Monday, September 28, 2026

Thoughts On Attempting to Legitimize Yahweh as a Part of the Ancient Canaanite Pantheon

 I was watched a video on the supposed origins of Yahweh as an ancient near eastern Canaanite god, and I'm pretty sure it ended up confirming the Biblical narrative without meaning to. The principle question being asked was essentially "How did an unknown tribal god just appear out of nowhere and depose and merge with El as the high god of the Canaanites eventually becoming the primary deity for almost everyone on Earth?" 
     In the process of answering that question, several pieces of archaeological evidence from Israel's and Judah's kingdom period are produced while discussing Yahweh's place in the Canaanite pantheon. It is said that Israel's real religion was one where Yahweh sat atop a pantheon with Asherah his wife, Ba'al his son, and several other Canaanite gods.
     What struck me about all of this is that it all ironically confirms the Biblical narrative that the name Yahweh was unknown prior to the Exodus (Ex. 3). The exodus occurred between roughly 1500 and 1400 BCE. The earliest known text to mention Yahweh ("YWH of the Shasu"), an Egyptian one, dates to the 14th century BCE and the reign of Amenhotep III. In the Book of Exodus, the Israelites make a "golden calf" and proclaim that this was the god who delivered them from Egypt. The symbol of the Canaanite high god, El, was a bull. The word used in Exodus for "calf" specifically means a "young bull" or "bull calf". It's made clear by His reaction in the text that Yahweh does not self-identify with El. 
     In the book of Judges, as well as in the books of the Kings and Chronicles, it states in no uncertain terms that the Israelites did not obey the Torah which was given to them. They began worshiping the gods of the people of the land and intermarrying with them. This is probably the origin of the Hebrew language as we know it by 1000 BCE because it was an offshoot of Canaanite. There are several points in those books where the worship of Yahweh was nearly subsumed in both Israel and Judah by the worship of the Canaanite pantheon and an Asherah pole was set up in the first temple.
    What the author of the video and others like it call the real Israelite religion (and except for a few periods during the reigns of a few Judahite kings, it was probably the most practiced), the Biblical texts called disobedience and apostasy and recorded intensely. Whatever else might be legitimately questioned in the Biblical narrative, clearly the running after other gods constantly talked about and complained about checks out in the time periods under discussion. Straight Yahweh monotheism didn't actually appear to be the majorityt practice ironically until after the return from Babylonian exile, just as the Biblical texts record.

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