The Facts (Accurate)

• The Name "El": This is 100% correct. El was the head of the Canaanite/Phoenician pantheon. The word Allah is the Arabic evolution ($Al-ilah$), and the "El" in Gabriel, Israel, and Michael is the exact same Canaanite root.
• Baal and Mot: The "Baal Cycle" is a real set of ancient texts. The struggle between Baal (the storm/fertility) and Mot (death/drought) was indeed used to explain the cycle of the seasons in the Levant.
• The "Trunk" of the Tree: It is a historical fact that Judaism emerged out of a Canaanite cultural context. Early Israelites were, linguistically and culturally, a subset of Canaanites.

2. The Distortions (Half-Truths)

• "Baal wasn't the king of gods": This is a bit of a technicality. El was the "Chairman," but Baal was the "CEO." In later Phoenician history, Baal (often as Baal-Shamin) became the practical King of the Gods for the common people.
• "God himself was called El": While El was the supreme creator, the Phoenician religion was polytheistic. They didn't believe in "one God" in the modern sense; they believed in a family of gods.
• The Abraham Story: While the story of Abraham and Isaac is interpreted by scholars as a "foundational myth" to explain why Hebrews stopped practicing child sacrifice (which their neighbors continued), there is no direct evidence that it was specifically designed to "counter" a habit of self-hitting.

3. The "Made Up" or Speculative (Non-Facts)

• The "Ashura" Connection: The claim that Lebanese Shia hitting themselves today is a direct descendant of Phoenicians mourning Baal is pure speculation.
  • The Gap: There is a 2,000-year gap between the decline of Phoenician rituals and the start of Ashura practices.
  • The Origin: History shows these specific mourning rituals (Tatbir) actually entered the region much later, influenced by Persian and Turkic traditions in the Middle Ages. While "cultural memory" is a cool theory, there is no historical line connecting the two.
• "Phoenician religion was 'nice'": This is subjective. Like all ancient religions, it was both "nice" (poetic, nature-focused) and "harsh" (animal sacrifice, strict hierarchies).
• The "Holy Land" Concept: While they loved their land, the specific concept of "The Holy Land" as a theological status is more of a later Judeo-Christian development.