Thanks for your maturity. The only reason I pressed on this is because it is so common in our field for people to confuse correlation with causation. Just because El and Baal had a “father-son” relationship, doesn’t automagically mean that El and Yahweh ever did too. I challenge the assertion because the evidence, as I see it, describes exactly what you wrote above (which is pretty good) minus the part about El ever being Yahweh’s father. And your note that we just don’t have the evidence to support the assertion is precisely why I’m insistent that people put this notion on hold; which is why I’m okay with it as a theological exegesis, but not by other exegetical means. I know “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” but I also think that silence can speak quite loudly when the claim that is made is beyond the norm, extraordinary, unseemly, unnatural, etc. I’m not suggesting that the “father-son” thing is unseemly or extraordinary, I’m just thinking that at this time, without concrete proof, it is an illegitimate relationship assignment to **CONCLUDE** definitively that Yahweh was identified as El’s son. People get touchy with this, so when I’m doing my work I tend to be very careful not to give people the wrong idea.

I don’t have any alternatives, I just think it would be wiser to “hit the brakes” a bit earlier until there is more inscriptional evidence. If your paper didn’t toss around original sources and historical-critical methodology, the assignment of Yahweh as El’s sign might go unnoticed. But the sentence or two where this was mentioned (albeit in passing), stood out to me, and as I said before, left me wanting.

Moreover, I actually think it strengthens your paper to leave out the “father-son” notion. You site differences with Yahweh and El (viz. Yahweh’s jealousy, his not temper, etc.), and this could be one of those distinguishing characteristics – that for now, there isn’t any direct indication that Yahweh was ever said to be El’s son, but that it is believed by some.

Pretty good though. I never posted a term paper here because it would have just gone over most people’s heads. Thanks for taking that chance. I’m interested to see how you fit all this into Mormonism. In my opinion, a square peg can fit a round hole, but you need a very narrow peg and a lot of putty…

I drawn the conclusion that YHWH was once El’s son from several interconnected arguments and lines of evidence. First, El, the god of the Canaanite pantheon, was originally the chief deity of ancient Israel, as argued in the post above. Second, YHWH was originally a separate deity from El, again as discussed in the post above, and YHWH would later merge with El and come to absorb (and reject) a number of features from the profile of El. Third, there appears to be archaeological evidence for the worship of El alongside YHWH and other deities even into the Iron Age according to Smith, Dever, and others. I, therefore, understand YHWH as having once been separate and subordinate to El, from whom he received his national inheritance (as Deut. 32.8-9, in my reading, suggests). Other texts, as discussed in the next post, refer to other passages that additionally suggest that El and YHWH were once separate deities, and that YHWH was at first the patron deity of Israel, and other nations had their own gods (and on this topic Deut. 32.8-9 proves to be linked with the same types of traditions associated with El and his divine sons at Ugarit). I believe that it makes sense to understand YHWH’s relationship to El in the earliest periods in a(n somewhat) analogous way to that of Baal and El in the Ugaritic texts. YHWH, like Baal as son of Dagan, appears to be a foreigner to the original Canaanite pantheon perhaps, nevertheless, I believe it is a reasonable conclusion to see them as sons of El. Of course, I don’t view this as a conclusion that can ultimately be proved. This is historical inquiry, and it is by nature selective and partial. Moreover, we just don’t have the same kind(s) of texts giving direct insight into earliest Israelite religions as we do with the Ugaritic corpus at ancient Ugarit. Nevertheless, given the evidence I present here and in the following posts, I feel my statement above that YHWH was once El’s son is a reasonable (and correct) conclusion. Do you have any alternatives, given the evidence I discussed, that I might entertain?

Best,

TYD

Does my question make sense?

I rely on KTU; I am familiar with the signs but I don’t refer back to them frequently. Where did you study Ugaritic?

As for YHWH being a son of El, I was referring to the earlier periods of Israelite history and religions, when YHWH received a national inheritance along with the other gods (Deut. 32.8-9). In this I am in agreement with Mark Smith and others that YHWH was originally the patron deity of Israel only, and, as this post argues, was separate from El, his father, with whom he later merged and diverged in various ways.

Best,

TYD

What proof-text or evidence do you provide for aligning Yahweh as El’s son? Am I missing something?

Did you take inscriptional Ugaritic or transliterated? My Ugaritic professor wouldn’t go into the former with us – he said it was too cankerous. Although he did throw out a few signs here and there when he felt necessary.

Best,

TYD