(also Il, uga, 𐎛𐎍 ''ʾīlu''; phn, 𐤀𐤋 ''ʾīl''; he, אֵל ''ʾēl''; syr, ܐܺܝܠ ''ʾīyl''; ar, إيل or ; cognate to akk, 𒀭, ilu) is a

Northwest Semitic Northwest Semitic is a division of the Semitic languages comprising the indigenous languages of the Levant. It emerged from Proto-Semitic in the Early Bronze Age. It is first attested in proper names identified as Amorite in the Middle Bronze A ...

word meaning "god" or " deity", or referring (as a proper name) to any one of multiple major ancient Near Eastern deities. A rarer form, ''ila'', represents the predicate form in Old Akkadian and in Amorite. The word is derived from the

Proto-Semitic Proto-Semitic is the hypothetical reconstructed proto-language ancestral to the Semitic languages. There is no consensus regarding the location of the Proto-Semitic '' Urheimat''; scholars hypothesize that it may have originated in the Levant ( ...

*ʔil-, meaning "god". Specific deities known as ''El'', ''Al'' or ''Il'' include the supreme god of the ancient Canaanite religion and the supreme god of East Semitic speakers in Mesopotamia's Early Dynastic Period. Among the

Hittites The Hittites () were an Anatolian people who played an important role in establishing first a kingdom in Kussara (before 1750 BC), then the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom (c. 1750–1650 BC), and next an empire centered on Hattusa in north-centra ...

, El was known as Elkunirsa.

Linguistic forms and meanings

Cognate forms of ʼĒl are found throughout the

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigra ...

. They include

Ugaritic Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic language, classified by some as a dialect of the Amorite language and so the only known Amorite dialect preserved in writing. It is known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeologist ...

, pl. ; Phoenician pl. ;

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

, pl. ;

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

; Akkadian , pl. . In northwest Semitic use, ʼĒl 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". ʼĒl is listed at the head of many pantheons. In some Canaanite and

sources, ʼĒl played a role as father of the gods, of creation, or both. Semitic civilizations referred to the god Saturn as “El”. However, because the word ʼĒl sometimes refers to a god other than the great god ʼĒl, it is frequently ambiguous as to whether ʼĒl followed by another name means the great god ʼĒl with a particular epithet applied or refers to another god entirely. For example, in the

Ugaritic texts The Ugaritic texts are a corpus of ancient cuneiform texts discovered since 1928 in Ugarit (Ras Shamra) and Ras Ibn Hani in Syria, and written in Ugaritic, an otherwise unknown Northwest Semitic language. Approximately 1,500 texts and fragments h ...

, ''ʾil mlk'' is understood to mean "ʼĒl the King" but ''ʾil hd'' as "the god Hadad". The Semitic root ''ʾlh'' (

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

', 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 , equivalent to Hebrew "powers". In the Hebrew texts this word is interpreted as being semantically singular for "god" by biblical commentators. However the documentary hypothesis developed originally in the 1870s, identifies these that different authors – the Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and the Priestly source – were responsible for editing stories from a polytheistic religion into those of a monotheistic religion. 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 Amorite and

Sabaic Sabaean, also known as Sabaic, was an Old South Arabian language spoken between c. 1000 BC and the 6th century AD, by the Sabaeans. It was used as a written language by some other peoples of the ancient civilization of South Arabia, including the ...

– which indicates that probably already in

''ʾl'' was both a generic term for "god" and the common name or title of a single particular god.

Proto-Sinaitic, Phoenician, Aramaic, and Hittite texts

The Egyptian god

Ptah Ptah ( egy, ptḥ, reconstructed ; grc, Φθά; cop, ⲡⲧⲁϩ; Phoenician: 𐤐𐤕𐤇, romanized: ptḥ) is an ancient Egyptian deity, a creator god and patron deity of craftsmen and architects. In the triad of Memphis, he is the hu ...

is given the title ''ḏū gitti'' 'Lord of Gath' in a prism from

Tel Lachish Lachish ( he, לכיש; grc, Λαχίς; la, Lachis) was an ancient Canaanite and Israelite city in the Shephelah ("lowlands of Judea") region of Israel, on the South bank of the Lakhish River, mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible. Th ...

which has on its opposite face the name of

Amenhotep II Amenhotep II (sometimes called ''Amenophis II'' and meaning '' Amun is Satisfied'') was the seventh pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. Amenhotep inherited a vast kingdom from his father Thutmose III, and held it by means of a few milit ...

