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I started Frank Moore Cross' Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic. I'll start with a quote from pages 42-43 (but I'll spell El as "El", since I don't know how to put the marks over the name, as Cross does):
"We see El as the figure of the divine father. El cannot be described as a sky god like Anu, a storm god like Enlil or Zeus, a chthonic god like Nergal, or a grain god like Dagon. The one image of El that seems to tie all of his myths together is the patriarch. Unlike the great gods who represent the powers behind the phenomena of nature, El is in the first instance a social god. He is the primordial father of gods and men, sometimes stern, often compassionate, always wise in judgment.
"While he has taken on royal prerogatives and epithet, he stands closer to the patriarchal judge over the council of gods. He is at once father and ruler of the family of gods, functions brought together in the human sphere only in those societies which are organized in tribal leagues or in kingdoms where kinship survives as an organizing power in the society. He is a tent-dweller in many of his myths. His tent on the mount of assembly in the far north is the place of cosmic decisions. There are myths of monumental carousals where he appears to live in a palace, hekal, and live like a king. Such uneven layers of tradition in oral poetry should not occasion surprise."
I have two points, which this quote inspires:
1. Cross asserts that El was god of a tribal society or a society in which kinship was significant, for El is depicted as a patriarch. On page 12, Cross states that "an Amorite moving from northern Mesopotamia to Canaan would have no difficulty in identifying Amorite Il with Canaanite El..." For Cross, El became the god of the migrant Amorites, who probably emphasized kinship (and Cross associates the patriarchal migrations with the migration of Amorites from Mesopotamia to Canaan, a view that Thomas Thompson and John Van Seters have sought to refute). On page 48, Cross talks about the decline of the El cult in north Syria no later than the fourteenth century, as the cult of Ba'l-Haddu became increasingly popular. Cross affirms that "The cult of B'al, it seems, was more supportive of the institution of kingship and of an agricultural as opposed to a cattle-keeping economy." Again, El appears to be the god of pastoral nomads. But El could still survive in the religion of urban Syria---as a transcendent high god.
2. Cross talks about the diversity of traditions about El. For example, some traditions depict him as living in a tent, like a nomadic patriarch, while other traditions present him as a king living in a palace. There is also diversity on El's role as a warrior. In Ugaritic myths, Baal and Anat go out to battle while El remains at home seducing goddesses. In the narrative of Sakkunyaton, however, El is a mighty warrior---but his battle relates to theogony, "the story of the old gods, the natural pairs like Heaven and Earth, which stand behind the pantheon" (page 40).
