How Yahweh Became The God of the Bible: What Happened To El?

➡ The text explores the transformation of Yahweh from a lesser god to the supreme deity in the Bible. Initially, El was the supreme god, but over time, Yahweh absorbed El’s traits and titles, eventually replacing him. This change was so subtle that it went unnoticed. The text also suggests that Yahweh adopted traits from other gods, like Baal, to become the sole god of monotheism.
➡ The text discusses how Yahweh, the God of Israel, became the only deity worshipped by the Israelites. Initially, Yahweh shared the religious space with other gods like Baal and Asherah. However, through theological erasure, Yahweh absorbed the roles of these gods and they were reframed as threats. This shift towards exclusive Yahweh worship was further enforced by King Josiah’s reforms, which included the destruction of altars and symbols of other gods. The Babylonian exile marked a turning point, where Yahweh was reinterpreted as a cosmic judge, sovereign over all nations. This transformation was achieved through the careful editing of earlier texts to align with this new theology, leading to the solidification of monotheism.
➡ The concept of multiple gods in ancient Israel was gradually replaced by the belief in one God, Yahweh. This change was subtly made in religious texts, where references to other gods were altered or removed. Titles and attributes of other gods were assigned to Yahweh, solidifying monotheism. Despite this, older texts still show evidence of a time when multiple gods, like El, were worshipped.

In the beginning, there was a God before Yahweh. His name was El. He was the father of gods and the creator of worlds. But in today’s Bible, he mysteriously vanished and was subtly replaced by Yahweh. How did this happen? How did the reign of the supreme God El eerily come to an end? At what point did this swapping of gods happen? We’ll find out together in this new episode of Secret Origins. Welcome. Long, long before Yahweh was recognized as the one true God, there was El. Yes, before the era of worship, songs chanting Yahweh came to stay.

There was a time when no one gave much thought to that name. This was because there was a more supreme God who. Who ruled over other gods of the Canaanite world. El. He was not a metaphor or a mere pagan echo. No, this was the ancient high God of the region from which Israel was formed. El was said to have ruled from a mountain throne, overseeing a council of lesser gods. And these lesser gods were baal, Asherah, and Yahweh. Like the Canaanites, the Israelites knew El quite well. His name is etched in the very name Israel, which means El persists rules.

In early biblical texts, the name El appears in titles like El Elyon and El Shaddai. But as Yahweh rose in prominence, something strange happened in the background. El began to fade. Not from memory, no, but from manuscript. And now all we know is Yahweh. But this uncanny happening raises the question, how does a supreme God simply disappear? Or better put, how does another God take his place without anyone noticing? Perhaps it’s because Yahweh was not alone. In the oldest biblical texts, we discover that Yahweh did not begin as the one God above all. Instead, he sat among others in a divine assembly ruled by El.

When you read Deuteronomy 32. Eight in the oldest texts, you see how El divided the nations among the sons of God. In the process of this division, Yahweh was assigned to Israel as a caretaker. He was not the original creator. But as time passed, Yahweh started sounding different. All of a sudden, he gained titles once reserved for L. People began to regard him as most high and everlasting. Verses were rewritten and references shifted without anyone noticing. Before anyone knew it, El was no longer distinct. He had been absorbed by Yahweh. But where did Yahweh originally come? Unlike you thought, the earliest mentions of Yahweh do not come from Jerusalem or Sinai.

Interestingly, they come from the southern deserts we are talking about places like Edom, Seir and Taman. These are regions outside the traditional Israelite territory. In Bible texts like Deuteronomy 33:2 and Judges 5:4, Yahweh is described as coming from Seir. This is a rugged highland territory associated with nomadic tribes. A peep into Egyptian records and you’ll find an intriguing fact. Back in the 13th century BCE, the Egyptian records speak of a group called the Shasu of Yule. The Shasu were a group of nomadic people worshipping a deity called Yahweh in the same desert regions. Can you believe that? And at this time, Yahweh was not yet Israel’s God.

To the people of Shasu, it was a regional storm deity worshipped by desert clans. To them, Yahweh was a God of thunder, warfare and wilderness. So how did this desert God end up as the God of creation? Many scholars believe that Yahweh was most likely adopted at first, then elevated. That is, he was brought into the Canaanite pantheon and and gradually merged with its high God, El. And their explanation makes a lot of sense. But before you take it in, the earliest texts suggest something even more complex. According to the Dead sea scrolls, Deuteronomy 32:8 reads, when the Most High, El Elyon, divided the nations, he fixed their boundaries according to the number of the sons of God.

