Canaanite Pantheon Puns

Did one influence the other, or did they just share coincidentally similar names? Is there even proof that the storm-war god and national god of Iron age Israel was called "Yahweh"? I've been doing a lot of research into the history of Judaism and the secular arguments of it's supposedly pagan roots, and I'm curious as to how the "conclusion" that God the Father evolved from some member of a Canaanite pantheon was drawn up.

Can anyone explain to me who Yahweh is in the Canaanite Pantheon? I’ve heard that he is related in some way to El and Baal.. Kinda wanted to see what you guys think or if there’s anything I can read that you guys can direct me to.

Anybody round these parts worship Caananite deities? 👀 I’ve been worshipping Ba’al based on His Canaanite origins and His demonic aspects for a year now. and I’ve grown interested in Dagon and Astoreth recently 👉👈

https://www.haaretz.com/amp/archaeology/.premium-first-evidence-of-life-sized-divine-statues-found-in-lachish-1.8930283

Previous finding of this god were much further to the north in a city called Ugarit, these new findings is at Lachish a city the Jews claimed was their second biggest city after Jerusalem.

This is a topic that really fascinates me and I'm interested to get especially the views of practitioners on this. Aside from the polemical aspect of the OT, how do the relations between these deities differ?

In some sense it seems that the OT repurposes many of the names and terminology but also sometimes actually references different aspects of the Canaanite narratives. On the other end though a lot of the terms and names reused seems to be more generic terms applied to deities (such as "Baal" which means Lord, or "El" which means god).

I think about this sometimes. Canaanite polytheism and Christianity work surprisingly well together tbh.

It's been a while since I've looked into the evidence for it, so maybe things have changed since the first time, but around the time that people were trying to edit Wikipedia to make it so that Yahweh was an ancient Canaanite deity, the only evidence I found for this claim was a single piece of Canaanite text that said either "yh" or "ym".

Personally, I think that non-Christians have latched onto this theory, not because of its impressive body of evidence, but rather because of the effect of its possible truth. Is it more plausible than any Christian claim, not due to the nature of the claim, but due to the evidence provided?

I've interested in grounding myself into a form of polytheism centered around the mystery and aesthetic of a middle eastern culture. So far I have learned a few things about egyptian and mesopatamian cultures. I like mesopatamia more than egypt, but something tells me that the Mesopatamian polytheistic structure involves entities which may be more hostile to the modern practitioner, since early mesopatamian culture is essentially a post-nomadic primeval step into the first civilization as we know it. Generally I want to keep things simplified to the structure of the zodiac and 7 planets but I know for example this might not work well in the context of a given cultural paradigm so I'm willing to accomodate.

I've adapted a few egyptian symbols onto my altar, most notably the Ankh as a general symbol of life, protection and good energies, and also noticed a vibration of power that comes from just drawing the ankh or eye of horus on my skin with a pen. But researching Egyptian magick has lead to some difficulty in establishing just how I want to go about it and so far the best lead is to read the myths and assimilate deific masks and practices from the Egyptian Book of the Dead into living homebrew rituals. I'm familiar with the use of deific masks through the controversial work of Michael Ford and while I haven't heard much in terms of results from the interwebs from users utilizing his work, I feel that his (honestly thick and well researched but poorly edited tomes) sources can be used to personalize a ritual structure geared to middle eastern occultism.

I'm not so much interested in high magick, but solar-based 'higher self' type rituals (I resonate towards war and son gods, have a need for jupiterian and venusian energies too) as I am interested in low magick type setups using simple rituals to achieve material results. I especially feel a need to contact Ishtar, but I feel as though the goddesses seem to hate me which leads me to more masculine gods such as Nergal, Mithras and Amon-Ra. In particular I have no desire to invite chaos and negative influence in my life due to things already being hectic as is and want to contact forces that have little chance of backfiring.

In particular I'm interested in the culture that other practitioners (you, the redditor) have deemed as easily accessible- where invoking the forces of that particular paradigm comes easy and the entities in question seem to open themselves up readily, rather than devoting mont

Here's the ancient Canaanite religion and Yahweh.

Aside from that, are there any academic/scholarly sources that accept Mosaic authorship and make a case for it?

