Ancient Belief Systems And Their Gods Quiz

Answer: Ba'al

According to ancient Canaanite legend, Ba'al was the ruler of Heaven as well as being the god of the sun, rain, thunder and fertility. He was also considered to be the god of agriculture.

The god that was opposed by the biblical prophets as "Baal" was usually a version of Baal-Hadad, who was a deity of the Hittites, the Syrians, and the Assyrians. Although Baal worship extended from the land of the Canaanites to the land of the Phoenicians, it was vigorously opposed by many of the Biblical prophets and by several of the kings of Judah.

Ba'al-type gods were often worshiped in "high places", with the prophets of Baal described as engaging in various forms of self-mutilation, but one of the main objections to Baal worship by the Old Testament prophets was its association with ritual sex. This objection was closely followed by another, that of child sacrifice.

For a more in-depth contemporary description of the deity known as Ba'al, read the 18th chapter of First Kings.

Answer: Dagon

The Philistine god Dagon was usually portrayed as a half man/half fish, as he was portrayed in the earlier Babylonian culture, which the Philistines had borrowed from.

Several famous incidents in the Bible involved Dagon idolatry; these include the death of Samson (Judges 16), the attempted looting of the Ark of the Covenant (1 Samuel 5), and the beheading of King Saul (1 Samuel 31).

In the book of Judges, chapter 16, one can read of an incident involving Samson and the Philistine god, Dagon.

Answer: Moloch

According to the Bible, the statue of Moloch was hollow, and inside there burned a fire which caused the bronze statue to glow with red heat. Some people believe that children were placed on the hands of the statue. They believe that through a complicated mechanical function, the hands were raised to the mouth (as if this god was eating), and the children fell into the fire where they were burnt to death by the flames. The people that gathered before the statue of Moloch would supposedly dance to the sounds of flutes and tambourines. (Horrible that this is to consider, the musical instruments may have been used to drown out the screams of the victims.)

References to people passing their offspring through the fire appear in several places in the Bible, such as Deuteronomy 12:31, 18:10-13; 2 Kings 21:6; Ezekiel 20:26,31; 23:37.

Answer: Marduk

Nimrod set out to establish himself an empire and began by conquering the cities that had already become established in the region of Mesopotamia. Among these were Babel, Erech, Akkad, and Calneh in Sumeria, and in Assyria the cities of Rehoboth, Calah, and Resen. Besides conquering these seven cities he also founded the city of Ninevah, whose ruins have been found directly across the river from modern-day Mosul, Iraq.

One theory presents this way: after their deaths, Nimrod and his wife, Semiramis, were proclaimed by the priests of their religion to be gods and were given the names "Marduk" and "Astarte". (Marduk was also known as the god of the planet Mars.)

Another theory is that Nimrod is to be identified with the Babylonian hero Izdubar, also called "Gilgamesh", and he was the "god" of the planet Mercury.

Two other interesting theories have been presented regarding Marduk as well. One is that Nimrod represents the constellation of Orion (The Hunter); the other is that "Nimrod" stands for an entire tribe of people, not just one man.

Answer: Sumerians and Babylonians

"Nanna" was a god in Sumerian mythology. He was the god of the moon, and was the son of Enlil and Ninlil. His sacred city was Ur, which is today known as the southern region of Iraq, the land of Abraham's birth. The name Nanna is Sumerian for "Illuminator".
He was called "Sin" in the Babylonian and Assyrian languages. According to their culture, Sin had a beard made of lapis lazuli and he rode on a winged bull.

Answer: Tiamat

Tiamat, also called Leviathan, was a primeval monster/goddess in Babylonian and Sumerian mythology.
The root word of her name, "Tehom", simply means the "sea".

Tiamat became angry at some of the other gods once, as the story goes, so she created monsters to battle them. These monsters were her own offspring, sea-serpents of terrifying size, storms, fish-men and scorpion-men. Several of the gods died in the ensuing battle.
According to legend, she had the 'Tablets of Destiny', and during the battle she gave them to Kingu, the god that she had chosen for her lover.

(Tell me something, though. If these gods were REALLY all that powerful, how could they just keel over and die?)

Answer: Nergal

Nergal seems to be at least in part a solar deity. He is sometimes identified with the sun-god Shamash, but only as he pertained to certain phases of the sun. Nergal is seen in hymns and myths as a god of war and pestilence, but also seems to represent the sun of noontime and of the summer solstice, which brought about the potential for destroying men's crops with the sun's rays. High summer was considered the "dead season" in the ancient Mesopotamian cycle of the year, so in essence, he was a god of dead things.

Answer: Shamash

The sun gods of the Babylonians were associated with certain phases of the sun. Ninib was the sun-god of the morning and of the spring time; Nergal was the sun-god of the noon and of the summer solstice, and Shamash was seen as the more major sun-god in general.

Answer: Astarte/Ashtoreth

Astarte, the female counterpart to Ba'al, had strong connections to both war and love. She was an important deity of the Phoenician (Lebanese) towns of Tyre and Sidon, from where her worship spread via Phoenician merchants throughout the Mediterranean Sea regions. She may have owed many of her personality characteristics to the Mesopotamian goddess, Ishtar (from whose name, according to some etymologists, we get the word "Easter"). At the very least, the similarity in their names is striking.

She received offerings in ancient Ugarit in Syria. Her name appears forty-six times in writings from Ugarit. Many of the ancient Israelites worshiped her, and several versions of her name occur at least nine times in the Hebrew Bible. Most commonly, she is referred to as Ashtereth. The Ugaritic poems speak of her beauty and usually associate her closely with Baal, in his role as the storm god.

Answer: Moloch

Chiun was possibly an alternate personality of the idol, Moloch (he was also known as the star god), or the god of Saturn. In the King James Version of Amos 5:26-27, we see that as God speaks to the children of Israel, He refers to this false god when He tells them,
"But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the Lord, whose name is The God of hosts."