This version, which is also found in the Septuagint, depicts a clear picture. El Elyon was the most High. And having such authority, he divided the assigned nations to various deities. To this effect, Israel was given to Yahweh. Yahweh did not choose the nation he was assigned. Over time, the oldest versions were edited and the sons of God were replaced with sons of Israel. No doubt this blinded many to the reality of plural gods. However, that early version remains for those willing to search for shows us that Yahweh was not always the God of all. He was one God among many, operating under the authority of a higher power.

But if El was the head of Canaanite gods and Yahweh underneath his rule, whose voice were the Israelites hearing? In the beginning? Before Yahweh, the Canaanite world looked to El. Remember El, the all powerful God who wasn’t just the father of all gods, but also the ruler of the heavens and the divine head of the pantheon. In ancient Ugaritic texts, El was described as a wise, eternal king, one who sat atop a mountain with lesser deities like BAAL and Asherah surrounding his throne. This was the image that was planted in the minds of the Israelites. It doesn’t end there.

Many early biblical names reflect the same legacy described in the Ugaritic texts. For example, Israel means El rules Bethel, which means House of El, and even El Shaddai, which was one of the earliest titles for Israel’s God. In Genesis 17:1, El Shaddai appears to Abraham and not Yahweh. At this point in history, El was not a fairy tale. He was the original deity of early Israelite religion. On the flip side, Yahweh’s name is notably absent in these early accounts. So where was he? In the early stages of Israelite belief, El and Yahweh were distinct figures. You can see it in texts that refer to El Elyon as the Most High and Yahweh as a separate entity in its ancient form.

Deuteronomy 32:8 through 9 makes this relationship clear. That is, El divides the nations and assigns them to divine beings. Yahweh is given Israel. El still holds authority. In other verses, like Genesis 49:25, El Shaddai is paired with blessings of fertility and protection. These are traits unlike the warrior God Yahweh would later become. But this duality didn’t last forever. Over time, scribes began blending their identities layer by layer. Yahweh began to inherit El’s titles, absorb his myths, and wear his crown. Eventually, El vanished. But before he did, there was a merger no one saw coming. At first, El and Yahweh stood apart.

El was the ancient high God, and Yahweh was the desert warrior assigned to Israel. But as Israel’s national identity deepened, something began to shift. Yahweh began absorbing El’s traits. And this is how it happened. In many early texts, the names of both gods appear together. In Genesis 33:20, Jacob builds an altar and calls it El, the God of Israel. Pay attention and you’ll notice that this is a curious phrase that blends the two separate deities. Slowly. The merger was happening also. In Exodus 6:3, Yahweh says to Moses, I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but by my name, Yahweh.

I was not known to them. This is a quiet admission that the patriarchs worshipped El, not Yahweh. But by this point in the biblical timeline, the merger was already in motion. El’s name remained, but his identity was being rewritten. The God of Israel was changing silently, so strategically that almost no one noticed. But how were the orchestrators able to pull this off? It’s because the fusion of El and Yahweh wasn’t just linguistic, it was systematic. At first, scribes and editors began weaving Yahweh into older traditions. Stories that originally featured El were rerouted and attributed to Yahweh.

Divine titles like El Elyon and El Shaddai were left in place, but they now pointed to a different deity. This wasn’t evolution, it was a calculated rebranding. In later texts, Yahweh began showing up as creator, judge and king. These were the same roles l had always held. In no time, the language of the texts was edited to give Yahweh universal reach. Pushing El into the background without removing him outright seems like the perfect movie plot, right? In today’s Bible, the merger is nearly invisible to casual readers. But beneath the translations and polished theology lies a clear Two gods became one.

And from this subtle act, a new belief system was born. Monotheism. But before we talk about this new religion, let’s. Let’s look at how Yahweh dealt with another contender. Baal. In the ancient Levant, Yahweh wasn’t the only God calling down thunder. Baal, the storm God of Canaan, was already well known. His worship stretched across cities like Ugarit and Tyre. The people of those cities knew BAAL as the God who brought rain to the crops, thunder to the skies, and victory to kings. Like Yahweh, BAAL was revered as a cloud rider, a divine warrior, and a protector of order.

And that’s where the real problem began. As Yahweh’s identity grew beyond his desert origins, he began to look more and more like baal. The very traits that made BAAL powerful were gradually attributed to Yahweh. That’s right, the lightning, thunder storms, and even the power to conquer the sea. In this process of becoming supreme, Yahweh didn’t just defeat baal, he adopted the God and his legacy. And here is a little riddle for you. What do you do when your God’s rival starts to look too familiar? The answer? Make sure he’s remembered as a threat. Once Yahweh began absorbing Baal’s role, BAAL had to be reframed as an enemy.

