Was Yahweh a pagan god of the Levant?

Answer 1

No. Yahweh is the Hebrew pronunciation of the English Bible name Jehovah, which The Bible names as the one creator of the universe and everything in it. Jehovah has nothing to do with any pagan god or goddess.

ANSWER: The above answer is not true. Do some research and you'll find out that Yahweh was originally an Egyptian god. None of the Jewish names for God are original or made up by the Jews. All are borrowed from other nations. Yahweh is borrowed from Egypt.

yet ill informed, the Hebrews were actually the native Egyptian who were denied citizenship and therefore the language, religion, and culture of the Jewish faith were then originally a Egyptian subculture. Rather it was the majority culture opposed to the indoctrinated culture of the political power-holders that was pro bally present at the time of hyskos invasion. Egyptian is not a synonym for pagan...unless you are truly foreign to the narrative or ignorant to the state of biblical Egypt. Translations become muddied when biases such as Egyptian=pagan, in relation to words and phrases supplant true knowlege and understanding of god the the history of god's earth.

El (Elohim) Along with Yawah, Ba'al, Asherah and other Canaanite Gods where part of the Pantheon of Gods of the Canaanite people. yo in short answer yes.

The first two answers are culturally taught in various places, but have no scientific underpining, and are likely more reflective of misplaced nationalism than empirical fact. The Hebrews were a Canaanite people of the West-central portion of The Levant. The third answer is essentially correct, despite the mistake of cognating El to Elohim. The Martu, a proto-ugarit speaking people, joined the Akkadian conquests, and subsequently settled in the city-states of Ur, Lagash, and Uruk, among others. They worshiped Yaweh predominantly, eventually rejecting the other deities of that pantheon. Yaweh, a minor storm god, was the youngest son of the sky god El, and his dominon was generative creation. "Pagan" is a roman word meaning "from (or of) the pagus". A pagus was a country district, i.e. "the boondocks"; among catholics in the Holy Roman Empire, the term came to mean virtually any non-monotheistic religion. It has also been used (incorrectly) to describe Buddhism and other religions that have no gods at all, as a sort of "everybody but us" exclusionary term.

The last response fits in with my research but is incorrect about Buddhism. Buddhism has celestial Buddhas which, in some branches of Buddhism, are decidedly deities. Pure Land Buddhism chants to Amitābha in order to be taken to his heaven where they spend the rest of their eternal life in meditation with him and the other followers. He is Christ-like and the hook used to get Pure Land to convert to Christianity with claims that Christ is Amitābha. He has the god-like powers to make a death peaceful and to effect change in a person's life.