None of the Canaanite tribes had any conception of YHWH. Canaanites were all ba'alists.
Canaanite tribes had diversity of Gods. You admitted that "El Shaddai, El Elyon, and El Berith are all generic references to God, as in common between the bible and the Ugarit texts."
Ugarits were a Canaanite tribe and also had a relationship with the Hebrews. These are also specific names of Gods in these cultures.
You continuously and deliberately overlook the evidence of the connection between Israel and YHWH stretching back to 1400BC. Israel spoke the same semitic language as the Canaanites because they came originally from Canaan so there were those similarities. Israel did not produce any polytheistic literature as in Ugarit. There is no evidence that Ba'al worship in Israel was other than temporary lapses.
I have never neglected the references of YHWH, but you are neglecting the fact of wide spread worship of the female Canaanite Goddess among Hebrews and references in the Bible, which is one of the inks between Canaanite polytheism culture and Hebrew cuture.
Moreover even your own theory that monotheism in Israel arose in the 7th & 6th centuries BC provides no explanation, because Babylon was not a monotheistic society. You're just shifting the issue down the road of history.
The argument Monotheism arose after the 7th and 6th is not dependent on Babylonia being a monotheistic society, though Zorastrianism is monotheism Ahura Mazda, believing in an evil opponent Aura Mainyu.
There is no credible evidence that the Israelites and the Canaanites were of the same culture. Canaanites did not have Egyptian names, and the Eqyptians treated the Israelites as unique amongst the nations from 1400BC.
There is a great deal of not only credible, but good evidence, when cultures have a common language they are culturally related. Archaeology showing common idols of a Goddess with the Canaanites and Hebrews. Canaan was called the 'Land of Canaan' or the Levant and is region semitic speaking region which includes all of Israel and Hills of Judah as described in the Bible. These represent much closer cultural ties than the Hebrews have with Egypt. Egypt considered all of the region as Canaan including the Hills Judah was considered Canaan.
From:
Canaan - Wikipedia
"During the 2nd millennium BC,
Ancient Egyptian texts use the term
Canaan to refer to an Egyptian-ruled colony, whose boundaries generally corroborate the definition of Canaan found in the
Hebrew Bible, bounded to the west by the Mediterranean Sea, to the north in the vicinity of
Hamath in Syria, to the east by the
Jordan Valley, and to the south by a line extended from the
Dead Sea to around
Gaza. Nevertheless, the Egyptian and
Hebrew uses of the term are not identical: the Egyptian texts also identify the coastal city of
Qadesh in north west Syria near Turkey as part of the "Land of Canaan", so that the Egyptian usage seems to refer to the entire
Levantine coast of the Mediterranean Sea, making it a synonym of another Egyptian term for this coastland, Retenu or rather
Retjenu."
Some common Egyptian names is not good evidence for any significance of the commonness of culture. Yes, there were Hebrew slaves in Egypt over the history of the relationship between Canaan and Israel.
Please note in terms of Hebrew polytheism the beliefs in the Queen of Heaven as cited in scripture.
From:
NOVA - Official Website | Ancient Worlds archeology-hebrew-bible.html
"One of the astonishing things is your discovery of Yahweh's connection to Asherah. Tell us about that.
In 1968, I discovered an inscription in a cemetery west of Hebron, in the hill country, at the site of Khirbet el-Qí´m, a Hebrew inscription of the 8th century B.C.E. It gives the name of the deceased, and it says "blessed may he be by Yahweh"—that's good biblical Hebrew—but it says "by Yahweh and his Asherah."
Asherah is the name of the old Canaanite Mother Goddess, the consort of El, the principal deity of the Canaanite pantheon. So why is a Hebrew inscription mentioning Yahweh in connection with the Canaanite Mother Goddess? Well, in popular religion they were a pair.
Dever says he nearly had a heart attack when he first read the inscription on this slab. It links the Israelite God, Yahweh, to the Canaanite Mother Goddess, Asherah.
EnlargePhoto credit: © WGBH Educational Foundation
The Israelite prophets and reformers denounce the Mother Goddess and all the other gods and goddesses of Canaan. But I think Asherah was widely venerated in ancient Israel. If you look at Second Kings 23, which describes the reforms of King Josiah in the late 7th century, he talks about purging the Temple of all the cult paraphernalia of Asherah. So the so-called folk religion even penetrated the Temple in Jerusalem.
Is there other evidence linking Asherah to Yahweh?
In the 1970s, Israeli archeologists digging in Kuntillet Ajrud in the Sinai found a little desert fort of the same period, and lo and behold, we have "Yahweh and Asherah" all over the place in the Hebrew inscriptions.
Are there any images of Asherah?
For a hundred years now we have known of little terracotta female figurines. They show a nude female; the sexual organs are not represented but the breasts are. They are found in tombs, they are found in households, they are found everywhere. There are thousands of them. They date all the way from the 10th century to the early 6th century."
This is not simply backsliding by some Hebrews, by the archaeological evidence it is dominant prior to ~600 BCE, and a distinct attribute of Canaanite culture.
They wanted to follow their original God and Goddess. Which they had a right to do, - which is why it is genocide when the YHVH people murder them over-and-over, for doing so.
