Artifacts: The Canaanite God El

 

Limestone Figure of El from Ras Sharna (National Museum, Latakia)

The Canaanites had originally worshipped the collective heavens, whom they called Elohim (i.e. "Mighty Ones"), but they came to conceive of a single being, whom they referred to as El (i.e. "Mighty One"): an embodiment of Time, by whom all things are engendered and governed and sustained. The Canaanites envisioned El as having long white and beard, clothed in shinning white, and seated on a throne. Nothing could gaze directly at him.

El was said to dwell in the tent of the heavens, surrounded by a vast host of flaming chariots (i.e. the stars); and he was said to sometimes also frequent the mountains of Aratta in the Land of Eden "between the two seas" (i.e. the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea) in the northwest corner of present day Iran.

El (Time) brought forth the World from between Ashtaroth > Anat (Heavens) and Athirat > Ashera (Depths). Ashtaroth and Athirat bore him Shalim (Dawn) and Shahar (Dusk) respectively, such that there was light but no sun (Shapash), moon (Yarikh) or stars. Ashtaroth subsequently bore Ba'al (Sky, lord of mountains & storms); and Athirat bore Yam (Sea, lord where no human dwells), Mot (Earth, lord of the underworld), and the seventy sons of El, who rule over the seventy nations.

The above conception of the cosmos underlies many passages of scripture, which demythologize Canaanite religion by presenting elements of heaven and earth as purely material domains and objects created by God. Scripture in other cases demythologizes Canaanite religion by coopting mythological imagery for use as poetic metaphor.