El (deity)

El is a Northwest Semitic 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 the Old Akkadian and Amorite languages. The word is derived from the Proto-Semitic *ʔil-.

Originally a Canaanite deity known as ''El'', ''Al'' or ''Il'' the supreme god of the ancient Canaanite religion and the supreme god of East Semitic speakers in Early Dynastic Period of Mesopotamia. Among the Hittites, El was known as Elkunirša ( ).

Although El gained different appearances and meanings in different languages over time, it continues to exist as ''El-'', ''-il'' or ''-el'' in compound proper noun phrases such as Elizabeth, Ishmael, Israel, Samuel, Daniel, Michael, Gabriel (Arabic: Jibra'il), and Bethel.

Linguistic forms and meanings

Cognate forms of El are found throughout the Semitic languages. They include Ugaritic , pl. ; Phoenician pl. ; Hebrew , pl. ; Aramaic ; Akkadian , pl. .

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.

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

The Semitic root ''ʾlh'' (Arabic ', Aramaic , , Hebrew ) 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, according to the documentary hypothesis, 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. These sources were joined together at various points in time by a series of editors or "redactors". 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 Aramaic 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 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.

Proto-Sinaitic, Phoenician, Aramaic, and Hittite texts

The Egyptian god Ptah is given the title 'Lord of Gath' in a prism from Tel Lachish which has on its opposite face the name of Amenhotep II (). The title 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 lead 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: ) 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 , 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 and , 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 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, 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 , 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). Though 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'),Cassuto, Umberto.
The Goddess Anath: Canaanite Epics on the Patriarchal Age
'. Bialik Institute, 1951, pp. 42–44 (in Hebrew) ''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 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 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').

In the Ugaritic Ba'al Cycle, El is introduced having an assembly of gods on Mount Lel (Lel possibly meaning "Night"), and dwelling on (or in) 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. A few miles from the swamp from which the Litani (the classical Leontes) and the Asi (the upper Orontes) flow, Baalbek may be the same as the ('Source of the Two Rivers'), the abode of El in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle discovered in the 1920s and a separate serpent incantation.

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 El; in following passages they seem to be the gods (''ʾilm'') in general or at least a large portion of them. The only sons of El 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 El. Ba'al Hadad is a few times called El's son rather than the son of Dagan as he is normally called, possibly because El is in the position of a clan-father to all the gods.

The fragmentary text R.S. 24.258 describes a Marzēaḥ banquet to which El 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 for a hangover.

El's characterization in Ugarit texts is not always favorable. His authority is unquestioned, but sometimes exacted through threat or roundly mocked. He is "both comical and pathetic" in a "role of impotence". But this is arguably a misinterpretation since El had complementary relationships with other deities. Any "differences" they had pertained to function. For example, El and Baal were divine kings but El was the executive whilst Baal was the sustainer of the cosmos.

Hebrew Bible

One scholarly position is that the identification of Yahweh with El is a later interpretation. Earlier Yahweh was thought of as one of many gods, separate from El. Theological interpretations of the Hebrew Bible consider El as an alternative name for Yahweh. This is in contrast to the Elohist and Priestly traditions in which El is considered to be 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 , while says that at that time, people began to "call upon the name of the ". El's title of " El Shaddai", which envisions him as the "god of the steppe", may also derive from the cultural beliefs of Upper Mesopotamian (i.e. Amurru) immigrants, who were ancestors of the Israelites.

In Deuteronomy 32, as preserved in the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Yahweh was described as a son of El.
In Abraham accepted the blessing of El, when Melchizedek, the king of Salem and high priest of its deity El Elyon 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. (See .)

In some instances, such as in , Yahweh is envisioned as a storm god, something not true for El. It is Yahweh who is prophesied to one day battle Leviathan 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 in the Ugaritic texts, but not to El.

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 and 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 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 generally understood to refer to the same single great god, El. 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 ("Israel"), meaning 'El strives'. There are verses where El and Yahweh are unambiguously conflated () but some scholars believe this is an attempt to portray El as a warrior god, as Israelite society grew and evolved into a nation-state.

Jewish interpretation

The Hebrew form appears in Latin letters in Standard Hebrew transcription as El and in Tiberian Hebrew transcription as ʾĒl. is a generic word for ''god'' that could be used for any god, including Hadad, Moloch, or Yahweh.

In the Tanakh

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