(Ugarit religions) El (/ɛl/ EL; also 'Il, Ugaritic: 𐎛𐎍 ʾīlu; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤋 ʾīl;[6] Hebrew: אֵל ʾēl; Syriac: ܐܺܝܠ ʾīyl; Arabic: إل ʾil or إله ʾilāh[clarification needed]; cognate to Akkadian: 𒀭, romanized: ilu) is a Northwest Semitic word meaning 'god' or 'deity', or referring (as a proper name) to any one of multiple major ancient Near Eastern deities.

Personal names including the stem ʾl are found with similar patterns in both the Amorite and Sabaic languages.

Tribal organizations in West Semitic culture also influenced El's portrayal as a "treaty partner" in covenants, where the clan is seen as the "kin" of the deity.

[18] The Egyptian god Ptah is given the title ḏū gitti 'Lord of Gath' in a prism from Tel Lachish which has on its opposite face the name of Amenhotep II (c. 1435 – c. 1420 BCE).

[20] Wyatt, however, notes that in Ugaritic texts, Ptah is seemingly identified with the craftsman god Kothar-wa-Khasis, not El.

[21] In an inscription in the Proto-Sinaitic script, William F. Albright transcribed the phrase ʾL Ḏ ʿLM, which he translated as the appellation "El, (god) of eternity".

[27] In a Hurrian hymn to El (published in Ugaritica V, text RS 24.278), he is called 'il brt and 'il dn, which Cross (p. 39) takes as 'El of the covenant' and 'El the judge' respectively.

[28] For the Canaanites and the ancient Levantine region as a whole, ʼĒl or ʼIl was the supreme god, the father of mankind and all creatures.

Three pantheon lists found at Ugarit (modern Ras Shamrā—Arabic: رأس شمرا, Syria) begin with the four gods ʾil-ʾib (which according to Cross;[30] is the name of a generic kind of deity, perhaps the divine ancestor of the people), El, Dagnu (that is Dagon), and Ba'l Ṣapān (that is the god Haddu or Hadad).

[34][35][36][37] The mysterious 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.

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.

A few miles from the swamp from which the Litani (the classical Leontes) and the Asi (the upper Orontes) flow, Baalbek may be the same as the manbaa al-nahrayn ("Source of the Two Rivers"), the abode of El in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle[40] discovered in the 1920s and a separate serpent incantation.

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.

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".

But the form ʾEl also appears, mostly in poetic passages and in the patriarchal narratives attributed to the Priestly source of the documentary hypothesis.

Such mythological motifs are variously seen as late survivals from a period when Yahweh held a place in theology comparable to that of Hadad at Ugarit; or as late henotheistic/monotheistic applications to Yahweh of deeds more commonly attributed to Hadad; or simply as examples of eclectic application of the same motifs and imagery to various different gods.

[56] But others have argued that from patriarchal times, these different names were generally understood to refer to the same single great god, El.

If El was the high God of Abraham—Elohim, the prototype of Yahveh—Asherah was his wife, and there are archaeological indications that she was perceived as such before she was in effect "divorced" in the context of emerging Judaism of the 7th century BCE.

Traditionally bênê 'ēlîm has been interpreted as 'sons of the mighty', 'mighty ones', for 'El can mean 'mighty', though such use may be metaphorical (compare the English expression [by] God awful).

It is possible also that the expression 'ēlîm in both places descends from an archaic stock phrase in which 'lm was a singular form with the m-enclitic and therefore to be translated as 'sons of El'.

It has been argued that in the supposed original version of Deuteronomy 32, as preserved in the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Yahweh was described as a son of El,[58][59][60][61][62] although some scholars disagree with this view.

According to Heiser, it also raises the question on why the Deuteronomists would be so careless to introduce this error, especially a few verses later, and why they didn't quickly remove them as 'intolerant monotheists'.

At last, with the advice of his daughter Athena and the god Hermes Trismegistus (perhaps Thoth), El successfully attacks his father Sky with a sickle and spear of iron.

Later, perhaps referring to this same death of Sadidus we are told: But on the occurrence of a pestilence and mortality Cronus offers his only begotten son as a whole burnt-offering to his father Sky and circumcises himself, compelling his allies also to do the same.A fuller account of the sacrifice appears later: It was a custom of the ancients in great crises of danger for the rulers of a city or nation, in order to avert the common ruin, to give up the most beloved of their children for sacrifice as a ransom to the avenging daemons; and those who were thus given up were sacrificed with mystic rites.

Cronus then, whom the Phoenicians call Elus, who was king of the country and subsequently, after his decease, was deified as the star Saturn, had by a nymph of the country named Anobret an only begotten son, whom they on this account called Iedud, the only begotten being still so called among the Phoenicians; and when very great dangers from war had beset the country, he arrayed his son in royal apparel, and prepared an altar, and sacrificed him.The account also relates that Thoth: also devised for Cronus as insignia of royalty four eyes in front and behind ... but two of them quietly closed, and upon his shoulders four wings, two as spread for flying, and two as folded.

Going back to the 8th century BCE, the bilingual inscription[72] at Karatepe in the Taurus Mountains equates El-Creator-of-the-Earth to Luwian hieroglyphs read as da-a-ś,[73] this being the Luwian form of the name of the Babylonian water god Ea, lord of the abyss of water under the earth.

(This inscription lists El in second place in the local pantheon, following Ba'al Shamîm and preceding the Eternal Sun.)

Poseidon of Beirut was also worshipped at Delos where there was an association of merchants, shipmasters, and warehousemen called the Poseidoniastae of Berytus founded in 110 or 109 BCE.

Three of the four chapels at its headquarters on the hill northwest of the Sacred Lake were dedicated to Poseidon, the Tyche of the city equated with Astarte (that is 'Ashtart), and to Eshmun.

Also at Delos, that association of Tyrians, though mostly devoted to Heracles-Melqart, elected a member to bear a crown every year when sacrifices to Poseidon took place.