(c. 1435–1420 BCE). The title ''ḏū gitti'' is also found in Serābitṭ text 353. Cross (1973, p. 19) points out that Ptah is often called ''the Lord (or one) of eternity'' and thinks it may be this identification of ʼĒl with Ptah that lead to the epithet ''olam'' 'eternal' being applied to ʼĒl so early and so consistently. (However, in the Ugaritic texts, Ptah is seemingly identified rather with the craftsman god Kothar-wa-Khasis.) Yet another connection is seen with the

Mandaean Mandaeans ( ar, المندائيون ), also known as Mandaean Sabians ( ) or simply as Sabians ( ), are an ethnoreligious group who are followers of Mandaeism. They believe that John the Baptist was the final and most important prophet. ...

angel

Ptahil In Mandaeism, Ptahil ( myz, ࡐࡕࡀࡄࡉࡋ) also known as Ptahil-Uthra (uthra = angel or guardian), is the Fourth Life, the third of three emanations from the First Life, Hayyi Rabbi, after Yushamin and Abatur. Ptahil-Uthra alone does not con ...

, whose name combines both the terms Ptah and Il. 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 Lachish ( he, לכיש; grc, Λαχίς; la, Lachis) was an ancient Canaanite and Israelite city in the Shephelah ("lowlands of Judea") region of Israel, on the South bank of the Lakhish River, mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible. Th ...

to 'The Great One' A

Phoenicia Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their histor ...

n inscribed amulet of the seventh century BCE from Arslan Tash may refer to ʼĒl. The text was translated by Rosenthal (1969, p. 658) as follows: However, Cross (1973, p. 17) translated the text as follows: In some inscriptions, the name ''Ēl qōne 'arṣ'' (

Punic The Punic people, or western Phoenicians, were a Semitic people in the Western Mediterranean who migrated from Tyre, Phoenicia to North Africa during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term ''Punic'' – the Latin equivalent of t ...

: 𐤀𐤋 𐤒𐤍 𐤀𐤓𐤑 ''ʾl qn ʾrṣ'') meaning "ʼĒl creator of Earth" appears, even including a late inscription at Leptis Magna in Tripolitania dating to the second 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 ʼĒl (published in ''Ugaritica V'', text RS 24.278), he is called ''il brt'' and ''il dn'', which Cross (p. 39) takes as 'ʼĒl of the covenant' and 'ʼĒl the judge' respectively.

Ugarit and the Levant

For the Canaanites and the ancient

Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is ...

ine region as a whole, ʼĒl or ʼIl was the supreme god, the father of mankind and all creatures. He also fathered many gods, most importantly Baal, Yam, and Mot, each sharing similar attributes to the Greco-Roman gods:

Zeus Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label= genitive Boeotian Aeolic and Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label= genitive el, Δίας, ''Días'' () is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek reli ...

Poseidon Poseidon (; grc-gre, Ποσειδῶν) was one of the Twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and myth, god of the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.Burkert 1985pp. 136–139 In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, he was venerated as a ...

, and Hades respectively. As recorded on the

clay tablet In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets ( Akkadian ) were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age. Cuneiform characters were imprinted on a wet clay tablet with a sty ...

s of Ugarit, El is the husband of the goddess

Asherah Asherah (; he, אֲשֵׁרָה, translit=Ăšērā; uga, 𐎀𐎘𐎗𐎚, translit=ʾAṯiratu; akk, 𒀀𒅆𒋥, translit=Aširat; Qatabanian: ') in ancient Semitic religion, is a fertility goddess who appears in a number of ancient ...

