El

Linguistic forms and meanings

Cognate forms of El are found throughout the Semitic languages. They include Ugaritic ʾilu, pl. ʾlm; Phoenician ʾl pl. ʾlm; Hebrew ʾēl, pl. ʾēlîm; Aramaic ʾl; Akkadian ilu, pl. ilānu.

In Northwest Semitic use, ʼel was a generic word for any god as well as the special name or title of a particular god who was distinguished from other gods as being "the god". El is listed at the head of many pantheons. In some Canaanite and Ugaritic sources, El played a role as father of the gods, of creation, or both.

As the word el sometimes refers to a god other than the named deity El, it is frequently ambiguous as to whether El followed by another name means the god El with a particular epithet applied or refers to another god entirely. For example, in the Ugaritic texts, ʾil mlk is understood to mean "El the King" but ʾil hd as "the god Hadad".

The Semitic root ʾlh (Arabic ʾilāh', Aramaic ʾAlāh, ʾElāh, Hebrew ʾelōah) may be ʾl with a parasitic h, and ʾl may be an abbreviated form of ʾlh. In Ugaritic the plural form meaning 'gods' is ʾilhm, equivalent to Hebrew ʾelōhîm 'powers'. In the Hebrew texts this word is interpreted as being semantically singular for "god" by biblical commentators. The documentary hypothesis theorizes that at least four different authors – the Jahwist (J), Elohist (E), Deuteronomist (D), and Priestly (P) sources – were responsible for editing stories from a polytheistic religion into those of a monotheistic religion, and that these sources were joined together at various points in time by a series of editors or "redactors". Some believe inconsistencies that arise between monotheism and polytheism in the texts are reflective of this hypothesis.

The stem ʾl is found prominently in the earliest strata of east Semitic, northwest Semitic, and south Semitic groups. Personal names including the stem ʾl are found with similar patterns in both the Amorite and Sabaic languages.

Historical development

There is evidence that the Canaanite/Phoenician and Aramean conception of El is essentially the same as the Amorite conception of El, which was popularized in the 18th century BCE but has origins in the pre-Sargonic period. Any "changes" in El's status can be explained by the randomness of available data. Tribal organizations in West Semitic culture also influenced El's portrayal as a "treaty partner" in covenants, where the clan is seen as the "kin" of the deity.

Eventually, El's cult became central to the ethnogenesis of the Iron Age Israelites, but so far, scholars are unable to determine how much of the population were El worshippers. It is more likely that different locales held different views of El.

Francesca Stavrakopoulou has argued that Yahweh was originally a storm‑warrior deity operating under the authority of the patriarch-god El, and traces how, through a process she terms "pantheon reduction", Yahweh gradually assumed El’s status and characteristics within Israelite religion, rather than immediately replacing him in a sudden shift to monotheism. Drawing on Near Eastern archaeological and textual parallels, Stavrakopoulou argues that the biblical Yahweh was originally depicted in early texts with a fully anthropomorphic, sexualised, and sometimes bull-horned body—including feet, limbs, torso, face, and genitals—before later Greek–Platonic influence recast the deity as immaterial and disembodied. She further highlights inscriptions referencing "Yahweh and his Asherah", indicating a former divine consort akin to El's spouse—an element later removed during proto‑monotheistic reforms.

Proto-Sinaitic, Phoenician, Aramaic, and Hittite texts

The Egyptian god Ptah is given the title ḏū gitti 'Lord of Gath' in a prism from Tel Lachish which has on its opposite face the name of Amenhotep II (c. 1435 – c. 1420 BCE). The title ḏū gitti is also found in Serābitṭ text 353. Frank Moore Cross points out that Ptah is often called the Lord (or one) of eternity and thinks it may be this identification of El with Ptah that led to the epithet ʿolam 'eternal' being applied to El so early and so consistently. Yet another connection is seen with the Mandaean angel Ptahil, whose name combines both the terms Ptah and Il. Wyatt, however, notes that in Ugaritic texts, Ptah is seemingly identified with the craftsman god Kothar-wa-Khasis, not El.

In an inscription in the Proto-Sinaitic script, William F. Albright transcribed the phrase ʾL Ḏ ʿLM, which he translated as the appellation "El, (god) of eternity".

The name Raphael or Rapha-El, meaning 'God has healed' in Ugarit, is attested to in approximately 1350 BCE in one of the Amarna Letters EA333, found in Tell-el-Hesi from the ruler of Lachish to 'The Great One'

A Phoenician inscribed amulet of the 7th century BCE from Arslan Tash may refer to El. The text was translated by Rosenthal as follows:

However, Cross translated the text as follows:

In some inscriptions, the name ʾĒl qōne ʾarṣ (Punic: 𐤀𐤋 𐤒𐤍 𐤀𐤓𐤑 ʾl qn ʾrṣ) meaning 'El creator of Earth' appears, even including a late inscription at Leptis Magna in Tripolitania dating to the 2nd century. In Hittite texts, the expression becomes the single name Ilkunirsa, this Ilkunirsa appearing as the husband of Asherdu (Asherah) and father of 77 or 88 sons.

