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    Beings." He Is Depicted As Bearded, and Residing in A Tent or A Tabernacle, Whose Throne Rests

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    Abhishek P Benjamin
    The document discusses evidence from biblical texts that the deity El was originally worshipped by the early patriarchs and at important religious sites in Canaan, before Yahweh emerged as the primary deity. It describes how El was the high god in the Canaanite pantheon, based on texts discovered at Ugarit, and how passages like Deuteronomy 32:8-9 present Yahweh as one member of El's divine council, originally assigned to be the god of Israel by El.

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    Beings." He Is Depicted As Bearded, and Residing in A Tent or A Tabernacle, Whose Throne Rests

    Uploaded by

    Abhishek P Benjamin
    55 views2 pages
    The document discusses evidence from biblical texts that the deity El was originally worshipped by the early patriarchs and at important religious sites in Canaan, before Yahweh emerged as the primary deity. It describes how El was the high god in the Canaanite pantheon, based on texts discovered at Ugarit, and how passages like Deuteronomy 32:8-9 present Yahweh as one member of El's divine council, originally assigned to be the god of Israel by El.

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    EL YHWH

    Original Title

    EL YHWH

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    The document discusses evidence from biblical texts that the deity El was originally worshipped by the early patriarchs and at important religious sites in Canaan, before Yahweh emerged as the primary deity. It describes how El was the high god in the Canaanite pantheon, based on texts discovered at Ugarit, and how passages like Deuteronomy 32:8-9 present Yahweh as one member of El's divine council, originally assigned to be the god of Israel by El.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    55 views2 pages

    Beings." He Is Depicted As Bearded, and Residing in A Tent or A Tabernacle, Whose Throne Rests

    Uploaded by

    Abhishek P Benjamin
    The document discusses evidence from biblical texts that the deity El was originally worshipped by the early patriarchs and at important religious sites in Canaan, before Yahweh emerged as the primary deity. It describes how El was the high god in the Canaanite pantheon, based on texts discovered at Ugarit, and how passages like Deuteronomy 32:8-9 present Yahweh as one member of El's divine council, originally assigned to be the god of Israel by El.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    The biblical texts offers strong evidence indicating a unique process of assimilation that went

    through in which what ultimately emerged as was our YHWH aka EL in the bible. In the
    oldest literary traditions of the Pentateuch, it is El who regularly appears rather Yahweh
    appears as El! The patriarchal narratives identify El as the deity to whom many of the early
    patriarchal shrines and altars were built. For example, in Genesis 33:20 that Jacob builds an
    altar in the old cultic center of the north, Shechem, and dedicates it to “El, G-d of Israel” (’el
    ’elohe yišra’ el ).
    That El was the deity worshiped at Shechem is also attested in Judges 9:46, which speaks of
    the shrine of “El of the covenant.” And appears to Jacob as El Shaddai (35:11; cf. 48:3).
    Jacob has another encounter with El at Penuel, which is so named because Jacob sees El face-
    to-face (32:31). Moreover, Isaac blesses Jacob through El Shaddai (28:3), and likewise Jacob
    blesses Joseph “by El of your fathers” (49:25). “El who sees” is given as the etymology of
    Beerlahai-roi in Genesis 16:13.
    Finally, Genesis 14:18-22 speaks of “El the most high,” of whom the Canaanite Melchizedek
    is priest at Jerusalem.
    Our knowledge of El predominantly comes from a corpus of tablets discovered in 1929 in the
    ancient city of Ugarit, a major city-state of the second millennium BC located on the northern
    coast of Syria, modern day Ras Shamra. The Ugaritic tablets are the best available witness to
    Canaanite religion and religious practices, and thus also “to the background from which the
    religion of Israel emerged, and to the Canaanite beliefs that it shared, adopted, compromised
    with, and sometimes rejected.”5
    The Ugaritic literature depicts El as the sovereign deity of the Canaanite pantheon. He is
    frequently referred to as “Father of the gods,” “the eternal King,” and “Creator of all living
    beings.” He is depicted as bearded, and residing in a tent or a tabernacle, whose throne rests
    on Cherubim. He is the god of blessings and of covenants.
    Deuteronomy 32:8-9 is one of those rare and simultaneously very enigmatic passage that
    seemingly throw light into this puzzling deity we call as YHWH, where El and Yahweh were
    still depicted as separate deities: Yahweh was merely one of the G-ds of El’s council! This
    tradition undeniably and without any doubt comes from older Canaanite lore.

    “When the Most High (’elyôn) gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated
    humanity, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of divine beings.
    For Yahweh’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.”
    - Deuteronomy 32:8-9
    There are two points inference we can draw from the above verse:
    First, the passage presents an apparently older myth that describes when the G-ds, that is each
    deity in the divine counsel, were assigned and allotted their own nation. Israel was the nation
    that Yahweh received.
    Second, Yahweh received his divine portion, Israel, through an action initiated by the G-d El,
    here identifiable through his epithet “the Most High”, is seen as assigning nations to the G-ds
    (the Hebrew word is Elohim , plural “gods”) in his council;
    Similarly, as per Numbers 21:29, the G-d Chemosh is assigned to the people of Moab.
    Other biblical passages reaffirm this archaic view of Yahweh as one of the G-d’s in El’s
    council.
    In fact, Psalm 82:1 speaks of the “assembly of El,” Psalm 29:1 enjoins “the sons of El” to
    worship Yahweh, and Psalm 89:6-7 lists Yahweh among El’s divine council.

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