If you have a good answer, what is some evidence you could point me to?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh

#Premise

Many bible scholars today think that the bible slowly developed out of canaanite Paganism and only later after the destruction of the 1st temple and persian Zoroastrian influence did it become more Monotheistic and was not the revolutionary monotheistic text from the start as many Christians and Jews claim it to be.

If this were to be true, it would mean that the bible slowly developed by influence from other cultures, and the books in it were products of there own Time, this would then further prove that biblical religion was not inspired by God, since if it was , it would remain consistently polytheistic or Monotheistic all the way through, and this is not the pattern we see.

While we could use Sources other than the bible to see the development of biblical religion, the best source is the bible itself. Here are a few examples of polytheism in the bible, including a council of gods, a high God that is distinct from Yahweh, the Egyptian gods existing, and , the biggest of all, Chemosh

#The Egyptian pantheon, a council of gods and the high God.

The God of the bible Threatens to bring judgement upon The gods of egypt, which confirms there existence

Exodus 12:12

For I will pass through the land of Egypt on this night and strike every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from man to beast; and I will execute judgment on all the gods of Egypt I am the LORD

The high God and Yahweh are different gods, Yahweh was assigned the nation of Israel by the high God

Deutoronomy 32:8-9

When El Elyon (literelly "High God") gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind,(Y) he set up boundaries(Z) for the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. 9 For Yahweh's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance.

These verses are perhaps the reason that the bible, tho recognizing the existence and power of other gods, encourages Israel to only worship Yahweh, since he is the lord of that nation specifically, as Decided By el Elyon

But yahweh and Elyon Aren't the only 2 gods ,oh no, there is a whole Council of gods. As we read -

Genesis 3:22

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever

**A lot of peaple are confused by this verse, mostly because a lot of peaple will come across it because of how early on it is in the bible. who is "Us" suppose

https://archive.is/lNfDX

Several users get into an argument over how Judaism as a religion is invalid:

>Don't except me to believe your pagan idol is God. Early Judaism was poly and Yahweh wasn't even supreme in the early Jewish pantheon. Yahweh repenting (Exodus 32:14) is proof that Yahweh is just a pagan idol from Canaanite pantheon. If Yahweh is supreme why did he repent? what is the difference between Yahweh and Odin? someone else (it was called "El" if I'm correct) was supreme in the early Jewish pantheon, not Yahweh. Jews simply cherry picked the pagan idol they liked the most and started worshipping it.Deuteronomy 10:17 (NKJV): 17 For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe.See? early Judaism was poly. It was a little after early Judaism when it became monolatristic and then henotheistic, and it remains henotheistic to this day. First they worshipped a golden calf, then they started worshipping a pagan idol from the Canaanite pantheon.And no, God created Abraham, Isaac, Jacob etc not Yahweh. Pagan idols such as Yahweh are just, pagan idols. Pagan idols can't create. (+13)

To which another responds:

>Smoked him! Good shit (+1)

We also have a user claiming that the Quran speaks about Zionists. I guess they didn't get the memo to keep the Zionists = Jews as a dogwhistle (plus the issue that they are referencing a Hadith, not the Quran):

>The main battle will be the world against zionists, its mentioned in the Holy Quran. Zionists will hide behind trees 🌲 (+12)

Our friend from the first rant returns to further conflate their weird ideas about Judaism as a religion with a bizarre claim about Israel as a country:

>Why would someone buy a product made by someone who chants Hebrew mantras at pagan temples? Israel is stuck in bronze age mythology, the reason it improved was because USA gave them all of the weapons Israel has and helped them build new ones (+2)

I'm not going to give a full overview of the long argument between someone denouncing the rampant antisemitism of r_IsraelExposed and u_NotoriousAkber's defense of the antisemitism, but I will give some of Akber's highlights (without karma counts because these are partial quotes):

>zionists colonizers acting and behaving worse than nazis towards jews and non jews alike.

>Its not anti semetic to go against genocidal racist suprematists that call the

I’m trying to homebrew an alternate universe America for DND, more specifically in the Wild West era/location. I feel as though in every dusty western town there’s a Christian church, so I was wondering what you all thought, assuming they would also exist in the DND pantheon, the Christian God would be the God of?

Of course I could roll with just the normal DND gods but I have an idea for a plot line that includes “God” as sort of an upstart deity.