In a Hurrian hymn to El (published in Ugaritica V, text RS 24.278), he is called `il brt and `il dn, which Cross takes as 'El of the covenant' and 'El the judge' respectively.

Ugarit and the Levant

For the Canaanites and the ancient Levantine region as a whole, ʼĒl or ʼIl was the supreme god, the father of humankind and all creatures. He also fathered many gods, most importantly Baal, Yam, and Mot, each sharing similar attributes to the Greco-Roman gods Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades respectively.

As recorded on the clay tablets of Ugarit, El is the husband of the goddess Asherah. Three pantheon lists found at Ugarit (modern Ras Shamrā – Arabic: رأس شمرا, Syria) begin with the four gods ʾil-ʾib (which, according to Cross, is the name of a generic kind of deity, perhaps the divine ancestor of the people), El, Dagnu (that is Dagon), and Ba'l Ṣapān (that is, the god Haddu or Hadad). Although Ugarit had a large temple dedicated to Dagon and another to Hadad, there was no temple dedicated to El.

El had a variety of epithets and forms. He is repeatedly referred to as ṯr il ('Bull El' or 'the bull god') and ʾil milk ('El the King'). He is bny bnwt ('Creator of creatures'), 'abū banī 'ili ('father of the gods'), and ʾab ʾadm ('father of man'). The appellations of "eternal", "creator" and "eternal" or "ancient creator" are "characteristic designations of 'El in Canaanite myths and liturgies". He is ḥātikuka ('your patriarch'). El is the grey-bearded ancient one, full of wisdom, malku ('King'), ʾab šnm ('Father of years'), ʾEl gibbōr ('El the warrior'). He is also called lṭpn ʾil d pʾid ('the Gracious One, the Benevolent God') and lṭpn wqdš ('the Gracious and Holy One').

El (Father of Heaven/Saturn) and his major son, Hadad (Father of Earth/Jupiter), are symbolized both by the bull, and both wear bull horns on their headdresses.

The Ugaritic text Shachar and Shalim tells how (perhaps near the beginning of all things) El came to the shores of the sea and saw two women who bobbed up and down. El was sexually aroused and took the two with him, killed a bird by throwing a staff at it, and roasted it over a fire. He asked the women to tell him when the bird was fully cooked, and to then address him either as husband or as father, for he would thenceforward behave to them as they called him. They saluted him as a husband. He then lay with them, and they gave birth to Shachar ('Dawn') and Shalim ('Dusk'). Again, El lay with his wives, and the wives gave birth to "the gracious gods", "cleavers of the sea", "children of the sea". The names of these wives are not explicitly provided, but some confusing rubrics at the beginning of the account mention the goddess Athirat, who is otherwise El's chief wife, and the goddess Raḥmayyu ('the one of the womb').

Torah

One scholarly position is that the identification of Yahweh with El is a later interpretation and that earlier, Yahweh was thought of as one of many gods, separate from El. Theological interpretations of the Torah consider El as an alternative name for Yahweh. In contrast to this is the Elohist and Priestly source sources, in which El is regarded as an earlier deity than Yahweh. Mark Smith has argued that Yahweh and El were originally separate, but were considered synonymous from very early on. The name Yahweh is used in Genesis 2:4, while Genesis 4:26 states that at that time, Israelites began to "call upon the name of the LORD". The divine name El Shaddai (Biblical Hebrew: אֵל שַׁדַּי, romanized: ʾĒl Šadday), a potential reference to God as the "god of the steppe", may also derive from the cultural beliefs of Upper Mesopotamian immigrants (i.e., Amorites)—who may have been ancestors of the Israelites.

In Deuteronomy 32, as preserved in the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls, According to Mark. S. Smith, Yahweh is described as a son of El:

However, in Deuteronomy chapter 7 contradicts this view; stating explicitly that God chose them (the Israelites) to be his people. Biblical researchers reveal that these verses in Deuteronomy 32 present an etiological explanation of the origin and division of nations. The high mountain god and head of the pantheon, Elyon (עֶלְיוֹן, 'Most High'), divides the nations according to the number of his children, each getting a group of peoples to preside over. Yahweh, one of Elyon's sons, is given solely Israel as his inheritance.

In Genesis 14:18–20, Abraham accepted the blessing of El when Melchizedek, the king of Salem and high priest of its deity, El Elyon (אֶל עֶלְיוֹן, 'El [the] Most High'), blessed him.

According to The Oxford Companion to World Mythology,

It seems almost certain that the God of the Jews evolved gradually from the Canaanite El, who was in all likelihood the "God of Abraham" ... If El was the high God of Abraham—Elohim, the prototype of Yahveh—Asherah was his wife, and there are archaeological indications that she was perceived as such before she was in effect "divorced" in the context of emerging Judaism of the 7th century BCE.

