A "planetary power" of the Pelishtim (Philistines) according to Philo Byblius, though we know from the various texts that he was specifically the corn god, and always represented as a merman.
Dagon in fact appears in the pantheons of many other peoples, long before he came to dominate that of the Pelishtim. He has been found in archaeological digs in Akkad, Ashur (Assyria) and Bavel (Babylonia), likewise as a fertility god, and later became specifically a god of fish and grain in the Levanon and along the coast of Kena'an; so he may already have been present before the arrival of the Pelishtim. Finds at Tel Mardikh (Ebla) and at Ras Shamra (Ugarit) in Syria confirm that he was worshipped by the early Amorites. He is mentioned in the Mari documents. Illustrations of the Mesopotamian Apsu show a remarkably similar figure, with the body of a man as if trapped, Yonah-like, inside the body of a fish; Yonah is based on Oannes, and images of him are even more similar. Given that Yonah set off on his voyage from Yafo (Jaffa, Joppa), which was at the northern border of Philistia in Biblical times, can we assume that Oannes and Yonah and Dagon are in fact one and the same? I will return to this in a moment, and from a source that will probably surprise you.
The root is DAGAH, which occurs only once in the Tanach, in Genesis 48:16, (וְיִדְגּוּ לָרֹב בְּקֶרֶב הָאָרֶץ - "and let them become many in the midst of the Earth"); the concept of "growth" or "multiplication" is inherent here, and leads to DAG = "fish", but more relevantly to DAGAN = "corn", and helps us understand why the fertility god of a coastal people should be represented as both Osher (Osiris) and Triton; cf Genesis 27:28 and 37, Numbers 18:27, Deuteronomy 28:51, Lamentations 2:12.
The root is DAGAH, which occurs only once in the Tanach, in Genesis 48:16, (וְיִדְגּוּ לָרֹב בְּקֶרֶב הָאָרֶץ - "and let them become many in the midst of the Earth"); the concept of "growth" or "multiplication" is inherent here, and leads to DAG = "fish", but more relevantly to DAGAN = "corn", and helps us understand why the fertility god of a coastal people should be represented as both Osher (Osiris) and Triton; cf Genesis 27:28 and 37, Numbers 18:27, Deuteronomy 28:51, Lamentations 2:12.
The name of Yehoshua's father, Nun, also means "to grow" or "to multiply".
Joshua 19.27 mentions a temple at a second Beit Dagon, this one in the tribe of Asher; with the obvious inference that Dagon-worship was a commonplace in ancient Yisra-El
Judges 16 tells how the temple of Dagon at Azah (Gaza) was destroyed by Shimshon (Samson).
Judges 16 tells how the temple of Dagon at Azah (Gaza) was destroyed by Shimshon (Samson).
1 Samuel 5:2–7 tells how the captured Ark was responsible for the destruction of a temple to Dagon in Ashdod.
1 Chronicles 10:8-10 claims that the head of King Sha'ul was displayed in a temple to Dagon after the battle of Gilbo'a; but does not state which temple.
cf 1 Maccabees 10.83/84;11:4.
Josephus (Antiquities 12.8.1; War 1.2.3) mentions a place named Dagon in the region of Yericho (Jericho), again confirming the extent, and the longevity, of Dagon-worship throughout Kena'an.
Saint Jerome mentions Caferdago (presumably an attempt to render Kfar Dagon in Latin) between Diospolis and Jamnia. There is also a modern Beit Dejan south-east of Nablus (Biblical Shechem).
The source that I mentioned earlier is in fact Rashi, the great theologian and commentator of Ashkenazi Europe during its Dark Ages; he speaks (click here for a full account) of a tradition that Dagon was imagined in the shape of a fish, and compares him with the Babylonian fish-god Oannes, himself a key source for the prophet Yonah (Jonah). This would make the upper parts of Dagon human but the remainder a merman. Two hundred years after Rashi, David Kimchi offered an interpretation of 1 Samuel 5:2–7, where it states that "only Dagon was left to him" to mean that the human part was destroyed but the merman survived.
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In this is reflected both a Jewish and a Christian unwillingness to take the Dagon myths "literally", using "literally" in the same sense that Jews and Christians use it when they insist that the myths of the Bible are "literal truths" rather than mythological allegories and metaphors. Why it bothers the Jews so much is not easy to explain; that it disturbs Christians is much easier, because huge amounts of the cult of Dagon were either absorbed into, or actually formed the root-base of emerging Christianity, including the Christian fish-symbol, the Galilean tales of piscene miracles, and Jesus' self-proclamation as a "fisher of men". Given the amount of Tammuz in his birth and death legends, of Elisha in his other Galilean legends, and Ba'al in his Beit Anatot (Bethany) legends, it is not surprising to find this other major fertility cult of Yisra-El also prevalent in his myth - and the Yonah tale is of course that of a Prophet coming to bring Judgement Day to a people - confirming once again that Christianity was not a new religion, but the revival of a, indeed several, very ancient ones, suppressed by the Maccabees, able to re-emerge in 70CE when Jewish hegemony in Yisra-El came to an end with the destruction of the Temple and of Yeru-Shala'im.
For a fuller picture of Dagon as a major deity across Mesopotamia, click here.
1 Chronicles 10:8-10 claims that the head of King Sha'ul was displayed in a temple to Dagon after the battle of Gilbo'a; but does not state which temple.
cf 1 Maccabees 10.83/84;11:4.
Josephus (Antiquities 12.8.1; War 1.2.3) mentions a place named Dagon in the region of Yericho (Jericho), again confirming the extent, and the longevity, of Dagon-worship throughout Kena'an.
Saint Jerome mentions Caferdago (presumably an attempt to render Kfar Dagon in Latin) between Diospolis and Jamnia. There is also a modern Beit Dejan south-east of Nablus (Biblical Shechem).
The source that I mentioned earlier is in fact Rashi, the great theologian and commentator of Ashkenazi Europe during its Dark Ages; he speaks (click here for a full account) of a tradition that Dagon was imagined in the shape of a fish, and compares him with the Babylonian fish-god Oannes, himself a key source for the prophet Yonah (Jonah). This would make the upper parts of Dagon human but the remainder a merman. Two hundred years after Rashi, David Kimchi offered an interpretation of 1 Samuel 5:2–7, where it states that "only Dagon was left to him" to mean that the human part was destroyed but the merman survived.
In this is reflected both a Jewish and a Christian unwillingness to take the Dagon myths "literally", using "literally" in the same sense that Jews and Christians use it when they insist that the myths of the Bible are "literal truths" rather than mythological allegories and metaphors. Why it bothers the Jews so much is not easy to explain; that it disturbs Christians is much easier, because huge amounts of the cult of Dagon were either absorbed into, or actually formed the root-base of emerging Christianity, including the Christian fish-symbol, the Galilean tales of piscene miracles, and Jesus' self-proclamation as a "fisher of men". Given the amount of Tammuz in his birth and death legends, of Elisha in his other Galilean legends, and Ba'al in his Beit Anatot (Bethany) legends, it is not surprising to find this other major fertility cult of Yisra-El also prevalent in his myth - and the Yonah tale is of course that of a Prophet coming to bring Judgement Day to a people - confirming once again that Christianity was not a new religion, but the revival of a, indeed several, very ancient ones, suppressed by the Maccabees, able to re-emerge in 70CE when Jewish hegemony in Yisra-El came to an end with the destruction of the Temple and of Yeru-Shala'im.For a fuller picture of Dagon as a major deity across Mesopotamia, click here.
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