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The differences between the Masoretic and the Septuagint's version of Numbers, and several other books in the two collections of scriptures are both minor and startling, as the two sets of scriptures contain the same stories, but different Gods. The Masoretic Texts are mostly about the actions of Yahweh, Yahweh Elohim, Yahweh Sabaoth, or Elohim, while the Septuagint contains the Greek translations of various god's names that appear to have been redacted by the Hasmoneans. The God of the book of Numbers in the Septuagint is called Lord God or simplified to Lord, or God. These terms are mirrored in the Masoretic Texts by Yahweh Elohim, Yahweh, Elohim respectively. One explanation for the difference between the texts it the Christian redaction of the 3rd-century AD, when the name Yahweh was removed from the Septuagint, replaced by Lord. Fragments of older Septuagint manuscripts still exist that contain the name Yahweh, transliterated into Greek as Iaw, however, none of the fragments of the Book of Numbers include the name. The name Yahweh is found in a few fragments of Numbers found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, however, none that are believed to date back to before the Hasmonean dynasty.The Greek terms in Numbers are translations of known Canaanite gods, most especially, El, the Canaanite father-god. El translates in Canaanite, Aramaic, and Hebrew as 'God, ' and is the primary god worshiped in ancient Canaan in the era Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were reported to have passed through the area. El was also the patron-god of the Temple of El, built by Jacob near the modern city of Nablus in the Palestinian West Bank, which featured in many of the early Hebrew scriptures before Samaria was conquered by the Assyrian Empire. In the Book of Micah, the Temple of El was referred to as Jacob's Temple of El, which confirms that the Israelites in the 8th-century BC considered the Temple of El at Shiloh to be the Temple of El that Jacob built, in Genesis chapter 35.If the Greeks translated the Septuagint accurately, which everything other than the names of God indicates, then the term God would have been El in the texts they translated. Likewise, Lord God would have been Adon Elohim, the title of El, which translates as 'Father of the gods, ' and Lord would have either been Ba'al or Adon, both meaning variations of lord, master, or father. Adon Elohim was a Canaanite epithet for El, found in the Ugaritic Texts. One of the complaints the prophet Hosea made against the Israelites in the 700s BC, was that they kept calling God 'Ba'al, ' meaning the word should have been in the scriptures, yet, it was never applied to God in the Masoretic Texts. Likewise, El, the Hebrew word meaning 'God' is also missing in almost every place where God is mentioned, which is a seemingly impossible situation in a collection of books about God. The word El, meaning 'god, ' is used throughout the Septuagint, but generally in relation to other gods, or as a part of a name, such as Israel, or Beth-El, proving El was of primary importance throughout the early era of the Israelite religion, before they adopted Yahweh. There are a couple of exceptions in Numbers, where the word God in the Septuagint is mirrored by El in the Masoretic Texts, and in both cases appears to be a proper n