Jewish interpretation

The Hebrew אֵל, in transliterated Standard Hebrew, is written as El; in Tiberian Hebrew, the transliteration is ʾĒl. ʾEl is a generic word for god that could be used for any god, including Hadad, Moloch, or Yahweh.

In the Tanakh, Elohim (ʾelōhîm) is a word for a god or the great God (or gods, given that the im suffix makes the word plural). The form ʾEl also appears, mostly in poetic passages and in the patriarchal narratives attributed to the Priestly source of the documentary hypothesis. It occurs 217 times in the Masoretic Text: 73 times in the Psalms and 55 times in the Book of Job, and otherwise mostly in poetic passages or passages written in elevated prose. It occasionally appears with the definite article as hā'Ēl (הָאֵל, 'the El'), such as in Deuteronomy 10:17, 2 Samuel 22:31, and 2 Samuel 22:48.

The theological position of the Tanakh is that the names ʼĒl and `Ĕlōhîm, when used in the singular to mean the supreme god, refer to Yahweh, while the plural is interpreted to refer to other unspecified heavenly beings, such as angels.

Sanchuniathon

Philo of Byblos (c. 64–141 AD) was a Greek writer whose account Sanchuniathon survives in quotation by Eusebius and may contain the major surviving traces of Phoenician mythology. El (rendered Elus or called by his standard Greek counterpart Cronus) is not the creator god or first god. El is rather the son of Sky (Uranus) and Earth (Ge). Sky and Earth are themselves children of 'Elyôn 'Most High'. El is brother to the God Bethel, to Dagon and to an unknown god, equated with the Greek Atlas and to the goddesses Aphrodite/'Ashtart, Rhea (presumably Asherah), and Dione (equated with Ba'alat Gebal). El is the father of Persephone and of Athena (presumably the goddess 'Anat).

Sky and Earth have separated from one another in hostility, but Sky insists on continuing to force himself on Earth and attempts to destroy the children born of such unions. At last, with the advice of his daughter Athena and the god Hermes Trismegistus (perhaps Thoth), El successfully attacks his father Sky with a sickle and spear of iron. He and his military allies the Eloim gain Sky's kingdom.

In a later passage it is explained that El castrated Sky. One of Sky's concubines (who was given to El's brother Dagon) was already pregnant by Sky. The son who is born of the union, called Demarûs or Zeus, but once called Adodus, is obviously Hadad, the Ba'al of the Ugaritic texts who now becomes an ally of his grandfather Sky and begins to make war on El.

El has three wives, his sisters or half-sisters Aphrodite/Astarte ('Ashtart), Rhea (presumably Asherah), and Dione (identified by Sanchuniathon with Ba'alat Gebal the tutelary goddess of Byblos, a city which Sanchuniathon says that El founded).

El is depicted primarily as a warrior; in Ugaritic sources Baal has the warrior role and El is peaceful, and it may be that the Sanchuniathon depicts an earlier tradition that was more preserved in the southern regions of Canaan.

Eusebius, through whom the Sanchuniathon is preserved, is not interested in setting the work forth completely or in order. But we are told that El slew his own son Sadidus (a name that some commentators think might be a corruption of Shaddai, one of the epithets of the Biblical El) and that El also beheaded one of his daughters. Later, perhaps referring to this same death of Sadidus we are told:

Poseidon

A bilingual inscription from Palmyra dated to the 1st century equates El-Creator-of-the-Earth with the Greek god Poseidon. Going back to the 8th century BCE, the bilingual inscription at Karatepe in the Taurus Mountains equates El-Creator-of-the-Earth to Luwian hieroglyphs read as da-a-ś, this being the Luwian form of the name of the Babylonian water god Ea, lord of the abyss of water under the earth. (This inscription lists El in second place in the local pantheon, following Ba'al Shamîm and preceding the Eternal Sun.)

Poseidon is known to have been worshipped in Beirut, his image appearing on coins from that city. Poseidon of Beirut was also worshipped at Delos where there was an association of merchants, shipmasters, and warehousemen called the Poseidoniastae of Berytus founded in 110 or 109 BCE. Three of the four chapels at its headquarters on the hill northwest of the Sacred Lake were dedicated to Poseidon, the Tyche of the city equated with Astarte (that is 'Ashtart), and to Eshmun.

Also at Delos, that association of Tyrians, though mostly devoted to Heracles-Melqart, elected a member to bear a crown every year when sacrifices to Poseidon took place. A banker named Philostratus donated two altars, one to Palaistine Aphrodite Urania ('Ashtart) and one to Poseidon "of Ascalon".

Though Sanchuniathon distinguishes Poseidon from his Elus/Cronus, this might be a splitting off of a particular aspect of El in a euhemeristic account. Identification of an aspect of El with Poseidon rather than with Cronus might have been felt to better fit with Hellenistic religious practice, if indeed this Phoenician Poseidon really is the El who dwells at the source of the two deeps in Ugaritic texts. More information is needed to be certain.