Basics of Ancient Ugaritic Video Lectures - Chapter 1: Ugarit in a Nutshell by Michael Williams

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Selected from Basics of Ancient Ugaritic Video Lectures, this video presents all material from Chapter 1: Ugarit in a Nutshell by Michael Williams.

About Basics of Ancient Ugaritic Video Lectures

Basics of Ancient Ugaritic Video Lectures provides a 30-minute lesson to accompany each chapter in the Basics of Ancient Ugaritic teaching grammar. Ugaritic is an ancient language of Canaan, written in cuneiform on tablets of clay. Ugaritic is of vital importance for understanding the wider world and culture surrounding the Old Testament text. The grammar and video lectures begin with the alphabet, and each new lesson builds on the ones before. This approach is not, therefore, that of a synthetic Ugaritic grammar—those types of texts often prove to be overwhelming for students.

Instead, Basics of Ancient Ugaritic Video Lectures can readily be used for learning the language by individuals on their own or in a classroom setting. Each chapter in the accompanying grammar concludes with a set of exercises allowing students to know whether they are grasping the fundamentals of the language.

In short, Basics of Ancient Ugaritic Video Lectures, along with the accompanying grammar, represents an ideal first step for entering the larger world of Semitic languages.

[savenetneutralityanti-repu]

Videos like this make me glad YouTube exists. Thank you, YouTube!

[mikerichards]

Great, well presented, and easily understood video. A solid foundation has been laid.

[simonbargiora]

This, "Danel" the Watcher and resident of Mount Harmon is amazingly similar to, "Danel the Harnamite" in the Ugaritic texts, but I have never read of anyone who has made this connection, and I sure someone has noticed. It would be nice to read about the amazing similarities, obviously Harnam is a variant of Harmon. This is amazing really and gives a certain credibility to the books of later date mentioned.

[joalexsg]

This is a precious lecture video, thank you so much for it, I must share this on my edublogs and on Facebook, with the link to your DVD at Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

[shonykelet]

Fantastic lecture! Thanks a lot for your precious educational work! A must share undoubtedly.

[zimriel]

The pronunciation of Ba'al as "Beyl" here is throwing me off. That might work for Akkadian where they lost the old Semitic 'ayin. But for Ugaritic, shouldn't it be more like Arabic ba'l in sura 37? You *can* do voiced pharyngeals, yes?

[simonbargiora]

"Danel the Harnamite", an obvious reference to Mt. Harmon, is mentioned in the Book of Jubilees as one of the sons of Seth who leaves the sacred Mountain, Mt. Harmon, which means forbidden more literally so, and a mention in the Book of Enoch, same name.

[TohouBohou]

Hello, which « ugarit » texts ?!? ThankYou

[majdshami]

Thanks for the video effort, I believe the Canaanite religion is as valid as monotheistic religions.. as a Syrian I'm proud that my ancient heritage is the basis of biblical stories and myths. I wonder why u didn't mention Ugarit is actually in Syria.

[WafiShaker]

I am from there and We still use these words. Ba'al, maot and raba aume,
For example, we say to the farmer: Do you irrigate this land. He says: This land Baal. In the sense that it depends on the rain
The word moat is exactly the death
And the word raba aume= housewife mother. cuz the word rab means god and um means mother .But the word Ba'al is a subject of controversy. Because Ba'al = B a el, We use the letter B for swearing and el is name of the god
For example, the name of God is= b rab
Because Syria, Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon. We reject the idea that man is a god. Conversely in Egypt and Europe, as an example,
Anyway .His name is ba'al hudd or Odd and and it means exactly as in English odd = the uinque or one and only

[JB-gwee]

What a fascinating city. Thank you for this great video.

[simonbargiora]

Baal or Bel is just B+El which would literally mean "in/by El." Ba is almost always a prefix in Aramaic/Hebrew and Arabic, almost always means in or by.

Baal/Bel is also said to mean, "Prince." It is likely that human kings adopted this title like the sons of Saul did in the Bible, King Saul. It just means, "prince" or, "in/by El."

Update. I know it is spelled with ayin now so there is no point for anyone to have to point that out again but thank you, I know more about the word Baal than I would have if you didn't. Although it is not very useful I am thankful for the corrections. The accurate one.

[mohsenalhalabi]

It is well known that the( tanach ) the old testament narratives were written in the fifth century bc and that means the ones that wrote th tanach brought the ugarit's names and narratives from the other historical natives and tribes of North Syria. And I suggest to read what the archeaology professor published along with Fencklstein about the time on which the old testament was written by the Jews

[JohnDee]

Maybe the ' borrowing' from Ugarit happened because the major part of Israelites and Canaanites are in fact partially descendants of Ugarit civilization and Egyptian immigration in Canaan represents instead only a small fraction of the Jews population. In other words during the collapse of Ugarit one part of their population migrated south in Israel territory . Later on, the Jews form a different community in the south (Judah) with monotheism inspired maybe from Egypt (Akenathen)and the Persians empire (Cyrus and Zoratrianism) while the north remained more faithful to the original polytheism.

[istvancsiszar]

I want to reconstruct ancient Egyptian speech ( which is, anyway, impossible, according to mainstream scholars ). Do you think that your lessons on Ugaritic language could give me any help, hints, ideas or suggestions ??

[simonbargiora]

So according to the ancient book Jubilees (which seems to be a part of the same tradition as the book of Enoch in content and according to the fact that they were both almost solely preserved by the Ethiopian Church in Ge'ez until fragments were found at Qumran of both) the father of Methusaleh, Enoch, married his uncles daughter, "Adni/Edni" and the name of the uncle was, "Danel." "Deen" or "dn" probably means literally, "recompense or judgement", within both names which are indeed from the time of the judges (Masoretic) or, "Watchers" who Enoch, "testified against" (4:22-23). Methusaleh married, "Edna, the daughter of 'Azriel, ..."

Methusaleh and E-DNa were the parents of Lamech, who married, "Betenos(h) the daughter of Baraki'il." and it was they who were the parents of Noah or Nuh.

Baraki'il most likely means, "Bless-me-God." quite literally. Or "Ba" could be a prefix for "arak" but more probable seems that it could mean both, "Arak" sounds like, "Urek" but either way, this is the name of one of the Watchers in the Book of Enoch, "Barakiel." Alef can make "a/i/u" and is the "e" in the Aramaic language, i/e. So Al, El, Il, are all various ways to pronounce the same word, A-L.

Book of 1Enoch the Ethiopian version and which is a translation of oldest of books written in the name of Enoch, has the descendants "of Jared" * on the summit "Mount Harmon/Hermon" and among the most well-known like, "Semjaza/Samiazaz, Arakiba, ... Danel, Ezeqeel, Baraqijal..." which is a different way to render, "Baraki'il." and mentioned two names after Danel, again and in context a contemporary of the same Baraki'il and Daniel, mentioned again with Jarad, this time Mount Harmon is mentioned specifically.

[gk-qfhv]

Why don't you tell us what those words are in the ugarit language?

[JonDesautels]

It's pretty clear that Ugarit didn't borrow from Israel since Ugarit was destroyed in or around 1200 b.c. which was, as the speaker admitted, around the time when the Israelites first became settled and sedentary. Clearly the old testament had been influenced by Canaanite thought and religion. In fact, the Israelites probably had a large minority of Canaanites in the population.

[stevenjohnfoster]

are these anything t0 d0 with the Arratu? and the cradle of civilisation t0 the Armenians after the deluge

[KohanKilletz]

It does not shed a good light on your Ugaritic Scholarship if you pronounce Ba3lu as Bale