdom of Israel and the destruction of many sites by Hazael, King of Damascus, in 840/830 BCE (cf. Kleiman 2016). Late Iron IIA sites with cultic contexts in the north include Megiddo, Ta‘anach, Horvat Tevet, Tel ‘Amal, Beth Shean, Tel Rehov, Pella, Tell el-Far‘ah North/Tirzah, Tel Dothan, Tel Dan, and possibly Shiloh. Sites with Iron IIB cultic activity include the Building 338 shrine room at Megiddo, possibly Tel Kedesh/Tell Abu Qudeis, where a four-horned altar was found, continuity in the podium/bamah in Area T at Tel Dan, and a possible feasting context attested in Samaria’s Locus E 207 (Hall 2024). The gate shrine at Bethsaida also dates to the Iron IIA–B, but the Israelite character of that particular site as well as that of Tel Dan (in addition to the bamah’s chronology) are part of an on-going discussion, with scholars believing these sites to be under Aramaean hegemony in the late Iron IIA and part of northern Israel in the Iron IIB (for Bethsaida see, e.g., Arav and Bernett 2000; Sergi and Kleiman 2018: 5–7; for Tel Dan, see Arie 2008; Finkelstein 2013: 106–107; Greer 2013: 130–133; Davis 2013: 53–55; Thareani 2019; for both sites see Ilan 2019).

            Many of the late Iron IIA northern cultic contexts contain a non-standardized form of cultic architecture, including possible temples/cultic buildings at Megiddo Level Q-5, Horvat Tevet, Beth Shean, and Pella, and other unique forms of cultic buildings at Tel Rehov, Tel Dothan, Ta‘anach, and Megiddo Building 2081. Tel Rehov also contains open-air cult places, including an apiary (Mazar 2020b: Photo 35.1, Photo 35.21) and an altar in Area E (Mazar 2020a: Photo 17.36), and Tell el-Far‘ah North/Tirzah features a gate shrine (Mumcuoglu and Garfinkel 2020). In terms of cultic paraphernalia, a range of items related to incense burning and veneration were uncovered in northern Israel. Four-horned altars, cult stands, “petaled” cult stands and chalices, strainer jars, and perforated cups all speak to the importance of offering incense in the northern Israelite cult. Objects of veneration include shrine models and figurines, often of the female drummer type (Hall 2024: 126–127). Shrine models are thought to be facsimiles of cult places, usually with one large opening or door (Muller 2002: 85). There is also evidence of feasting activities in various cultic contexts, with many pottery assemblages being composed of serving vessels (Hall 2024:133–136). Although contexts with faunal analyses remain few and far between, there is some evidence to suggest that animal sacrifice, particularly that of sheep/goat, was part of the northern Israelite cult (ibid.: 136–138; see also Greer 2013).

            As for the Phoenician connection, there may be some historical validity to the interconnectivity of the northern Israelite and Phoenician cults, but the biblical notion that Ahab erected an altar to Baal in Samaria or an Asherah has yet to be archaeologically confirmed. However, certain bent-axis temples found at Beth Shean (the “Northern Temple”) and Pella (Phase 6) are similar in plan to the “Phoenician-type temple” as outlined by Edrey (2018; 2019: 91–92; Hall 2024: 132). One of the major challenges for comparing the northern Israelite and Phoenician cults is the lack of cultic contexts that have been uncovered or published in Phoenicia. Furthermore, there is another difficulty in discerning the borders of northern Israel and southern Phoenicia in the late Iron IIA–B, as the character of several sites is under dispute (cf. Arie 2020; Shalvi and Gilboa 2022, 2023). We do know, however, of certain features of the Phoenician cult, such as the worship of El, Baal, and Asherah, as well as the use of cultic paraphernalia in the form of baetyls and figurines.

            The god El is attested in both Phoenician sources and the Hebrew Bible. In Bronze Age Canaan, El was the head of the pantheon. He is attributed with being both the father of the gods in Ugaritic sources and the creator of the earth in the same sources as well as in later Phoenician inscriptions and the Hebrew Bible (Genesis 14:19; see Edrey 2019: 141–142). According to Edrey, El was treated as an aloof god that was less concerned with human affairs. His worship was less common than that of other deities within the pantheon during the Iron Age (Edrey 2019: 142). He is, as Edrey points out, possibly part of a divine triad together with Baal and Asherah/Astarte (ibid.: 141–142). It is suggested that Baal, El’s son, overthrew him (Picard and Picard 1968: 45; Mullen 1980: 92–110; Van der Toorn 1995: 2046; cf. Edrey 2019: 142). In the Hebrew Bible, El is another name for the God of Israel, Yahweh, and it is referenced several times in epithets such as El Elyon (Genesis 14:18–20) and El Shaddai (Genesis 17:1). The northern Israelite settlement of Bethel, or “house of El,” suggests that a temple to El was built there. We also have the attestation of “El” as a theophoric element in personal names from the late Iron IIA Elisha inscription found at Tel Rehov (Ahituv and Mazar 2014: Fig. 10), inscriptions on ostraca from Samaria (Adey 2009), and from the Hebrew Bible (e.g., the prophets Elijah and Elisha). Although El was the major deity of the Canaanite pantheon, it seems both the Phoenicians and northern Israelites adopted him into their systems of belief.

