Israel's many gods: Judaism, Christianity

The original gods of Israel (El, Baal, Yahweh, Goddess Asherah)

(Stephan's History of the World) Nov. 18, 2024: This is a lecture on a chapter of the author's book, In Search of the Sublime, a world history of humanity's relentless pursuit of scientific truth, moral excellence, and enlightenment. Read the book for FREE at worldhistorybook.com or buy it on Amazon: amazon.com/Search-Sublime...

-Stephan P. Dinkgreve, MSc Theoretical Physics Amsterdam

SOURCES

• R. Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution, Harvard University Press, 2011.
• R. Hendel, The Book of Genesis. Composition, Reception, and Interpretation, Brill, 2012.
• R. Hendel, The Book of Genesis; A biography, Princeton University Press, 2013.
• M. Smith, The Early History of God. Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel, Eerdmans Publishing, 2002

Correction:

01:55 Some have noted that Yahweh was not part of the Canaanite Pantheon, which is to say, he is not mentioned in the Ugaritic text. I meant that in Israel, as we shall see, he was related to this pantheon, but this can be confusing.

03:05 The Bible itself explains "Israel" as "struggle with God," which seems to be folk etymology. Genesis is full of them. Here, the meaning of words was guessed at the time long after the original meaning was forgotten. "El rules" seems linguistically more sensible.

07:38 The Hebrew version of the Bible states “the children of Israel” instead of "the divine sons." The "the divine sons" is part of the Greek translation of the Bible and also from a fragment from Qumran, making scholars believe that “the children of Israel" was a later alteration, to avoid the complications described on this slide.

Corrections

1:55 Some have noted that Yahweh was not part of the Canaanite Pantheon, as in, he is not mentioned in the Ugaritic text. I meant that in Israel, as we shall see, he was related to this pantheon, but this can be confusing.