What god and goddess did Ahab and Jezebel worship?

A:Mark S. Smith (The Early History of God) says that Ahab was not quite the apostate from Yahwism that the biblical polemics of 1 Kings 16:30-33 and 2l:25-26 present, after all Ahab's sons, Ahaziah and Joram bear Yahwistic names, which means that Yahweh (biblical Heb: YHWH, now generally known as God) was an important god, and probably the most important god to Ahab.

Ahab would also have worshipped El (biblical Hebrew: 'Elohim), the West Semitic father of the gods. He also worshipped a Baal, but probably not the Baal of Tyre, as depicted in The Bible, but possibly the Baal of Carmel. Since Israel was a thoroughly polytheistic nation at the time, he would no doubt have worshipped other gods.

1 Kings 18:19 refers to the worship of Asherah, which in itself is not problematic since Asherah has a long history of worship in Israel. However, Smith regards 1 Kings 18:19 as a historically implausible reference to Asherah. He says that the polemic against Asherah may have represented a reaction against the cult of the goddess Astarte, with an inadvertent name substitution occurring in the written record. It is likely that Ahab worshipped both goddesses.

None of this should be at all surprising. Lang, cited in English by Keel and Uehlinger (Gods, Goddesses and Images of God in Ancient Israel), says "In the four and a half centuries during which there were one or two Israelite monarchies (ca. 1020-586 B.C.), there was a dominant, polytheistic religion that was indistinguishable from that of neighboring peoples. Insofar as there were differences between the Ammonite, Moabite, Edomite, Tyrian, etc. versions of religion, these beliefs stayed within the framework of Near Eastern polytheism, and each should be interpreted as a local variant of the same basic pattern. The Israelites . . . venerated their own protector god who was there to provide for health and family. But they venerated Yahweh [God] as well, the regional and national god, whose special domain dealt with war and peace issues. Finally, they worshiped gods who performed specific functions, those that were responsible for various special needs: weather, rain, women's fertility, etc."