            Asherah, consort of El and mother of the gods, is also known from the Canaanite pantheon and the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew Bible claims worship of Asherah as being a trait of Phoenician worship. However, as Edrey points out, the name “Asherah” is not found in Iron Age Phoenician inscriptions and, like El, her worship does not seem to have been popular at this time (2019: 143). Other iterations of Asherah include the goddesses Tanit and Astarte. Interestingly, the earliest attestation of the symbol of Tanit was found in Iron I Megiddo (Arie 2017; cf. Edrey 2019: 143), suggesting Canaanite origins. In the Hebrew Bible, Asherah is associated with worship of sacred poles (e.g., 1 Kings 16:29–33), which is seen as sacrilegious within the cult of Yahweh. The famous depictions of Asherah in the iconography of Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, a site with suspected northern connections (Meshel 2012; see recently Smoak and Schneidewind 2019), attest to her possible connections with being the consort of Yahweh and serve as archaeological evidence of her possible worship either as a goddess or sacred pole (for the former opinion see Dever 1984, Freedman 1987, Leuenberger 2021; for the latter see Lemaire 1977b: 607; Emerton 1999; Puech 2014).

            Like the cult of Asherah, worship of Baal, the son of El and the most important of the Phoenician deities, was seen as “doing evil” in the Hebrew Bible. As Edrey points out, Baal is worshipped as Haddu in the Ugaritic pantheon, and the worship of Baal splits into Hadad in Aram and Baal in Phoenicia during the Iron Age (2019: 144). Archaeologically, the theophoric element “Baal” is attested in the personal names of the Iron IIB Samaria Ostraca (Lawton 1984, Finkelstein 2021: Table 1). As with El and Asherah, the worship of Baal, which translates to “lord” in the Hebrew Bible, seems to have been an aspect of the Canaanite cult that carried over into the Iron Age southern Levantine religions of both northern Israel and Phoenicia. The continuity of worship of El, Asherah, and Baal lends additional credence to the argument that both Phoenicians and northern Israelites arose out of the local, indigenous Canaanite “stock” (for a summary see Finkelstein 2020), forming a collection of city-states in the case of Phoenicia or a territorial kingdom in northern Israel during the Iron Age.

            Archaeologically speaking, both baetyls (Phoenician) and masseboth (Hebrew) were standing stones that were used in worship within the Phoenician and northern Israelites cults. As Edrey notes, baetyls were found erected in front of altars in, for example, cultic contexts in Sarepta and Kition (2019: 148). In northern Israel, masseboth could either be used for commemoration or worship. In early Iron IIA Megiddo (Level Q-6), a massebah was erected over the human remains found within the destruction remains of the Iron I city (Kleiman et al. 2017: 26, Table 3B). It seems masseboth were used for a similar purpose in commemorating the destruction of Late Bronze Age Hazor (Zuckerman 2011). At other sites, masseboth were found in conjunction with worship, e.g., the massebah found adjacent to Ta‘anach’s late Iron IIA “Cultic Structure” (Sellin 1904: 76; Lapp 1964: 29–30, Figs. 12, 14; Lapp 1967: 19–20, Fig. 11). Baetyls and masseboth are known from the Bronze Age (Edrey 2019: 149) and seem to be yet another aspect of the Canaanite cult carrying over into Iron Age ritual practices.

            Sacred poles dedicated to Asherah are attested in Phoenician iconography and mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Archaeologically speaking, such wooden poles, if erected, would have disintegrated over time, and thus in situ examples are not known. What does remain in Phoenician examples, however, are sockets for fitting the poles. Some scholars have alternately suggested that certain pits found in sacred contexts were dug for the erection of such poles (Edrey 2019: 150). It is difficult to know whether such poles were erected in northern Israel, given the lack of sockets found in cultic contexts. Pits, likewise, are difficult to discern given that many northern Israelite contexts were dug using pre-modern excavations techniques. It is, however, important to point out that the worship of sacred poles, evident in Phoenicia and described in the Hebrew Bible, may have been a carry-over from Canaanite tradition. The well-known and well-attested “sacred tree” motif can be found in figurative art from various Bronze Age contexts (Locatell, McKinny, and Shai 2022).

            It is also worth noting that, in terms of figurines, both Phoenicia and northern Israel commonly feature figurines of nude women holding their breasts as well as female figurines nursing a baby or playing an instrument, such as a drum (Edrey 2019: 155; Hall 2024: 126–127). Edrey speaks of certain details included in the Phoenician figurines that are distinctive, such as hair or dress; however the fact that the figurines are conceptually similar in both cultures is indeed intriguing (Edrey 2019: 155). In Phoenician contexts these women, particularly those with musical instruments, could be seen as priestesses performing a musical aspect of ritual worship (Meyers 1987: 120–122; Pritchard 1988: 52; Karageorghis 1998: 30–31, 67–75; Paz 2007; cf. Edrey 2019: 156). It is worth considering whether the same meaning could be attributed to the drummer figurines of the northern Israel cult. In terms of Canaanite connections, the figurines of nude women (sometimes holding their breasts, animals, or plants) can be found in Canaanite contexts and they are most often associated with the worship of Astarte/Qedeshet (Cornelius 2004: 47).

            In short, there are many aspects of the Phoenician and northern Israelite religion that are worth comparing. Similarities in deities worshipped and cultic paraphernalia employed in cultic practice are indeed interesting. These can perhaps be attributed to continuity of Canaanite cult practice, rather than to the northern Israelites adopting aspects of Phoenician worship, as the Hebrew Bible implies. The polemic against northern Israel, with all of its kings “doing evil” in the eyes of Yahweh, is interesting in terms of biblical ideology, and the variety of cultic contexts in the late Iron IIA in the north and the appearance of various theophoric elements in the personal names of the Iron IIB Samaria Ostraca points to plurality of worship in the kingdom during this time.

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