the earliest gods worshipped in Canaan. The theory for Yahweh's origin with the most scholarly recognition is that nomads from the southeast of Canaan, called Kenites or Midianites in the Tanakh, brought Yahweh to the southern reaches of Canaan, where they mingled with the Canaanite tribes that would become the Israelites. This is supported by an Egyptian inscription from the 13th century BCE with the phrase "land of Shasu of yhw," representing the earliest known use of the name YHWH, and identifying YHWH as the god of the region associated with Edom. This would help to explain the lack of reference to Yahweh in the pre-Iron Age archaeological record of mainstream Canaanite sites, which are primarily found on the coast of what is now Lebanon and northern Israel. (e.g. Byblos, Baalbek) In this view, the Yahweh worship of the Israelites began as a result of cultural exchange or syncretic fusion between two distinct polytheistic cultures. ʼĒl is believed to have been the central and ruling divinity of the ancient Canaanite pantheon, as its creator deity. It is from the name of this particular Canaanite deity (אֵל) that the general Hebrew term for God evolved — אֱלֹ, pronounced "el." Because the proper personal name YHWH (called the Tetragrammaton in its written form) was considered too holy to speak aloud, titles like Adonai or Elohim, which was originally a general term for any deity descended from ʼĒl, were used instead. Additionally, this is where many names and phrases in the Hebrew Bible come from, including Ezekiel ("God will strengthen"), Samuel ("God heard"), and Israel ("who struggles with God"). During the very early stages of Yahwism, it is believed that Yahweh and ʼĒl were considered to be separate deities, (with ʼĒl possibly being considered the father of all other Canaanite deities) and that the general meaning of Elohim was lost as it became a title associated with Yahweh in particular. The Canaanites worshipped ʼĒl as their supreme deity, while at some point the Hebrews branched off and began prioritizing Yahweh. The Canaanites also worshipped deities mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (though often erroneously translated as general terms rather than the names of deities) and in contemporaneous apocryphal texts, such as Dagon, (whose temple Samson destroyed, according to the Book of Judges) Ba'al/Hadad, Moloch, and Asherah. Asherah was worshipped by numerous cultures in the ancient Near East, including Canaan, Ugarit, the Hittite Empire, Amurru,