Canaan and Canaanite people, a historical/Biblical region and people in the area of the present-day Israel, Lebanon and Palestinian territories
A number of Maronite historians claim that their people were the descendants of the Canaanites or Phoenicians, or also the Mardaites, residents in parts of Caliphate province of Bilad al-Sham, who kept their identity under both Byzantine and Arab authorities.
The Old South Arabian languages were originally classified (partly on the basis of geography) as South Semitic, along with Arabic, Modern South Arabian and Ethiopian Semitic; more recently however, a new classification has come in use which places Old South Arabian, along with Arabic, Ugaritic, Aramaic and Canaanite in a Central Semitic group; leaving Modern South Arabian and Ethiopic in a separate group.
Nothing is known for certain about the original language or languages of the Philistines; however, they were not part of the Semitic Canaanite population.
The Egyptians attempted to gain a foothold in the Near East (then controlled by the Assyrian Empire) by entering the region and stirring up Assyria's vassal Israelite, Judaean, Philistine, Canaanite and Samaritan subjects against Assyria, but were defeated and driven out by Shalmaneser V.
Aleph, the reconstructed name of the first letter of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet
The lands of Arraba include Khirbet al-Hamam and Tel el-Muhafer, either of which believed to be the site of the Canaanite town Arubboth from the Books of Kings (Rubutu in the Egyptian documents) and the city Narbata of the Roman period.
Astaroth, a male demon named after the Canaanite goddess Ashtoreth
Some of the artists who took after the movement were the sculptor Yitzhak Danziger (whose Nimrod became a visual emblem of the Canaanite idea), novelist Benjamin Tammuz, writer Amos Kenan, novelist and translator Aharon Amir, thinker and linguist Uzzi Ornan and many others.
Carried west by Phoenician sailors, Canaanite religious influences can be seen in Greek mythology, particularly in the tripartite division between the Olympians Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, mirroring the division between Baal, Yam and Mot, and in the story of the Labours of Hercules, mirroring the stories of the Tyrian Melkart, who was often equated with Heracles.
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According to Canaanite beliefs, when the physical body dies, the npš (usually translated as "soul") departs from the body to the land of Mot.
Heth or Chet, the eighth letter of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet
Elyon - the highest God in the Canaanite pantheon (along with El)
Kamose, the last king of the Theban 17th Dynasty, refers to Apophis as a "Chieftain of Retjenu (i.e., Canaan)" in a stela that implies a Semitic Canaanite background for this Hyksos king: this is the strongest evidence for a Canaanite background for the Hyksos.
Jebusite, a Canaanite tribe who inhabited and built Jerusalem prior to its conquest by King David
The association of Meron with the ancient Canaanite city of Merom or Maroma is generally accepted, though the absence of hard archaeological evidence means other sites a little further north, such as Marun as-Ras or Jebel Marun, have also been considered.
The Canaanite tribe settled in the south of Canaan between Hor and Negev, although it is not mentioned in the genealogy in Gen. x.
William Foxwell Albright believed that Qudšu (meaning "holiness") was a common Canaanite appellation for the goddess Asherah, and Albright's mentor Frank Moore Cross claimed qdš was used as a divine epithet for both Asherah and the Ugaritic goddess, Athirat.
The history of the emergence of Judaism and monotheism has been the subject of study since at least the 19th century and Julius Wellhausen's Prolegomena to the History of Israel; in the 20th century a work was William F. Albright's Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan (1968), which insisted on the essential otherness of Yahweh from the Canaanite gods from the very beginning of Israel's history.