The Temple of the Sun

Magnificent ruins of the Temple of Bel in modern Syria

Midsummer is the domain both of the Golden Castle, and the Golden Temple. Today I heard of a place which I had known about a little, ravaged in time, but still true in the otherworld. The Temple of Bel dominated the city of Palmyra in Classical Syria for centuries and even the centuries of neglect and rule by Arabs and then Ottomans did not destroy it. The Temple of Bel was bombed by ISIS a few years ago, but its ruins remain impressive. It was the home of Malak-bel and he was revered at the head of the trinity of his brothers, Aglibol and Yarhibol together symbolizing the Sun, the Moon and the all encompassing Sky. This Bel is none of other than the Ba'al of the Bible, or rather, Bel means the same thing as Ba'al. Sunday school taught us that good Israelites worshiped the right God and bad Canaanites worshiped Ba'al. The Israelites destroyed Ba'al's altars and that was the end of him.

Reconstruction of the Temple of Bel 

But this neat telling was never true. Ba'al, meaning Lord was the word all Levantine people used for the high god. Later Hebrews would stop using it for God, but even now in Hebrew the word is still kept to denote a husband or any other master. The Israelites, on their way to become Jews would call their God Lord, but use another form of it, the name Adonai, another form of Damuzi, Tammuz and yes, the Greek Adonis. Adonis was, in convoluted Greek stories, the lover of the Goddess Aphrodite. In those later stories he is a silly youth who was supposed to be the lover of the Goddess of Death,  Persephone.  To those who wonder about that and say, wait, wasn't Persephone kidnapped by Hades? it should be pointed out that Hades was not the proper name of that God. Though it is almost never used in myths, the name of the Greek God of the underworld was.... yes, Aidoneus.

The Temple of Bel and its Outer Court in ancient Palmyra

So Adonai has had a strange journey from lover of the Goddess of Death to the God of the Bible, but Ba'al had a similar and profound journey we can see right here in his golden temple. Here he is, worshiped in Roman and early Christian Syria and a magnificent temple and here were learn that there were, in fact, three Ba'als. The word Ba'al would become, a little further north, Bel.   Notice that Aglibol and Yarhibol are also just: Agli Ba'al and Yarhi Ba'al, so in Palmyra they revered a trinity of Lords.  What the Hebrew Bible dreamed of doing, destroying the altars that view God in the way they hated, it took the fire power of ISIS to execute on a large scale.

The Trinity of Palmyra, Melekbel, Aglibol and Yarhibol

Melek Bel the Golden God of Palmyra, Classical Roman Bas Relief