These prohibitions are re-emphasized repeatedly by the later prophets, suggesting the ongoing appeal of Canaanite religion and syncretic assimilation to the ancient Israelites.
The strict avoidance of idolatry affected Jewish daily life in terms of cuisine, coinage, socialisations and participation in games.
[6] Maimonides argues that the Torah's rules for ritual sacrifices are intended to help wean the Jewish People away from idolatry.
For this reason, idolatry and its consequences are described differently between the various books of the Hebrew Bible, largely varying by the era in which they were written.
[15] Later authors characterized idolatry in very different terms: the Book of Isaiah is believed to have been composed and revised by different authors in different periods, with chapters 1–39 being composed by the historical prophet Isaiah in the 8th century BCE, chapters 40–55 attributed to "Deutero-Isaiah," an anonymous author writing during the Babylonian captivity of the 6th century BCE, and chapters 56–66 attributed to "Trito-Isaiah," writing after the return from exile.
Isaiah 44:9–10 also contain the first clear declarations of the futility of idolatry and, accordingly, the nonexistence of the other Canaanite gods: "All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit."
As Yahwism competed with the other cults of Canaan[17] and became more focused on Yahweh in particular, and eventually to the exclusion of the older Canaanite gods,[18] its conception of idolatry changed as well, paving the way for monotheism.
The people eventually known as Israelites emerged during the second millennium BCE as a distinct subculture of the Canaanite civilization, whose language was ancestral to Hebrew, and whose religion incorporated a pantheon of numerous deities.
This civilization was synonymous with the later Phoenicians, who built cities in modern-day Israel and Lebanon, went on to colonize the coast of the Maghreb, and founded a thalassocratic empire ruled from Carthage.
The ancient Yahwists are believed to have practiced a form of henotheism, in which Yahweh (identified with ʼĒl) was supreme, but other Canaanite deities could still be worshipped as secondary gods.
[20] This would help to explain the lack of reference to Yahweh in the pre-Iron Age archaeological record of mainstream Canaanite sites, which are primarily found on the coast of what is now Lebanon and northern Israel (e.g., Byblos, Baalbek).
Because the proper personal name YHWH (called the Tetragrammaton in its written form) was considered too holy to speak aloud, titles like Adonai or Elohim, which was originally a general term for any deity descended from ʼĒl, were used instead.
[21] The Canaanites worshipped ʼĒl as their supreme deity, while at some point the Hebrews branched off and began prioritizing Yahweh.
[25] This is believed to have been a consequence of an ongoing trend of religious syncretism within Yahwism—Yahweh became conflated with ʼĒl,[19] taking on all of his qualities, including his marriage to Asherah.
"[27] This has been argued to mark the transition from monolatry to monotheism, since this is when the idea of idolatry began to emerge and encompass all forms of Canaanite worship except those associated with Yahweh.
The ancient Canaanite religion was still popular in the region, and coexisted with Yahwism and the early form of Judaism that evolved from it.