The Hebrew God

The early history of Hebrew/Israelite religion is uncertain. A people called 'Israelite' is named on the Egyptian Merniptah Stele in 1210 BCE, with no detail. Others names in this list are city states, so the Israelites would appear to be nomadic. The name is compounded with the divine name El. Other names for deity are used integrated with El, such as El Elyon (translated God Most High for convenience) and Shaddai (translated 'Almighty'). There is a plural form elim referring to some divine court or family, some of whom intermarried with human women (Genesis 6). Another plural elohim referred to household, perhaps ancestral gods or spirits. We see spirits of the dead being summoned, such as the prophet Samuel by soon to be king Saul. In incorporating these elohim into the divine concept, and then insisting on monotheism, we have this plural name preserved as though singular as God's name, although the plural lingers - "let us go down and confuse their language" God says at the tower (ziggurat) of Babel (Babylon) in Genesis 11. The divine name Yahweh was superimposed at some point (in the time of Moses says Exodus 6) in a myth of ethnic origins. The developing Hebrews/Israelites (these may not be synonyms) integrated El, Elyon, Shaddai and the elohim into the cult of Yahweh. Some also added the deities of neighbours, such as Baal and the goddesses Asherah and Astarte. Their myths are recounted in Ugaritic cuneiform texts. Later official policy was that these deities, called 'Canaanite', were the enemy, though if the prophets are to be believed, ordinary people took no notice.
The Old Testament book of Deuteronomy, and the history books influenced by this fundamentalist reviser, was written with this holy war agenda, which approved even of genocide (Deuteronomy 20). Elijah's fight against the prophets of Baal, and the story of the conquest of Palestine became founding myths. Although there may have been a small start made in the reforms of kings Hezekiah and Josiah, before the 6th century BCE exile to Babylon, it is widely accepted by Biblical scholars that the great impetus behind the present form of the writings are the period of return from exile, when a new settlement had to be made, with new pressures of intermarriage and assimilation. Yahweh's religion as we now know it is rooted in this period, although drawing some continuity from the prophetic movement of the 8th to 6th centuries BCE. Indeed the texts of Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah and Jeremiah were finalised after the exile by the revisers who used them persuasively.

The name Yahweh should not be pronounced by Jews in case it is 'taken in vain' and the third commandment is broken. It is replaced with Adonai, 'Lord'. Hallelu-yah, 'praise Yahweh' should logically become Hallelu-Adonai. This 'ten commandment' list was created after the exile and was not early.

Missionaries to all continents, when translating the Bible to local languages, chose which local divine name to use for God, and which to exclude. In identifying these others with the devil (who they believed in) they actually enhanced the supposed power of these 'heathen' and 'evil' deities. The Biblical God also took on the local myths associated with the name for God chosen, leading to syncretism, or mixing of mythical ideas.
Today, we place ideas about God from many religions side by side trying not to confuse them. For me they have a metaphorical and symbolic function, seeking to express non-material aspirations, and are not to be taken literally.