Before the Church · c. 1400 BC
The Legend of King Keret
Ilimilku the scribe
What it is
A king who has lost his whole household weeps until El appears in a dream and tells him to march on a distant city and demand its princess. He does, and is granted sons — then falls mortally ill, and his son asks how a son of El can possibly die.
Why it lasted
The clearest window into Canaanite kingship as divine sonship, which is the language Psalm 2 and Psalm 89 use of the king in Jerusalem. The question the prince asks is the question the Bible answers differently.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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