I. Name
The conception of a god of heaven was developed in the Northwest Semitic religions of the 1st millennium bce, where a new type of supreme god, Baal shamem, arose. This god is first found in Phoenician inscriptions from the mid 10th c. bce onwards and taken over into the Aramaic and Judaeo-Israelite religion, where Yahweh was equated with the god of heaven.
II. Identity
In the Israelite-Jewish religion the explicit designation of Yahweh as ‘god of heaven’ occurs independently in the 5th century Elephantine pap…