A. Royden D'souza

The story of ancient Israel/Judea/Palestine is not a simple unfolding of a single ethnic or national destiny. Rather, it is a layered fabric of continuous habitation, punctuated by migrations, elite manipulation of ritual and genealogy, and a protracted, contested fusion of indigenous and external traditions.

Who are/is the Elohim? Before Yahweh, before the Ten Commandments, before the monotheism that would shape Western civilization, the land of Canaan was home to a rich, complex, and deeply embodied polytheistic religion.

According to the Baal Cycle, their universe was not created ex nihilo by a solitary deity but emerged from primordial chaos through the actions of a divine family—El the Father, Baal the Storm, Anat the Warrior, Mot the Devourer—whose struggles and alliances shaped the heavens, the earth, and the underworld.