Editing El (deity) (section)

== Ugarit and the Levant ==
For the [[Canaanites]] and the ancient [[Levant]]ine region as a whole, ʼĒl or ʼIl was the supreme god, the father of mankind and all creatures.{{sfn|Kugel|2007|p=423}} He also fathered many gods, most importantly [[Baal]], [[Yam (god)|Yam]], and [[Mot (Semitic god)|Mot]], each sharing similar attributes to the Greco-Roman gods: [[Zeus]], [[Poseidon]], and [[Hades]] respectively.

As recorded on the [[clay tablet]]s of [[Ugarit]], El is the husband of the goddess [[Asherah]].

Three pantheon lists found at [[Ugarit]] (modern {{tlit|apc|Ras Shamrā}}{{snd}}{{langx|ar|رأس شمرا|rtl=yes}}, [[Syria]]) begin with the four gods ''[[Ilib|ʾil-ʾib]]'' (which according to Cross;{{sfn|Cross|1973|p=14}} is the name of a generic kind of deity, perhaps the divine ancestor of the people), El, Dagnu (that is [[Dagon]]), and [[Baal Saphon|Ba'l Ṣapān]] (that is the god Haddu or [[Hadad]]).{{sfn|Cross|1973|p=14}} 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').<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Cross |first=Frank Moore |date=1962 |title=Yahweh and the God of the Patriarchs |journal=The Harvard Theological Review |volume=55 |issue=4 |pages=225–259 |doi=10.1017/S0017816000007914 |jstor=1508722}}</ref> He is ''bny bnwt'' ('Creator of creatures'),<ref name=":0">Cassuto, Umberto. ''[https://benyehuda.org/read/31020 The Goddess Anath: Canaanite Epics on the Patriarchal Age]''. Bialik Institute, 1951, pp. 42–44 (in Hebrew)</ref> ''{{`}}abū banī 'ili'' ('father of the gods'),<ref name=":3">{{harvnb|Cross|1962|pp=225–259}}</ref> and ''ʾab ʾadm'' ('father of man').<ref name=":0" /> The appellations of "eternal", "creator" and "eternal" or "ancient creator" are "characteristic designations of 'El in Canaanite myths and liturgies".<ref name=":2" /> He is ''ḥātikuka'' ('your patriarch'). El is the grey-bearded ancient one, full of wisdom, ''malku'' ('King'), ''ʾab šnm'' ('Father of years'),<ref name=":0" /> ''ʾEl gibbōr'' ('El the warrior').<ref name=":3" /> He is also called ''lṭpn ʾil d pʾid'' ('the Gracious One, the Benevolent God') and ''lṭpn wqdš'' ('the Gracious and Holy One').<ref name=":1" />

"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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Caquot |first1=André |author-link1=André Caquot |last2=Sznycer |first2=Maurice |author-link2=Maurice Sznycer |year=1980 |title=Ugaritic Religion |publisher=[[Brill Publishers|Brill]] |location=Leiden, Netherlands |series=Iconography of religions |volume=15: Mesopotamia and the Near East |page=12 |isbn=978-90-04-06224-5 |oclc=185416183 |lccn=81117573 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S4geAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA12}}</ref>{{sfn|van der Toorn|Becking|van der Horst|1999|p=181}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Schwabe |first=Calvin W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3h6RJVdZOlkC&pg=PA19 |title=Cattle, Priests, and Progress in mMdicine |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |year=1978 |isbn=978-0-8166-0825-6 |location=Minneapolis, Minnesota |page=19 |lccn=77084547 |oclc=3835386}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Falk |first=Avner |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z10-Xz9Kno4C&pg=PA49 |title=A Psychoanalytic History of the Jews |publisher=Associated University Presses |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-8386-3660-2 |location=Cranbury, New Jersey |page=49 |lccn=95002895 |oclc=32346244 |author-link=Avner Falk}}</ref>

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').{{citation needed|date=July 2023}}

In the Ugaritic [[Ba'al Cycle]], El is introduced having an assembly of gods on Mount Lel (Lel possibly meaning "Night"),<ref>KTU 1.2 III AB B</ref> and dwelling on (or in) the fountains of the two rivers at the spring of the two deeps.<ref>KTU 1.2 III AB C</ref> 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 River|Litani]] (the classical Leontes) and the [[Asi River|Asi]] (the upper [[Orontes River|Orontes]]) flow, Baalbek may be the same as the {{tlit|uga|manbaa al-nahrayn}} ('Source of the Two Rivers'), the abode of El in the Ugaritic [[Baal Cycle]]<ref>KTU 1.4 IV 21.</ref> discovered in the 1920s and a separate serpent incantation.<ref>KTU 1.100.3.</ref>{{sfnp|Steiner|2009}}

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 [[Attar (god)|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 (god)|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]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Palmer |first=Sean B |title=El's Divine Feast |website=inamidst.com |publisher=Sean B. Palmer |url=http://inamidst.com/stuff/notes/feast |access-date=2012-02-05}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=McLaughlin |first=John L. |date=June 2001 |title=The ''marzēaḥ'' in the Prophetic Literature: References & Allusions in Light of the Extra-Biblical Evidence.  |publisher=[[Brill Publishers|Brill]] |pages=24–26 |isbn=978-90-04-12006-8 |oclc=497549822 |lccn=2001025261 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xmoyeh4Wi9UC&pg=PA24}}</ref>

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".{{sfn|Margalit|1989|p=484}} 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.<ref name=":1" />