Book of Mormon Evidence: No Baal Names

There are several hundred personal and place names in the Book of Mormon. Many of these have been shown to be authentic ancient Near Eastern names. Professor Hugh Nibley noted that as a younger man he was once surprised at the total absence of Baal names in the Book of Mormon. “By what unfortunate oversight had the authors of that work failed to include a single name containing the element Baal, which thrives among the personal names of the Old Testament?”¹ (The only likely exception to this rule is the name Isabel, which will be discussed in detail below.) More recent evidence, however, supports the Book of Mormon’s general omission of this name element.

Baal Names in the Bible

Biblical texts contain many examples of personal and place names which include the theophoric name Baal. According to Yugal Levin, the word baal can mean “lord,” “master,” “husband,” or even “owner.” Although Baal was also the name of a non-Israelite deity (the worship of which was condemned by biblical prophets), Levin notes that because of the broader meaning of the word “in the earliest periods of Israelite national identity, it was common to use the title ‘baal’ as an epithet for the God of Israel.”² This is why we often find prominent biblical leaders and individuals with Baal names.

One of Gideon’s names, for instance, was Jerubaal (Judges 6:32). Baal is also the name of one of Saul’s ancestors, as well as a leader of the tribe of Reuben (1 Chronicles 5:5; 8:30; 9:36). Other personal names include Baal-hanan (1 Chronicles 27:28), Eshbaal (1 Chronicles 8:33; 9:39), and Merib-Baal (1 Chronicles 8:34; 9:40). Place names include Baal-Gad (Joshua 11:17; 12:7; 13:5), Baal-Hermon (Judges 3:3; 1 Chronicles 5:23), Baal Maon (Numbers 32:38; Joshua 13:17; Ezekiel 25:9; 1 Chronicles 5:8), Baal-Zaphon (Exodus 14:2, 9; Numbers 33:7), Baalah or Baalatah (Joshua 15:9–11, 29; 1 Chronicles 13:6), Baalath (Joshua 19:44; 1 Kings 9:18; 2 Chronicles 8:6), Baalath-Beer (Joshua 19:8; 1 Chronicles 4:33), Baal-Perazim (2 Samuel 5:20), Baal-Shalishah (2 King 4:42), Baal-Hazor (2 Samuel 12:23), Baal-Tamar (Judges 20:33), and Baale of Judah (2 Samuel 6:2). Clearly, names with the element Baal were relatively common.

Archaeological Evidence

Archaeological discoveries made long after the Book of Mormon was published shed light on this issue. Discoveries at the site of Elephantine, an Egyptian city occupied by Jewish settlers in the seventh century BC, yielded a cache of documents which contain many Jewish and other Semitic names of the period. According to Joseph Offord, “out of some four hundred personal names among the Elephantine Papyri not one is compounded of Baal.”³ William F. Albright observed that seals and inscriptions from Judah during the later Judean monarchy and which “are very numerous in the seventh and early sixth [centuries] seem never to contain any Baal names.”⁴

Lehi, Ishmael, and their families departed from Jerusalem during the first year of the reign of Zedekiah (1 Nephi 1:4) shortly before the destruction of the city in the early sixth century BC. This means that they left at a time when Baal names were apparently no longer popular. The Jewish names at Elephantine and the epigraphic evidence mentioned by Albright were discovered many years after the Book of Mormon was published.

The Name Isabel

While Nibley’s assessment about the lack of Baal names in the Book of Mormon is generally correct, it seems likely that he missed an example: Isabel, the harlot for whom Corianton forsook his ministry (Alma 39:3–5). Latter-day Saint scholars have “generally assumed that the name is identical to that of the Old Testament Jezebel, the Hebrew form of which was ʾÎzebel.”⁵

Jezebel is “best understood as meaning ‘Where is the Prince?,’ the cry of Baal’s divine and human subjects when he is in the underworld.”6 The final component (bel) of Jezebel is what conveys “prince” or “lord,” and is likely intended to evoke an association with the god Baal, much like Ethbaal, the name of Jezebel’s father.⁷ Furthermore, Jezebel is known primarily for her efforts to inculcate Baal worship among the Israelites, so the Baal connection is present both linguistically and narratively (1 Kings 16:31).

The existence of Isabel/Jezebel in the Book of Mormon, however, may not do much to push against Nibley’s general point about the absence of such names in the text. It is possible, and perhaps even likely, that instead of being a genuine personal name, Isabel is a metonym (a symbolic name) evoking forbidden lust.⁸ Whatever the case may be, the name holds the type of negative association that likely led to Baal names falling out of favor in Lehi’s day.

If Joseph Smith were the author (rather than divinely aided translator) of the Book of Mormon and was just randomly pulling names and name-elements from the Bible, he could have easily included the baal element in a number of them. But he didn’t. The only instance—Isabel—is likely symbolic and is used in a negative context that helps explain, rather than subvert, the rule. This general absence of Baal names in the Book of Mormon is surprisingly consistent with archaeological discoveries showing that Baal names had fallen out of favor during the late pre-exilic period (the same period when Lehi and his family dwelled at Jerusalem). As Nibley concluded, “the stubborn prejudice of our text against Baal names is really the only correct attitude it could have taken.”⁹