for the Fourth Book in the
Pantagruel and Gargantua series by
François Rabelais published in
Œuvres de Rabelais (Paris: Garnier Freres, 1873), vol. 2, Book IV, ch. XXVII, opposite page 87,
Gustave Doré, 1873 In 1974, Wolfgang Röllig published a Phoenician inscription from Byblos (Byblos 13) which he argued it contained a reference to a deity named "Og". According to Röllig, it appears in a damaged 7-line funerary inscription that Röllig dates to around 500 BC, and appears to say that if someone disturbs the bones of the occupant, "the mighty Og will avenge me."
Frank Moore Cross disputed Röllig's interpretation, proposing that the line of the inscription in question reads instead "my decrepit/mouldering bones". A possible connection to Og and the Rephaim kings of Bashan can also be made with the much older Canaanite Ugaritic text KTU 1.108 from the 13th century B.C., which uses the term "king" in association with the root /rp/ or "Rapah" (the Rephaim of the Bible) and geographic place names that probably correspond to the cities of Ashtaroth and Edrei in the Bible, and with which king Og is expressly said to have ruled from (Deuteronomy 1:4; Joshua 9:10; 12:4; 13:12, 31). The clay tablet from Ugarit KTU 1.108 reads in whole, "May
Rapiu, King of Eternity, drink [w]ine, yea, may he drink, the powerful and noble [god], the god enthroned in
Ashtarat, the god who rules in
Edrei, whom men hymn and honour with music on the lyre and the flute, on drum and cymbals, with castanets of ivory, among the goodly companions of
Kothar. And may
Anat the powerful drink, the mistress of kingship, the mistress of dominion, the mistress of the high heavens, [the mistre]ss of the earth." Og's existence and true identity is disputed. According to Matthew McAffee, the historical reminiscenses of Ugaritic mythology indicate that the Hebrew Bible has probably preserved a genuinely ancient tradition of an Amorite king Og stemming from the 2nd millennium BC. He also argues that the description of Og as a Rephaim seems to reflect an Old Amorite theology which gave such status to their deceased kings. ==In the Talmud==