Early Pantheons
One of these pantheons was Canaanite. This pantheon too consisted of a wide array of gods of which El was the leader along with his wife and queen consort Asherah. Lesser gods included in this pantheon were Ba’al, Dagon, Eshmun, Moloch, Kotharat, Qadeshtu, Sydyk and Yam, among many others. I’m going to focus on this pantheon as it is from this religion that the god the Christians worship today was born.

Theophoric Naming
At this early stage Yahweh, Jehovah or any form of god recognisable to the Christians or Jews hadn’t come into existence yet. Israel which first emerged at the end of the 13th century BCE evidences this. It was common practice to embed the name of your deity in everyday names. This theophoric naming both invoked the protection of the deity and displayed allegiance to it. Yisra-el, means ‘god strives’, is a good example of this. It can also be seen in Dani-el (judged by god), Rapha-el (healing from god), Gabri-el (man of god) and Samu-el (heard of god). All these theophoric names show allegiance to El, not Yahweh yet.

El, the head of the pantheon, was just as real to those worshipping him as Zeus was to the Greeks, Jupiter to the Romans and Odin to the Nordic people.

So, where did El come from?
The Ugaritic text ‘Shahar and Shalim’ tells how El came to the shore of the sea and saw two women drowning in the water. He saved them, cooked them a meal and gave them the choice to call him father or husband – they both chose husband. He lay with them and they conceived the ‘dawn’ (Shahar) and the ‘dusk’ (Shalim). Another Ugaritic text “The Ba’al Cycle” tells how El lived in a tent either in or on a mountain with his two wives - the ones he saved from the sea and their seventy sons at the place of the separation of the two waters El, Asherah (his chief wife) and their seventy sons constituted the entirety of the Canaanite pantheon. The second of the two wives just seems to have unceremoniously disappeared out of the story.

Quick regional history overview
Let me give you a quick overview of the area at the time. I’ll try to keep it concise, but it is important to help understand the deities worshipped in the area.
Although Jerusalem had a series of kings, they relied heavily on Egypt for military assistance against constant attacks. In return the Kings promised an oath of loyalty to Egypt; this was around 1380BCE. Egypt however sided with the aggressors eventually conquering Jerusalem and the surrounding areas.

The Egyptians remained in control of Canaan until the bronze-age came to an abrupt end around 1200 BCE from a combination of natural disasters, most significant of which were a series of crippling droughts. The Egyptians retreated from Canaan and the area was overrun by a tribe called the ‘Shasu’.

Arrival of the Shasu
So, why is this significant? As previously mentioned, there is no evidence of Yahweh in the Canaanite pantheon earlier than the arrival of the Shasu at the end of the Bronze Age, nor was there any evidence of the worship of this god in Canaan or any of the surrounding areas.

The Shasu mentioned in these inscriptions were a band of nomads originally from Midian and Edom who were predominantly thieves, robbers and mercenaries, although there is evidence there were traders among them.
The term 'Shasu' is derived from an Egyptian word meaning to ‘wander’ or ‘plunder’.

The earliest known recorded source referencing them is found on a column at the Temple of Amun-Ra at Soleb, containing the phrase “land of the š3sw of yhw3”, or ‘the land of the Shasu of Yahu’.
This closely mirrored an inscription found on a carved stone called the Mesha Stele from around 840BCE. The inscription on this stone reads ‘the land of Shasu of YHW’.
The Shasu eventually became known as the 'Israelites' as they settled in the land of Israel.

Introduction of Yahweh to Canaan
Brought by these nomadic people, the concept of this YHW god was first introduced to Canaan.

The tetragrammaton (יהוהor) YHWH, meaning ‘four letters’ in Greek, soon came to replace YHW although it was considered disrespectful to say the name. Observant Jews and those following Talmudic Jewish traditions will still not pronounce the name preferring to replace it with Adonai (meaning my lord), Hashem (the name) or Hakadosh Baruch Hu (the holy one).

The ancient Hebrew alphabet had no vowels. The original YHW would have phonetically been pronounced as ‘ya – h – wa’ or, try it for yourself, – Yahowa.
At the introduction of the tetragrammaton, the added H after YHW changed the pronunciation to Yahweh

Yahweh was shortened to Yah, Yahu, Yeho or Yo. Some examples of the theophoric naming for Yahweh include Yirma-yahu (Jeremiah), Yesha-yahu (Joshua) and Yeho-natan (Jonathan).

