Canaanite

Canaanites were the inhabitants of the land promised to Israel, descended in the biblical genealogy from Canaan, son of Ham, and the Old Testament repeatedly commands their displacement because of practices like idol worship and child sacrifice associated with them. The term also became attached to the apostle Simon, called "the Canaanite" in Matthew and Mark, though this actually transliterates an Aramaic word for "zealot" rather than marking Canaanite ancestry; Luke's Gospel calls him Simon the Zealot instead. Canaanite religion and culture are well documented outside the Bible through the Ugaritic tablets found at Ras Shamra in Syria, which describe the god Baal and the goddess Asherah, both named elsewhere in the Old Testament as objects of Israelite idolatry. The Merneptah Stele, an Egyptian inscription from about 1208 BC, is the earliest known text to mention Canaan by name.