- published: 18 Oct 2014
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ʾĒl (written aleph-lamed, e.g. Ugaritic: 𐎛𐎍, Phoenician: 𐤀𐤋, Classical Syriac: ܐܠ, Hebrew: אל, Arabic: إل or Arabic: إله, cognate to Akkadian: ilu) is a Northwest Semitic word meaning "deity".
In the Canaanite religion, or Levantine religion as a whole, Ēl or Il was the supreme god, the father of humankind and all creatures and the husband of the goddess Asherah as recorded in the clay tablets of Ugarit (modern Rās Shamrā - Arabic: رأس شمرا, Syria).
The noun ʾēl was found at the top of a list of gods as the Ancient of gods or the Father of all gods, in the ruins of the royal archive of the Ebla civilization, in the archaeological site of Tell Mardikh in Syria dated to 2300 BC. The bull was symbolic to Ēl and his son Ba'al Hadad, and they both wore bull horns on their headdress. He may have been a desert god at some point, as the myths say that he had two wives and built a sanctuary with them and his new children in the desert. Ēl had fathered many gods, but most important were Hadad, Yam, and Mot.
God is either the sole deity in monotheism or the monist deity in polytheism. God is most often conceived of as the supernatural creator and overseer of the universe. Theologians have ascribed a variety of attributes to the many different conceptions of God. The most common among these include omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence.
God has also been conceived as being incorporeal (immaterial), a personal being, the source of all moral obligation, and the "greatest conceivable existent". These attributes were all supported to varying degrees by the early Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologian philosophers, including Maimonides,Augustine of Hippo, and Al-Ghazali, respectively. Many notable medieval philosophers and modern philosophers have developed arguments for and against the existence of God.
God has many names, and different names are attached to different cultural ideas about who God is and what his aspects are. "I Am that I Am," written in Hebrew as "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh," is the name considered to be one God originally gave to himself. The name YHVH, also called the "Tetragrammaton," is an initialism of unknown components, used as a name for God. The names Yahweh and Jehovah, are used by some Christians as a vocalization of YHVH, but in Judaism it is common to refer to God by the titular names Elohim or Adonai (cf. Names of God in Judaism). In Arabic, the name Allah ("the God") is used, and because of the predominance of Islam among Arab speakers, the name "Allah" has connotations with Islamic faith and culture (cf. God in Islam). Muslims regard a multitude of titular names for God (cf. Names of God in Islam).
El Perro del Mar (literally "The Dog of the Sea" in Spanish) is a musical project that was founded in December 2003 in Gothenburg, Sweden. The sole member of El Perro del Mar, Sarah Assbring, initially started as an MP3/CD-R artist and released her first songs through Hybris Records. Her music could be described as melancholic lo-fi indie pop.
From 2004 to late 2005, her records had only been released by the Swedish label, Hybris, but in 2006, Sarah experienced a host of newfound success when her self-titled album El Perro del Mar was picked up by UK-based label, Memphis Industries, under which Dungen and The Go! Team also release. Prior to the self-titled album, Sarah had recorded and released Look! It's El Perro del Mar! and the EP You Gotta Give to Get, in Spring 2005 and November 2005 respectively.
In early 2007, El Perro del Mar ended her relationship with Scandinavian label Hybris and began a new relationship with The Concretes label Licking Fingers. Her second full-length album titled From the Valley to the Stars was released in Spring 2008.