Quote:I have a hunch the entire God-feeling can be put down to volcanoes and, being a free thinking truth seeker, I want to see if the evidence points to this.
We have examples of volcano gods ( goddesses) like Pele in Hawaii. There also seems to be a volcano-god tradition in Korea and Indonesia. However, Japan has 100 volcanoes and no tradition of ascribing them to the gods so the connection is not a constant.
The Greeks were exposed to Stromboli ( which has been erupting more or less continually for 20,000 years ) and Etna on Sicily which is almost as active and near Greek colonies on Sicily or Magna Graecia in Southern Italy. But the Greeks and their Roman copyists merely decided that volcanoes were the "workshops" of Hephaestus/Vulcan and not 'gods' in their own right.
That Yah began as a Midianite volcano god is certainly possible because unlike Egypt or Canaan we know there was at least one volcano in an area which could be described as Midian. WE also have an actual Egyptian inscription from the Temple of Karnak.
Quote:An Egyptian inscription at Karnak from the time of Pharaoh Amenhotep III (1390-1352 B.C.E.) refers to the "Shasu of Yhw," evidence that this god was worshiped among some of the Shasu tribes at this time
That Yah existed on the southern borders of Canaan and was subsequently either adopted or moved with his people northward is plausible. However, your problem is the insistence on treating bible fairy tales as if they are real.
Yah(weh) made it into the Canaanite pantheon but it was a long time before he was promoted to a single, male, creator god.
