El, the original Semitic creator god. An omnipotent creator, all things emerged from his hands. With Reality bending around his fingers, El is the highest authority across the pantheon, Even greater than the king of the gods Baal. The specifics on how El created the universe is still a mystery, but it is believed that he created the cosmos from the nothingness around him. After creation, El investigated the seas of Chaos that flowed from him, among the waves bobbed the heads of two women, that of Asherah and Raḥmayyu. Curious, El took them home and began cooking a bird, he asked them that once the bird was done if they could call to him as either father or husband, whichever one they picked he would behave as such, once the bird was done they called to him as husband. The following intimate night resulted in the birth of Shachar and Shalim, the gods of Dusk and Dawn. From his coupling with his two wives the pantheon of Canaan was born. Baal, Mot, Yam, Astarte, Anat, all of them came from the light of El.
El oversaw and organized the race for the throne of the king of the gods, a competition in which his children could campaign to be bestowed the throne by El. During the race, the sea god Yam gained much influence, with him having the favor of El’s wife Asherah. However, during a gathering of the pantheon, Yam insults the entire pantheon including his own father El. But following a duel with Baal, Yam is defeated and forced to pull out of the race, leaving Baal to be crowned the king of the gods. With the help of Asherah, Baal is able to convince El to authorize the construction of a palace.
However during a feast ushered by the newly appointed Baal, the death god Mot consumes him. El joins the universe in grieving the loss of his son. Despite being in the throes of grief, El dreams that Baal is still alive. Elated, El sends the sun goddess Shapsh to rescue his son. After his return Baal once again begins combat with Mot, that is until El steps in, threatening Mot that if he continues he’d annihilate him, causing Mot to back down.
In a separate myth, during a feast of the gods, El gets outrageously drunk, but is ultimately healed.
El was an incredibly important deity, it cannot be understated just how important he was. His worship evolved and transmitted into many different gods, the Syrian Dagan, the Hurrian Kumarbi, and his Hittite form Elkunirsa.
In Egypt, El was significantly synchronized with the sun god Ra, with El actually being bestowed Ra’s iconography and forms of worship. Ra’s fellow egyptian god Ptah also has traces of El within his worship, as both share the epithet of “Eternal”, however among the Egyptians Kothar-wa-khasis was supposed to be cognate with Ptah.
Similarly, El is also associated with multiple gods in Mesopotamia as well. Commonly El was conflated with Enlil, but scholars also argue that he was likened to Anu as well. Originally, Anu held El-like attributes, such as being the supreme sky god and father of the pantheon. However once Enlil’s worship rose in prominence, he effectively dethroned Anu as the chief god of Sumer, taking on his El-like qualities as well.
The most important theological relation El holds is his connection to the modern Abrahamic God, as El is the direct originator of the Deity. Originally Known as Yhwh, this deity originated as the Israeli form of El, similar to how Dagan was the Syrian form of the god. Yhwh was a divine warrior god married to Asherah, with their children being the other Canaan gods like Baal and Astarte, all these deities held divine messengers known as Malak. Yhwh was the foremost worshipped deity in ancient Israel, with the vast majority of prayer being offered to them. However during the subjugation of Israel under Babylon, the monotheistic Yhwh emerged as a form of resistance against their Babylonian rulers. The deities of Canaan were demonized and absorbed into Yhwh and his Malak, who became the angels of Abrahamic faith. The naming scheme of angels keeps their relation with El, as seen in Raphael the oldest name among the angels. The modern God shares many of their other titles with El, including El Shaddai, Elohim (the term referring to the Canaanite pantheon meaning “the children of El”), and El Elyon. El’s character and attributes corresponds to a number of unconnected gods across the globe, such as the Chinese Shangdi, the Zoroastrian Ahura Mazda, and the Slavic Rod and Svarog
Phoenicia also held Canaan’s gods and myths, including El. However due to being conquered by the Greeks, Phoenicia was forced to Hellenize their culture, with it essentially becoming Greek mythology with a Canaanite coat of paint. This is seen most prominently in their recorded creation myth, in which El wasn’t the creator or original god, but rather the son of the sky and earth who in turn were created by El Elyon, which was originally a name for El himself. El is later deposed by Baal, obviously this myth is heavily based on the greek theogony, with El taking the place of Chronus and Baal with Zeus.
My personal theory on the origin of El is that he may have developed from the African creator gods, sharing ancestry with the likes of Ra, Nyame, Amma, and even possibly Zanahary, possible evidence could be found in the fact that the ancient Semitic language is actually an Afroasiatic language. However this is only a personal idea, so it shouldn’t be taken seriously.
The word El is used as a term to denote a deity in Canaanite language, evolving from Il, in texts however El himself is distinguished from this word by using ha El meaning “the great El”. El also held many titles, such as “the bull god”, “Creator of creatures”, “the gracious one”, “father of the gods” and “father of man”.
In many god lists from ancient Canaan, El is preceded by Ilib, a character not mentioned in any other texts. Ilib’s placement has led to the idea that it was possibly a forerunner deity to El, however no other texts support this, and the belief that El was the original deity contradicts this. Ilib is used as a term to refer to dead ancestors in Canaan, so most likely the Ilib in the god lists refers to the familial dead ancestors.
