alt Hacker NewsIt describes it as a sectary offshoot relatively quickly corrected - while the historical evidence suggests that it was part of the main religion of these people for a long time. Note also that, while Baal became an adversary of Yahweh and/or a false god in later narratives, Asherah and El were ultimately identified with Yahweh - to the point that mentions of El in the Bible became identified as referring to the same being as Yahweh.
> archaeologist, taking off his glasses: well actually the physical evidence suggests the ancient Israelites worshiped multiple deities
> Jeremiah, weeping and sighing: yes I know
(That's a tweet that pops up from time to time when exchanges like this happen.)
> the historical evidence suggests that it was part of the main religion of these people for a long time
I mean...yes, this is thoroughly documented throughout all of Judges/Kings/Chronicles/etc. Elijah is the one who stands against 450 prophets of Baal, and when he feels totally alone later on, God tells him that 7,000 haven't bent the knee - big enough to be reassuring, but certainly not a huge percentage of the northern kingdom's population.