. Three pantheon lists found at Ugarit (modern — ar, رأس شمرا, rtl=yes, Syria) begin with the four gods ''il-'ib'' (which according to Cross; is the name of a generic kind of deity, perhaps the divine ancestor of the people), ʼĒl, Dagnu (that is Dagon), and Ba'l Ṣapān (that is the god Haddu or Hadad). Though Ugarit had a large temple dedicated to Dagon and another to Hadad, there was no temple dedicated to ʼĒl. ʼĒl is called again and again ''Tôru ʼĒl'' ("Bull ʼĒl" or "the bull god"). He is ''bātnyu binwāti'' ("Creator of creatures"), ''abū banī 'ili'' ("father of the gods"), and '' 'abū 'adami'' ("father of man"). He is ''qāniyunu 'ôlam'' ("creator eternal"), the epithet ôlam'' appearing in Hebrew form in the Hebrew name of God ''ēl 'ôlam'' "God Eternal" in Genesis 21.33. He is ''ḥātikuka'' ("your patriarch"). ʼĒl is the grey-bearded ancient one, full of wisdom, ''malku'' ("King"), ''abū šamīma'' ("Father of years"), ''El gibbōr'' ("ʼĒl the warrior"). He is also named ''lṭpn'' of unknown meaning, variously rendered as Latpan, Latipan, or Lutpani ("shroud-face" by ''Strong's Hebrew Concordance''). "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. In Canaanite mythology, El builds a desert sanctuary with his children and his two wives, leading to speculation that at one point El was a desert god. The mysterious Ugaritic text ''Shachar and Shalim'' tells how (perhaps near the beginning of all things) ʼĒl came to shores of the sea and saw two women who bobbed up and down. ʼĒl was sexually aroused and took the two with him, killed a

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

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 husband. He then lay with them, and they gave birth to ''Shachar'' ("Dawn") and ''Shalim'' ("Dusk"). Again ʼĒl 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 ʼĒl's chief wife, and the goddess Raḥmayyu ("the one of the womb"), otherwise unknown. In the Ugaritic Ba'al cycle, ʼĒl is introduced dwelling on (or in) Mount Lel (''Lel'' possibly meaning "Night") at the fountains of the two rivers at the spring of the two deeps. He dwells in a tent according to some interpretations of the text which may explain why he had no temple in Ugarit. As to the rivers and the spring of the two deeps, these might refer to real streams, or to the mythological sources of the salt water ocean and the fresh water sources under the earth, or to the waters above the heavens and the waters beneath the earth. In the episode of the "Palace of Ba'al", the god Ba'al Hadad invites the "seventy sons of Athirat" to a feast in his new palace. Presumably these sons have been fathered on Athirat by ʼĒl; in following passages they seem to be the gods (''ilm'') in general or at least a large portion of them. The only sons of ʼĒl named individually in the Ugaritic texts are Yamm ("Sea"), Mot ("Death"), and Ashtar, who may be the chief and leader of most of the sons of ʼĒl. Ba'al Hadad is a few times called ʼĒl's son rather than the son of Dagan as he is normally called, possibly because ʼĒl is in the position of a clan-father to all the gods. The fragmentary text R.S. 24.258 describes a banquet to which ʼĒl invites the other gods and then disgraces himself by becoming outrageously drunk and passing out after confronting an otherwise unknown Hubbay, "he with the horns and tail". The text ends with an incantation for the cure of some disease, possibly

hangover A hangover is the experience of various unpleasant physiological and psychological effects usually following the consumption of alcohol, such as wine, beer, and liquor. Hangovers can last for several hours or for more than 24 hours. Typical sympto ...