In stories like 1 Kings 18, we see Yahweh’s prophet Elijah stage a showdown on Mount Carmel. Prophet Elijah mocks Baal’s silence while Yahweh rains down fire. In the end, Baal’s prophets are executed while Yahweh is exalted. But do you know that the story was more than narrative? Yes, it was theological erasure and it didn’t stop there. In addition, Baal’s titles were repurposed. An early Israelite hymn, Psalm 29, mirrors Ugaritic Baal texts, almost line for line. But with Yahweh as the storm giver, can you imagine that even Yahweh’s command over the chaotic sea is expressly similar to Baal’s story? According to early texts, BAAL once had a victory over Yam.

In that victory, the chaotic sea was the hallmark. However, that was somehow rewritten to become part of Yahweh’s biblical Persona. What was once shared as a space for deities was no longer tolerated. In a way, Yahweh now wore Baal’s crown, but condemned his name. And in the minds of a newly monotheistic people, there was no room for two gods of the storm. Just like that, BAAL lost the war for superiority. But there wasn’t just BAAL to contend with. Matter of fact, early texts revealed that Yahweh might have had a partner whom he usurped from El. In modern Bibles, Yahweh is presented as singular.

That is, he is unmarried, unchallenged and unaccompanied. But the archaeological record tells a more complicated story. In 1975, at a remote desert site called Kuntilet Ajrud, archaeologists uncovered inscriptions from the 8th century BCE that shook biblical scholarship. One line read, blessed be you, by Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah. Who is this Asherah? This wasn’t a fluke. A second inscription repeated the pairing, suggesting something deeper shared worship. In the texts, Yahweh was linked to Asherah, who is the ancient Canaanite fertility goddess. She was often called the mother of the gods and the divine consort of El.

This begs the thesis that sounds abominable. If Yahweh had merged with El, then it made sense that Asherah, El’s wife, would follow. Inscriptions from early Israelite sites show that her veneration was not marginal, it was embedded. And yet today, she is forgotten. So what happened to Yahweh’s partner? This is what happened to our Shera. As Israel’s priesthood gradually moved toward exclusive Yahweh worship, Asherah was silenced. And this shushing took place under King Josiah’s reforms in the 7th century BCE. At his command, Asherah’s wooden poles were cut down and her altars destroyed. Rebranded as a foreign impurity, the people began to see her as a Canaanite threat to Yahweh’s holiness.

Yet traces of her remained hidden in the language Itself, the Hebrew word for sacred tree or pole is asherah. Isn’t this a reminder of her vast significance? Eventually, biblical redactors removed her name entirely from formal worship. Still, the archaeological footprint tells a different story, one where Yahweh and Asherah were worshipped together as divine king and queen. The question that bugs scholars is not just why she was erased. It’s the way monotheism had to redefine Yahweh’s character to survive without her. Because before he stood alone, Yahweh had a consort, and her name was Asherah. But another question rose to the surface.

How did King Josiah manage to pull this off? It started like this. By the 7th century BCE, Yahweh had rivals not just in the heavens, but in temples across Judah. Shrines dedicated to Asherah, BAAL, and other deities were still active. Although many Israelites worshiped Yahweh primarily, they did so while worshipping other gods. This is the way they did it for generations. But in the reign of King Josiah, everything changed. The pluralism came to an abrupt end. According to older texts, 2 Kings 22:23 reveals that Josiah discovered a lost book of the law during temple repairs. Scholars say that this lost book was likely an early version of Deuteronomy.

Once King Josiah found this book of the law, what followed was a radical campaign. Using his authority, he declared a massive destruction of rural altars, the burning of sacred groves, and the centralization of worship in Jerusalem alone. But King Josiah wasn’t just cleaning up idolatry with those commands. He was redefining Yahweh to be Israel’s only God. This was the beginning of theological centralization. Suddenly, there was a shift from many shrines and many gods to only one God, one temple, and one people. But it gets more interesting. Historians found evidence to prove that the reform wasn’t just religious, it was political.

Wait, what? You heard that, right. Josiah’s reform was the turning point. This was where Yahweh’s identity hardened into exclusivity. The deuteronomistic editors who documented his reign left behind a carefully shaped narrative. Historians argue that while they were editing texts, their goal wasn’t really to preserve history, but to control it. They portrayed Josiah as a righteous king who restored pure worship. But behind the praise was something else. A blatant campaign of religious consolidation. How so, you ask? Symbols of Asherah were destroyed. Priests loyal to other gods were eliminated. Towns with alternate cultic practices were wiped off the religious map.