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

First Evidence: Part of a forgotten pantheon

Yahweh, the god of the bible, worship has been dated back to the bronze era, it was part of polytheistic worship, of which 99% of the gods and goddesses which were worshipped along side him has faded away. Yahweh being part/heading of now what is seen as a pantheon false gods, who not only referenced them but even acknowledged their existence which is evident in scripture. If yahweh is real, then all the rest of gods are as well and the inverse would be correct as well due to his heavy association with them.

Second Evidence: favoritism

The god of the bible is blatant with his favoritism, favoritism that lines up perfectly with the main people who worshipped him and created him.

Third Evidence: His evolution

The god of the bible did not start off as a high god or even a monotheistic one, there is very strong physical evidence of him even having a wife, he started off as a storm and warrior god which then got conflated with the Canaanite high god El, becoming depicted as a high god, but still for the isrealites, he then changed again as soceity changed, from a war commanding deity to one of peace, now in modern times he is now depicted an omni being that exists outside of time and space, from a god that required blood sacrifices to a being outside of time and space.

Fourth Evidence: Acts very human

Nothing about the god of the bible shows an all knowing all powerful being, from petty jealousy, commanding needles bloodshed, being homophobic, sexists, having regrets, making mistakes, getting angry, to failing and even having a wife, being a clear product of the time he was created, mirroring the culture and people of that time.

All of this evidence is sufficient to conclude that Yahweh, the god of the bible, is just another man made deity like Asherah or Baal.

I have been doing research into the ancient Canaanite pantheon, such as the Ba'al Cycle and the Sea Myth in an attempt to discover what ways it ties with the Jewish God of the Bible and the ways it does not. My question is this; what is the earliest inscription discovered that makes mention the Canaanite gods?

Claim: The Kingdom of Phoenicia

Claim type: State

Economy: Opt-in

Population: Opt-in

Technology level: Iron

Key Technology: Wheel, Horse Domestication, Writing

Map: https://imgur.com/a/dn6AMKF

After the Collapse of the bronze age civilisations, new peoples rose to fill the power vacuum in the near east. The Phoenicians were great traders and seafarers, and soon spread throughout much of the near east and further into the Mediterranean. They set up trading outposts, of which some grew into great cities over time.

The greatest of these cities was Byblos; Whose ruling dynasty, The House of Baltazar, would go on to conquer and extract tribute from many of the other cities in modern day Lebanon. Now, in 1000 BCE, from his seat in the grand city of Byblos, King Zephron I of The House of Baltazar oversees the cities of Tyre and Tripoli on the mainland, as well as the smaller trading port of Kiton on the isle of Cyprus.

These cities are ruled with help from advisory panels composed of representatives from local merchant families, who keep the Kingdom of Phoenicia focused on trade throughout the Mediterranean.

The people of Phoenicia worship the Canaanite pantheon, with the ruling gods being El, the god of creation and his wife Asherah, the mother goddess. Many other gods are present within the pantheon and a policy of religious syncretism means that the Phoenician religion is friendly to those with differing beliefs, believing those other gods to be either different faces of their own, or in some cases be adopted into the Canaanite pantheon.

I just checked Reddit a few days after I made the post and saw that it had been removed. I don’t know exactly why, but I saw some snippets of some comments on it and would like to clarify some things. The thing about the goddess and the apple IS NOT just from Assassins Creed, it’s no more from assassins creed than Thor is from Marvel, it is an actual piece of Canaanite/ Phoenician mythology. In fact Assassins Creed isn’t the only piece of pop culture to use that myth, so did the History Channel’s ancient aliens. Both of them have strange spins to them where the Phoenician deities aren’t actually deities for some reason. Idk why, maybe seeing a polytheistic version of th Judeo-Christian genesis myth is a mindfuck. (Canaanites/ Phonecians had common origins with the Jews and their languages are mutually intelligible)My comparison of the All-father to Eve was an allegory and not literal anyway. The only literal equating I did was of the all-fathers of the Irish and Germanic pantheons and Brigid with Easter/Ostara (which isn’t just me, they are widely considered by scholars to both be versions of the Indo-European dawn goddess. I would also like to say that though the All-father is my primary deity, he is not my only deity and I do not think he is everything. I said he was the son of Danu, who is the Celtic primordial goddess, which is part of Irish mythology. In making the post I simply meant to share how comparing the All-father to similar deities paints a picture in my head and makes Christmas traditions make more sense (which it’s widely accepted that the meaning behind many of the pagan Yule traditions have been lost due to Christianity. I also drew from the Vendanta school of Hinduism which has common Indo-European roots with Celtic polytheism. Syncretism is nothing new to polytheism (think about the Greek and Egyptian deities during the Hellenistic period of Egypt or the Romans equating Germanic deities with their own). Would someone please respectfully let me know why my syncretic post was grounds for removal/ censorship?

