SYRIAN AND PALESTINIAN RELIGION

beliefs of Syria and Palestine between 3000 and 300 BC. These religions are usually defined by the languages of those who practiced them: e.g., Amorite, Hurrian, Ugaritic, Phoenician, Aramaic, and Moabite. The term Canaanite is often used broadly to cover a number of these, as well as the religion of early periods and areas from which there are no written sources. Knowledge of the religions of these groups is very uneven; it usually consists of mere glimpses of one or another aspect. Only from the city-state of Ugarit (14th13th centuries BC) is there a wide range of religious expression. For historical background on the region, see the articles Jordan: history; Lebanon: history: Phoenicia; Palestine; and Syria: history. Additional reading Patrick D. Miller, Jr., Paul D. Hanson, and S. Dean McBride (eds.), Ancient Israelite Religion (1987), includes essays on Mari prophecy, on aspects of the religion of Ugarit, the Aramaeans, and the Phoenicians, and several on the religion of Israel in relation to its Canaanite environment. A more extensive survey of Phoenician religion with good illustrations may be found in Sergio Ribichini, Beliefs and Religious Life, in Sabatino Moscati (ed.), The Phoenicians (1988), pp. 104125. A good overview of Ugaritic religion with photographs of the major religious artifacts is Andr Caquot and Maurice Sznycer, Ugaritic Religion (1980). James B. Pritchard, The Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament, 2nd ed. (1969, reissued 1974), contains photographs of many important religious objects from throughout the period and area. Also worth consulting is Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst (eds.), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, 2nd ed. (1999). Harold W. Attridge and Robert A. Oden (trans.), The Phoenician History (1981), offers Philo of Byblos' Greek text, an English translation, and notes on that work. A more extensive commentary without translation is found in Albert I. Baumgarten, The Phoenician History of Philo of Byblos (1981). A reconstruction of the early ritual basis of the dying god cult is offered by Noel Robertson, The Ritual Background of the Dying God in Cyprus and Syro-Palestine, Harvard Theological Review, 75(2):31359 (1982). Simon B. Parker The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica