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  • From: barre AT access1.com
  • To: "B-Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: Ancient Palestinian Religions
  • Date: 07 Feb 2000 21:20:22 -0800




The Akkadian high god Anu ("heaven") and his vizier storm god Enlil ("Lord of
the
atmosphere") become manifested in the northwest Semitic deities El and
Baal-Hadad in
Aram (cf. he Aramean names Hazael ["El sees"] and Ben-Hadad ["son of Hadad"]
and
Phoenicia (cf. Ugaritic mythology) and northern Palestine, their presence
attested by the
ethnic name "Israel" mentioned in the Merneptah stele, the El sanctuaries
Bethel, Penuel, the
temple of El Berith in Shechem, the altar in the pass between Gerizim and
Ebal named "El is
the god of Israel," the worship of El Elyon at Jebusite Jerusalem, the
mentions of the same
god with the epithet Shaddai ( Num 24:16, 4; Gen 49:25 ) the statuette of El
from Megiddo
(1350-1200), the twice attested mention of El by northern pilgrims at
Kintullet Ajrud, the
northern provenance of the Elohist and the Elohistic Psalter, with Yahweh
performing the
comparable role of El's vizier (Ps 29, Deut 32:8-9; Ps 82). The distribution
of the god El
therefore extends from 3rd century Akkadian culture eastward through Aram and
Phoenicia
and downward through northern Palestine to Jerusalem. Yahweh, with his home
in the
deserts of southern Levant, traveled north with the migration of the Hebrews
to come into
competition with or displaced Baal as El's traditional vizier, illustrated
most clearly by Psalm
29 where Yahweh, originally a bedouin war god of the desert is here portrayed
as a storm
god and the functional equivalent of Enlil=Hadad=Baal. The most probable
time for the
incorporation of Yahweh into El's pantheon is with the emergence of Israel in
the 13th
century when the peoples of northern and southern Palestine formed a
political alliance and
forged a new collective identity that finally failed with Jeroboam's session.
At this time El and
Yahweh became alienated (Ps 82) and returned to their own people reassuming
their original
autonomy. While popular Yahwism continued in the North, the official
religion was the
traditional worship of El and Baal until the destruction of the nation in
722 BCE at which
time Elohistic traditions, particularly the Elohistic Psalter, was redacted
and the divine names
El and Yahweh were made synonymous. The theoretical synthesis of El, Yahweh
and Elohim
was most likely accomplished by the publication and dissemination of the
Priestly Writer's
epic who taught that El was Yahweh's patriarchal alias and that both names
are equivalent to
the distinctively Egyptian (Levitical) concept of Elohim. Therefore, the
three dominant
religious trajectories running though ancient Palestine have come to cultural
expression in the
divine names El, Yahweh and Elohim and have left us three versions of
Israel's national epic
in the writings known as J, E, and P.





---------------------------
L.M. Barre
http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/AncientIsrael
Point Loma, California








  • Ancient Palestinian Religions, barre, 02/08/2000

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