Hebrew Bible

The

form ( אל) appears in Latin letters in Standard Hebrew transcription as El and in

Tiberian Hebrew Tiberian Hebrew is the canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) committed to writing by Masoretic scholars living in the Jewish community of Tiberias in ancient Galilee under the Abbasid Caliphate. They wrote in the form of Tiberian ...

transcription as ʾĒl. ''ʼĒl'' is a generic word for ''god'' that could be used for any god, including Hadad, Moloch, or

Yahweh Yahweh *''Yahwe'', was the national god of ancient Israel and Judah. The origins of his worship reach at least to the early Iron Age, and likely to the Late Bronze Age if not somewhat earlier, and in the oldest biblical literature he poss ...

. In the

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' '^elōhîm'' is the normal word for a god or the great God (or gods, given that the 'im' suffix makes a word plural in Hebrew). But the form ''El'' 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: seventy-three times in the

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...

and fifty-five 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'' 'the god' (for example in ). 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, beside whom other gods are supposed to be either nonexistent or insignificant. Whether this was a long-standing belief or a relatively new one has long been the subject of inconclusive scholarly debate about the prehistory of the sources of the Tanakh and about the prehistory of Israelite religion. In the P strand, may be translated:

I revealed myself to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as Ēl Shaddāi, but was not known to them by my name, YHVH.

However, it is said in that Abraham accepted the blessing of El, when Melchizedek, the king of Salem and high priest of its deity El Elyon blessed him. One scholarly position is that the identification of Yahweh with ʼĒl is late, that Yahweh was earlier thought of as only one of many gods, and not normally identified with ʼĒl. Another is that in much of the Hebrew Bible the name El is an alternative name for Yahweh, but in the Elohist and Priestly traditions it is considered an earlier name 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 the Bible Tanakh in the first book of ; and says that at that time, people began to "call upon the name of the LORD". In some places, especially in , Yahweh is clearly envisioned as a

storm god A weather god or goddess, also frequently known as a storm god or goddess, is a deity in mythology associated with weather phenomena such as thunder, snow, lightning, rain, wind, storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Should they only be in charge of ...

, something not true of ʼĒl so far as we know (although true of his son, Ba'al Haddad). It is Yahweh who is prophesied to one day battle

Leviathan Leviathan (; he, לִוְיָתָן, ) is a sea serpent noted in theology and mythology. It is referenced in several books of the Hebrew Bible, including Psalms, the Book of Job, the Book of Isaiah, the Book of Amos, and, according to some ...

the serpent, and slay the dragon in the sea in . The slaying of the serpent in myth is a deed attributed to both Ba'al Hadad and '

Anat Anat (, ), Anatu, classically Anath (; uga, 𐎓𐎐𐎚 ''ʿnt''; he, עֲנָת ''ʿĂnāṯ''; ; el, Αναθ, translit=Anath; Egyptian: '' ꜥntjt'') was a goddess associated with warfare and hunting, best known from the Ugaritic text ...

in the Ugaritic texts, but not to ʼĒl. Such mythological motifs are variously seen as late survivals from a period when Yahweh held a place in theology comparable to that of Hadad at Ugarit; or as late henotheistic/monotheistic applications to Yahweh of deeds more commonly attributed to Hadad; or simply as examples of eclectic application of the same motifs and imagery to various different gods. Similarly, it is argued inconclusively whether Ēl Shaddāi, Ēl 'Ôlām, Ēl 'Elyôn, and so forth, were originally understood as separate divinities.

Albrecht Alt Albrecht Alt (20 September 1883, in Stübach (Franconia) – 24 April 1956, in Leipzig), was a leading Germany, German Protestantism, Protestant theology, theologian. Eldest son of a Lutheran minister, he completed high school in Ansbach and stud ...

presented his theories on the original differences of such gods in ''Der Gott der Väter'' in 1929. But others have argued that from patriarchal times, these different names were in fact generally understood to refer to the same single great god, ʼĒl. This is the position of Frank Moore Cross (1973). What is certain is that the form 'El does appear in Israelite names from every period including the name ''Yiśrā'ēl'' ("Israel"), meaning "El strives". 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. (See .)