During Covid-19 I took a long critical look at myself and my beliefs. I guess you call that "shadow work." I had a full-on wake up experience and uprooted some of my deeply entrenched beliefs.

In my deconstruction of Christianity I did a ton of research - something I couldn't do as a JW - and I ended up coming across a really powerful nugget of truth that I had to share with you all.

Did you know that in most Bible translations, NWT included, Deuteronomy 32:8 is censored?

This is how the NWT reads:

>When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, When he divided the sons of Adam from one another, He fixed the boundary of the peoples With regard for the number of the sons of Israel. For Jehovah’s people are his portion; Jacob is his inheritance.

Now look at how the scripture reads from the findings in the Dead Sea Scrolls:

>When Elyon gave the nations as an inheritance, when he separated the sons of man, he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. For Yahweh's portion was his people; Jacob was the lot of his inheritance.

See the difference? Sons of God becomes Sons of Adam and Sons of Israel.

When you think about it the "modern" translation doesn't make any sense, because even if this refers to the division of the earth post Noah's flood ... the nation of Israel did not exist. In fact, Israel was not considered part of the 'table of nations.'

Here's another glaring issue. The original scripture in the Dead Sea Scrolls indicates that Elyon (which translates to most high God) was the father of Yahweh/Jehovah.

Yahweh was not the most high God of the world but just the God of the nation of Jacob/Israel. Yahweh is indicated to be a lesser God that exists amongst a group of other Gods (Elohim) that have been given the world by Elyon. Consider how God is speaking amongst a group in Genesis 3:22. This is why Yahweh/Jehovah was only concerned about the wellbeing of the nation of Israel - he is just a national God of Jacob.

The Ugaritic Texts - which existed before the Bible was ever penned - tell us about the Canaanite pantheon. Their theology is remarkably similar to ancient Israel, because they also believed in a single most high God - El Elyon. Israel too originally called their God El Elyon (Where do you think "el" in Isra-el, Ezki-el, and Beth-el came from?).

What's interesting about the Canaanite beliefs is that they believed El had a wife/consort Asherah and they had 70 sons. Did you

For this discussion, let's assume that the Torah's history is a mostly accurate representation of the progression of the Israelites' belief system, unless you have a compelling reason to think otherwise, in which case I'd be interested in an explanation.

From my understanding of the progression:

• The God(s) of Adam and Noah had no concept of afterlife, and intentionally limited the human lifespan-- both barring the tree of life and limiting human life to 120 years thereafter.
• The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (El) also had no concept of afterlife-- there were many discussions where it would have been relevant, but El was interestingly silent on the topic
• The God of Moses (YHWH) was also intriguingly silent on the topic. While the term "salvation" is often misinterpreted to refer to purification of sins for purpose of the afterlife, Hebrew scholars are very certain that it only referred to the salvation of the Israelite nation from their geopolitical misfortunes here on Earth

So my questions are:

• When did the concept of afterlife begin in Judaism?
• Did most Jews have a concept of the afterlife at the time of Jesus?
• Did many/most early Christian sects have a concept of afterlife?
• Did most Christians and Jews have a concept of afterlife by the time of Muhammed?

And bonus question-- how do afterlife believers in these traditions reconcile the Torah's complete silence on the topic? One would imagine that it would be very important information to know, so God's disinterest in talking about it seems to imply that he had no plans for any human afterlife.

Not really looking for debate, just honest, factual answers to the questions. Thanks!

Did one influence the other, or did they just share coincidentally similar names? Is there even proof that the storm-war god and national god of Iron age Israel was called "Yahweh"? I've been doing a lot of research into the history of Judaism and the secular arguments of it's supposedly pagan roots, and I'm curious as to how the "conclusion" that God the Father evolved from some member of a Canaanite pantheon was drawn up.

Can anyone explain to me who Yahweh is in the Canaanite Pantheon? I’ve heard that he is related in some way to El and Baal.. Kinda wanted to see what you guys think or if there’s anything I can read that you guys can direct me to.