[schuyler2d]

I'd answer a bit differently than replies so far. Later monotheist post "merging" of El and YHWH didn't really have space for El's son so they had to treat him as a lesser and then hostile God. Any worship for him was considered bad.

Otoh, just like "Easter" is an echo of an earlier holiday, it just so happens Canaanites, as I understand it, celebrated the end of the storm god's season in spring ... Very similarly to how Passover is observed. With a sacrificed lamb shank bone and some other aspects.

[empath75]

> Otoh, just like "Easter" is an echo of an earlier holiday

(This is commonly repeated, but there is very little evidence for this)

[schuyler2d]

Well the evidence is circumstantial. A bunch of Canaanites celebrate a spring festival with unleavened bread. Later they adopt a different religion that has a spring festival and an Exodus story with a new god called YHWH is glommed onto El.

I think it depends how "natural" one thinks the reason for unleavened bread is to Exodus. There's obviously plenty of mythical aspects to the story but the oldest are more focused on the river (Song of the Sea) and the battle. Why not combine rebirth/reinvention stories -- one a feast and another the beginning of "freedom"

But it's fair to say that most of Passover as a story and holiday is unrelated.

[deepsun]

Pretty much every culture had (has) social events for solstices and equinoxes. I'd rather find it harder to believe there was no such a holiday.