The apparent plural form ''Ēlîm'' or ''Ēlim'' "gods" occurs only four times in the Tanakh. Psalm 29, understood as an enthronement psalm, begins:

Psalm 89 Psalm 89 is the 89th psalm in the biblical Book of Psalms, part of the Hebrew Bible, described as a maschil Charles H. SpurgeonPsalm 89 in "Treasury of David" or "contemplation". In the slightly different numbering system used in the Greek Septua ...

:6 (verse 7 in Hebrew) has: Traditionally ''b^ênê 'ēlîm'' has been interpreted as 'sons of the mighty', 'mighty ones', for ''El'' can mean 'mighty', though such use may be metaphorical (compare the English expression '' yGod awful''). It is possible also that the expression ''ēlîm'' in both places descends from an archaic stock phrase in which ''lm'' was a singular form with the ''m''-enclitic and therefore to be translated as 'sons of ʼĒl'. The ''m''-enclitic appears elsewhere in the Tanakh and in other Semitic languages. Its meaning is unknown, possibly simply emphasis. It appears in similar contexts in Ugaritic texts where the expression ''bn 'il'' alternates with ''bn 'ilm'', but both must mean 'sons of ʼĒl'. That phrase with ''m''-enclitic also appears in Phoenician inscriptions as late as the fifth century BCE. One of the other two occurrences in the Tanakh is in the " Song of Moses", :

Who is like you among the Gods (''ēlim''), Yahweh?

The final occurrence is in :

And the king will do according to his pleasure; and he will exalt himself and magnify himself over every god (''ēl''), and against the God of Gods (''El 'Elîm'') he will speak outrageous things, and will prosper until the indignation is accomplished: for that which is decided will be done.

There are a few cases in the Tanakh where some think ''El'' referring to the great god ʼĒl is not equated with Yahweh. One is in , in the taunt against a man who claims to be divine, in this instance, the leader of Tyre:

Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre: "Thus says the Lord Yahweh: 'Because your heart is proud and you have said: "I am ''ēl'' (god), in the seat of ''^elōhîm'' (''gods''), I am enthroned in the middle of the seas." Yet you are man and not ''El'' even though you have made your heart like the heart of ''^elōhîm'' ('gods').

Here ''ēl'' might refer to a generic god, or to a highest god, ʼĒl. When viewed as applying to the King of Tyre specifically, the king was probably not thinking of Yahweh. When viewed as a general taunt against anyone making divine claims, it may or may not refer to Yahweh depending on the context. In we find ''Ēl B^êrît'' 'God of the Covenant', seemingly the same as the ''Ba'al B^êrît'' 'Lord of the Covenant' whose worship has been condemned a few verses earlier. See Baal for a discussion of this passage. says: This could mean that Yahweh judges along with many other gods as one of the council of the high god ʼĒl. However it can also mean that Yahweh stands in the Divine Council (generally known as the Council of ʼĒl), as ʼĒl judging among the other members of the council. The following verses in which the god condemns those whom he says were previously named ''gods'' (''Elohim'') and ''sons of the Most High'' suggest the god here is in fact ʼĒl judging the lesser gods. An archaic phrase appears in , ''kôkk^êbê 'ēl'' 'stars of God', referring to the circumpolar stars that never set, possibly especially to the seven stars of Ursa Major. The phrase also occurs in the Pyrgi Inscription as ''hkkbm 'l'' (preceded by the definite article ''h'' and followed by the ''m''-enclitic). Two other apparent fossilized expressions are ''arzê-'ēl'' 'cedars of God' (generally translated something like 'mighty cedars', 'goodly cedars') in (in Hebrew verse 11) and ''k^êharrê-'ēl'' 'mountains of God' (generally translated something like 'great mountains', 'mighty mountains') in (in Hebrew verse 6). For the reference in some texts of to seventy sons of God corresponding to the seventy sons of ʼĒl in the Ugaritic texts, see `Elyôn.

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. ʼĒl (rendered ''Elus'' or called by his standard

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

counterpart Cronus) is not the creator god or first god. ʼĒl is rather the son of Sky (

Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus ( Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars), grandfather of Zeus (Jupiter) and father of ...