Yahweh adopted into the pantheon
This Shasu-bedouin wind god Yahweh was soon adopted into the Canaanite pantheon as a son of El and Asherah and brother to the other gods including Ba’al, Moloch, Yam and Lotan. Initially there was nothing significant about Yahweh, he was just another one of the sibling deities.

Babylonian exile
While in Babylonian captivity the Israelites favoured Yahweh in a monolatristic belief. Although they did recognise the other gods of the pantheon, only Yahweh was to be worshipped. Isaiah 40-55 describes god’s covenant to protect and care for his people in exchange for their exclusive worship of him.

In 539BCE Babylon fell to Cyrus the Great who freed the captive Jews and Israelites and allowed them to return to the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel.

The next significant event in the evolution in status of Yahweh occurred when El, still the head of the pantheon for now, divided up the Canaanite nations amongst his sons, assigning a deity to each of the tribes.

• Chemosh (the god of war) was assigned to the Moabites,
• Assur to the Assyrians,
• Quas to Edom,
• Atargatis (who happened to be a female and regarded as the first mermaid) to the tribe of Aram.
• Milcom, also known as Moloch, the god of fire, to the Ammonites,
• Asherah to the Amorites,
• Elkunirsa to the Hittites and
• Yahweh to the kingdoms of Judah and Israel.

“When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.”

Confusion surrounding the word 'god'
One of the frustrating reasons people generally don’t know about this evolution of god is how in the English versions of the bible all iterations of this deity are called ‘god’ or ‘the lord’.
In the example of this passage ‘the most high’ is referring to El (Strong’s Concordance H410) and ‘the lord’ to Yahweh (Strong’s Concordance H3068). They are not the same god, although the English translation of the Bible makes it appear as if they are.

An interesting point to consider here;
if Ba’al, Molech, Lotan or any of the other Canaanite deities had been designated the state god of Israel instead of Yahweh, that would be the god being worshipped today by Christians worldwide, not the current god of the Bible.

Evolution of Yahweh
Over time Yahweh became an epithet of El, a description often used in place of the head deities name. When the divided nations of Israel and Judah were reunited during the reign of the kings Saul, David and Solomon - El and Yahweh were conflated in religious syncretism.

Evidence of this was found inscribed on two ceramic storage jars at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud with inscriptions mentioning Yahweh and his Asherah. Asherah, who was El’s wife, is now depicted as Yahweh’s wife. El and Yahweh are now one deity.

El Shaddai evolved as the name of the god of the people of Israel and eventually the El was dropped and only Shaddai retained. Shaddai became associated with the original Yahweh.

El was downgraded to little more than a generic term for god in Aramaic and Ugaritic (an extinct dialect of the Amorite language)

The royal court under the auspices of the king of the temple in Jerusalem promoted the god Yahweh to the god of the universe incorporating all the best qualities previously attributed to all the other previous deities and the Yahweh religion separated from its Canaanite roots, becoming the sole god of the Israelites.

Summary
The Christian God, Yahweh, was brought onto the scene from virtual unheard-of obscurity to the Levant by a band of murdering, pillaging nomads where it was slowly incorporated into the Canaanite pantheon, not as the supreme godhead, but adopted as one of the seventy sons.
Eventually Yahweh, resultant from the decisions of men of influence, became co-ruler of the pantheon, later merging with the original pantheon leader into a single deity. Once again, due to human declaration, this Yahweh deity was unsurprisingly promoted by his own people to god of the Universe.

Now, considering everything that occurred in the developing story of the Canaanite pantheon, so too did all the other pantheons worldwide have their own interesting, very real unfolding parallel stories. Were any of them real?

Did Zeus really exist and do all the things attributed to him?
Probably Not!

Did Odin really exist and do all the things attributed to him?
Probably Not!

What about Hunab-Ku? Bet you’ve never heard of him. He was the leader of the Mayan pantheon.

Did Hunab-Ku really exist and do all the things attributed to him?
Probably Not!

So, what is the chance that Yahweh could be the only member of any pantheon across the globe to actually exist?

Did Yahweh really exist and do all the things attributed to him, or is he just as fictitious as all the others?