Texts in Conversation
A Phoenician inscription from around 700 BCE blesses a king by “El Creator-of-Earth.” Genesis 14 has Melchizedek bless Abram by “God Most High, creator of heaven and earth,” using the same divine name and title current across Canaan.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
KAI 26.iii
Canaanite and Aramaic Inscriptions
Ancient Near East
this city and tear out this gate which Azatiwada made, and make for it a different gate and put his name upon it whether he tears it out with covetousness or with hatred and evil he tears out this gate—then may Baʿal-Shamem and El Creator-of-Earth and the eternal Sun and the entire assembly of the sons of the gods blot out that kingdom and that king and that man!
Date: 1200 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Genesis 14:19
Hebrew Bible
18 Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (Now he was the priest of the Most High God.) 19 He blessed Abram, saying, “Blessed be Abram by the Most High God, Creator of heaven and earth. 20 Worthy of praise is the Most High God, who delivered your enemies into your hand.” Abram gave Melchizedek a tenth of everything. 21 Then the king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the people and take the possessions for yourself.” 22 But Abram replied to the king of Sodom, “I raise my hand to the Lord, the Most High God, Creator of heaven and earth, and vow
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Notes and References
... Thus, it can hardly be a coincidence that Genesis 14:19 (compare verse 22) speaks of “El-Elyon, creator (qōnēh) of heaven and earth” and Deuteronomy 32:6 declares, “Is not he your father, who created you (qānekā)?” This is so because not only is it the case that the verb qnh is used outside the Bible to speak of El's creative activity, but in both cases cited above we have other evidence supporting El influence: Genesis 14:19 and 22 specifically refer to El(-Elyon) ... The words ʼl qn ʼrṣ, “El creator of the earth,” occur in the Phoenician inscription of Azitawadda from Karatepe (KAI 26.A.III.18) and in a neo-Punic inscription from Leptis Magna in Tripolitania (KAI 129.1). Further, the form lqwnr appears in a bilingual text from Palmyra, where he is equated with Poseidon, and there is no doubt that this form underlies the name of the god Elkunirsha, whose wife is Asertu (Asherah) in a Hittite-Canaanite mythological text. ...
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