Reading the Bible with the Dead

Elijah and the Prophets of Baal

The story of the prophet Elijah and the Priests of Baal is found in chapter eighteen of the First Book of Kings. Elijah challenges four hundred fifty prophets who worship the mythological god Baal, supported by King Ahab and his wife Jezebel, to a competition on Mount Carmel, where each side strives to prove the existence and power of their god by praying for fire with which to burn an offering to that god.  Both sides build an altar to sacrifice a bull to their god, Elijah on his own, the priests together.  The priests of Baal pray all morning, increasingly desperate in their actions, but nothing happens.  When it is Elijah's turn to attempt to light his altar he pours water over it before praying to the Lord, and immediately fire from heaven consumes his altar and the bull to be sacrificed. Elijah thus wins the competition, awes the many spectators, and directly afterward kills the prophets of Baal.1

This story shows the power of the Hebrew God, as well as the importance of the prophet Elijah.  It centers around an interventionist and very present God who is directly concerned with worship and the doings of the people and is able to speak directly to them through Elijah and other prophets, as well as create fire and best all other gods.  The story has been utilized by various people as a political tool, as aligning one's enemies with King Ahab, Jezebel, or the priests of Baal creates the message of moral and religious superiority on the part of the person forming the analogy, as well as giving permission to kill the enemy if necessary, as Elijah kills his.2  This story reemphasizes the importance of only worshipping one god, and picking the right god to worship.

Though the common theme of aligning enemies with the prophets of Baal persisted for centuries, interpretation of the Biblical story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal has signficantly changed.  Once used to portray the power of God through the miracle of the fire and prove the validity of the interpreter's religion, interpretations have shifted to instead look at the story through a historical and archaeological light, instead viewing the story as that: a story.  Clearly, the narrative about Elijah and the prophets of Baal remains an important story, as it is still studied, with characters to be analyzed and facts checked, but much less emphasis is placed on the miracle itself.  A contemporary article, The Clash of Cults on Mount Carmel, goes so far as to dismiss the miraculous events, instead arguing that the story matches the historical tensions of the region, a sharp contrast to early interpretations where emphasis was on the fire and the intervention of God.3

1. 1 Kings 18:20-40.
2. 1 Kings 18: 40.
3. Tal Rusak, "The Clash of Cults on Mount Carmel: Do Archaeological Records and Historical Documents Support the Biblical Episode of Elijah and the Baal Priests?," Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 22 (2008): 45.  
Note.  Title Picture: The Sacrifice of Elijah Against the Prophets of Baal by Luca Giordano.  Image from art.famsf.org.

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