What had once been tolerated was now viewed as heresy. The archaeological record supports this Sites show abrupt destruction, burned idols and restructured temples. It became obvious that Yahweh didn’t rise through consensus. Instead, records reveal that he rose through reform, enforced from the top down. Although King Josiah died young, his vision endured. This is because by the time his scribes were done rewriting Israel’s story, only one God remained in the nation, and his name was Yahweh. King Josiah’s reform indeed made Yahweh the one God of Israel. But how did this God scale to become a global sovereign entity? Enter the Babylonian exile? In 586 BCE, the unthinkable happened.

Jerusalem fell, the massive temple was destroyed, the priesthood dismantled, and thousands of Israelites were exiled to Babylon. For a people whose identity was tied to one God and one land, this was a spiritual collapse. Yahweh, the deity who was supposed to protect them, had failed. Or so it seemed. Normally, you would expect a nation so distraught to give up all hope in this God who failed to protect them from being captured. But instead of such rebellion, something unexpected happened. While in exile in Babylon, something unexpected began to take shape among the Israelites. After the national catastrophe, the exiles didn’t abandon Yahweh.

Instead, they reconstructed him. Crazy, right? Slowly but surely, scribes and priests began to reinterpret Yahweh. Not as a failed protector, no, but as a righteous punisher. They started describing him as a God who had allowed the destruction because of Israel’s sin. Modern scholars debate that this theological pivot was more than damage control. It was a genius transformation. Now Yahweh was no longer just a national God. He gradually became a cosmic judge, sovereign over all nations, using Babylon as his tool. Out of Israel’s defeat came a new kind of power. And since there was no temple left to define him, Yahweh’s reach became limitless.

However, the exile did not just mark a turning point in history. Theology as a whole also felt the heat. Since the Israelites got cut off from Jerusalem, their scribes began to compile and edit older traditions. Ancient texts were revised, and any contradictions left were smoothed over. The rulers could not stand a divided identity about their God, so they made him one altogether. The result? A Yahweh who could no longer be questioned only obeyed. The scribes did this upheaval in such a subtle manner that that no one paused to question them. Stories once associated with El were reattributed to Yahweh.

Promises, prophecies and punishments were all centralized in him. What’s more, even foreign gods were reframed as powerless. Isaiah 45 declares, I am Yahweh, and there is no other. This is a declaration of authority in a way that gives no room for rivals. In exile, the people who had once worshipped many gods rewrote their future with only one. The Babylonian exile didn’t just reshape the nation, it reshaped who they saw as God. The question is, was this a natural evolution or a carefully engineered response to political trauma? Before the exile, Yahweh was the God of Israel. After the exile, he became the God of everything.

Like we explained, this transition happened through redaction, that is, the careful editing of earlier texts to align with a new theology. Historians say that books like Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy were reshaped. Passages that once hinted at divine councils were flattened and reworded to present a world with only one God, Yahweh. The evidence in older versions of Genesis creation bore signs of plural voices. Let us make man in our image. But more recent interpretations insisted on singularity. How do you move from us to I so suddenly? By the time of second Isaiah, the transformation was complete. Yahweh now claimed before me no God was formed, nor will there be one after me.

A once local deity had become the only deity, and the memory of those who once stood beside him quietly removed. Scholars tag it as monotheism at its finest. As monotheism solidified, Yahweh’s former peers vanished from the stage. The divine council, which was once a central concept in Israel, now became a problem. Texts like Psalm 82, which showed Yahweh among other gods, were reinterpreted or glossed over. Verses like Deuteronomy 32:8 through 9, which once featured El dividing nations among the gods, were revised in the Masoretic text to read Sons of Israel instead of Sons of God. How crazy is that? You are right.

It was a quiet change, line by line, scroll by scroll. Even Yahweh’s inherited titles, Most High, El Shaddai Creator, were stripped of their original context and assigned exclusively to him. The attributes of El, BAAL and others weren’t discarded. Instead, they were all attributed to the one chosen God, Yahweh. By the time the Hebrew Bible reached its final form, monotheism had been solidified. History had been rewritten and handed down through generations. What could anyone do about it? Absolutely nothing. But the good part is the oldest texts remember everything. In the oldest layers of the Hebrew Bible, El was the name of a distinct God.

He was El Elyon, the Most High, and El Shaddai God Almighty. These were titles deeply rooted in the older Canaanite pantheon. His name lives on in places like Israel, Bethel, and in figures like Samuel. These names show us that there was a time when El stood supreme. On the flip side, Yahweh’s name appears much later. And in Exodus 6:3 we see by my name Yahweh. I was not known to them. But as theology shifted, scribes began to reassign El’s names and traits to Yahweh. What was once two became one over time. Yahweh didn’t just coexist with El, he replaced him, absorbing his vocabulary, status, and identity.

What do you think about this? Let us know in the comments. And don’t forget to leave a Like and subscribe if you enjoyed this content. Keep your minds open and until we meet again.
[tr:tra].