"Biblical texts from all historical periods
& in a variety of literary genres demonstrate
that in Yahwistic circles, that is,    among people
who worshiped Yahweh as the chief god,
God was always understood as the one who
alone created heaven, earth & all that is in them;
Yahweh, the Israelite god, had no rivals,
& in a world where nations claimed that their gods
were the supreme beings in the universe &
that all others were subject to them,
the Israelites' claim for the superiority of Yahweh
enabled them to imagine that no other nation
could rival her. Phrases such as 'Yahweh,
God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth'  
& related phrases for Yahweh as creator
&                                almighty master of the cosmos have parallels
in earlier Canaanite terminology
for the god El; In fact, the Israelites
did not create these
phrases but inherited them
from earlier Canaanite
civilizations; moreover,                  later editors of the Hebrew Bible
used them to serve their particular monotheistic
theology: their god is the supreme god,
& he alone created the universe."

     The canon of the Hebrew Bible
      was formed of diverse writings
composed by many men or women
over a long period of time,    under
many different circumstances, &
in the light of shifting patterns of
religious belief & practice.  Indeed,
the questions under investigation in
  this book concerning the end of an
individual's life, the nature of death,
   the possibility of divine judgment,
  and the resultant reward or punishment
  are simply too crucial to have attracted
  a single solution unanimously accepted
over the millennium of biblical composition."