canaanite polytheistic semite pagans came under the influence of indo-european persian zoroastrianism when cyrus the great conquered the levant. persians built a temple for them and made them pick a single one of their gods to worship, as a manifestation of ahura mazda. some wanted el and some wanted yahweh. the prophets describe this period of smashing the many old, lesser canaanite gods and conflict over which one of the two big ones would reign supreme. for persians, these lesser foreign gods were daeva-- evil. this is where the word devil comes from; this is where the abrahamic idea that other gods are demons come from. just like zoroastrianism, judaism isn't strictly monotheistic. you have other divine beings like angels (persian: fravashi) and a bad anti-god called satan (persian: ahriman). it's also where jews get ideas about messiahs and eschatology (the end of the world), and about holy taboos. they probably also learned their animosity towards egypt from them, too, since they were to serve as a buffer state between persia and egypt. like the rest of it, it was all fleshed-out and expanded into greek-styled history-myths after alexander and the jews got hellenized education.
United States