) and Earth ( Ge). Sky and Earth are themselves children of 'Elyôn 'Most High'. ʼĒl is brother to the God Bethel, to Dagon and to an unknown god, equated with the Greek

Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geograp ...

and to the goddesses

Aphrodite Aphrodite ( ; grc-gre, Ἀφροδίτη, Aphrodítē; , , ) is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, and procreation. She was syncretized with the Roman goddess . Aphrodite's major symbols inclu ...

/ 'Ashtart, Rhea (presumably

), and Dione (equated with Ba'alat Gebal). ʼĒl is the father of Persephone and of

Athena Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretism, syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded ...

(presumably the goddess '

). 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), ʼĒl 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 ʼĒl castrated Sky. One of Sky's concubines (who was given to ʼĒl'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 ʼĒl. ʼĒl 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 Byblos ( ; gr, Βύβλος), also known as Jbeil or Jubayl ( ar, جُبَيْل, Jubayl, locally ; phn, 𐤂𐤁𐤋, , probably ), is a city in the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate of Lebanon. It is believed to have been first occupied between 8 ...

, a city which Sanchuniathon says that ʼĒl 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 ʼĒl slew his own son Sadidus (a name that some commentators think might be a corruption of ''Shaddai'', one of the epithets of the Biblical ʼĒl) and that ʼĒl also beheaded one of his daughters. Later, perhaps referring to this same death of Sadidus we are told: A fuller account of the sacrifice appears later: The account also relates that Thoth: This is the form under which ʼĒl/Cronus appears on coins from Byblos from the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–164 BCE) four spread wings and two folded wings, leaning on a staff. Such images continued to appear on coins until after the time of

Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...

Poseidon

A bilingual inscription from

Palmyra Palmyra (; Palmyrene: () ''Tadmor''; ar, تَدْمُر ''Tadmur'') is an ancient city in present-day Homs Governorate, Syria. Archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first mention the city in the early secon ...

dated to the 1st century equates ''ʼĒl-Creator-of-the-Earth'' with the

god

. Going back to the 8th century BCE, the bilingual inscription at

Karatepe Karatepe ( Turkish, 'Black Hill'; Hittite: ''Azatiwataya'') is a late Hittite fortress and open-air museum in Osmaniye Province in southern Turkey lying at a distance of about 23 km from the district center of Kadirli. It is sited in the ...

in the Taurus Mountains equates ''ʼĒl-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 ʼĒl 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 Eshmun (or Eshmoun, less accurately Esmun or Esmoun; phn, 𐤀𐤔𐤌𐤍 '; akk, 𒅀𒋢𒈬𒉡 ''Yasumunu'') was a Phoenician god of healing and the tutelary god of Sidon. History This god was known at least from the Iron Age period at ...

. Also at Delos, that association of Tyrians, though mostly devoted to

Heracles Heracles ( ; grc-gre, Ἡρακλῆς, , glory/fame of Hera), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptiv ...

- 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 Aphrodite Urania ( grc, Ἀφροδίτη Οὐρανία, Aphrodítē Ouranía) was an epithet of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, signifying "heavenly" or "spiritual", to distinguish her from her more earthly aspect of Aphrodite Pandemos, "Aphrod ...

('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 ʼĒl in a euhemeristic account. Identification of an aspect of ʼĒl 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 ʼĒl who dwells at the source of the two deeps in Ugaritic texts. More information is needed to be certain.

Footnotes

References

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External links

Bartleby: American Heritage Dictionary: Semitic Roots: ʾl

Pronunciation (audio) of El
{{DEFAULTSORT:El (Deity) Baal Creator gods Deities in the Hebrew Bible God Hebrew words and phrases in the Hebrew Bible Levantine mythology Names of God in Christianity Names of God in Judaism Phoenician mythology Sky and weather gods Ugaritic deities West Semitic gods Cattle in religion