Yahwism

Yahwism was the religion of ancient Israel, centered around a god named Yahweh.[1] Yahweh
was one of many gods and goddesses of the pantheon of gods of the Land of Canaan, the
southern portion of which would later come to be called the Land of Israel. Yahwism existed
parallel to Canaanite polytheism, and in turn it was the monolatristic, primitive predecessor
stage of modern-day Judaism, in its evolution into a monotheistic religion.

Despite the fact that modern Judaism and Yahwism are both based on the veneration of
Yahweh, there are clear distinctions between the two belief systems. Unlike the religions that
would descend from it, Yahwism was characterized by henotheism/monolatrism, which
recognized Yahweh as the national god of Israel,[2] but nevertheless did not explicitly deny the
existence of other gods of ancient Semitic religion, such as Baal, Asherah, and Astarte — though
this did not always allow their individual worship in conjunction to Yahweh.

The exact transition between what is now considered monolatristic Yahwism and monotheistic
Judaism is somewhat unclear, however it is evident that the event began with radical religious
amendments such as the testaments of Elijah and the reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah and they
had all been fulfilled by the end of the Babylonian captivity, when the recognition of Yahweh as
the sole god of the universe had finally secured a majority of the Jewish people (see Deutero-
Isaiah). Some scholars believe that monolatry was also encouraged by religious reforms of
David during the United Monarchy; however, the United Monarchy and the actions of David are
a subject of heavy debate among archaeologists and biblical scholars.[3]

Contents
Image on a pithos sherd found at Kuntillet Ajrud
History below the inscription "Yahweh and his Asherah".
Beliefs and practices
Pantheon
Worship
See also
References
Citations
Bibliography
External links

History
The centre of ancient Israel's religion through most of the monarchic period was the worship of a god named Yahweh, and for this reason the
religion of Israel is often referred to as Yahwism.[1] Yahweh, however, was not the original god of Israel; it is El, the head of the Canaanite
pantheon, whose name forms the basis of the name "Israel",[4] and none of the Old Testament patriarchs, the tribes of Israel, the Judges, or the
earliest monarchs, have a Yahwistic name (i.e., one incorporating the name of Yahweh).[5] It is unclear how, where, or why Yahweh appeared in
the Levant; even his name is a point of confusion.[6] The exact date of this occurrence is also ambiguous: the term Israel first enters historical
records in the 13th century BCE with the Merneptah Stele, and while the worship of Yahweh is circumstantially attested to as early as the 12th
century BCE,[7] there is no attestation or record of even Yahweh's name, let alone his origin or character, until more than five-hundred years
later, with the Mesha Stele (9th century BCE).[8]

Most historians see Israel emerging in the hill country of Palestine in the late Bronze/early Iron ages circa 1200 BCE (an arbitrary date with
which archaeologists mark the division between these two ages),[9] and many, while cautioning that the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament is not
necessarily a reliable guide, believe that the shared religion of Yahweh played a role in this emergence.[10] This early Israel was a society of rural
villages, but in time urban centers grew up and society became more structured and more complex, and in the 9th century BCE Israel was
founded as a kingdom with its capital at Samaria.[9]

After the 10th century BCE the tribes and chiefdoms of Iron Age I were replaced by ethnic nation states. In each kingdom, the king was also the
head of the national religion and thus the viceroy on Earth of the national god.[11] In Jerusalem this was reflected each year when the king
presided over a ceremony at which Yahweh was enthroned in the Holy Temple.[12] The Hebrew Bible gives the impression that the Jerusalem
Temple was always meant to be the central, or even sole, temple of Yahweh, but this was not the case.[13] The earliest known Israelite place of
worship is a 12th-century open-air altar in the hills of Samaria featuring a bronze bull reminiscent of Canaanite "Bull-El" (El in the form of a
bull), and the archaeological remains of further temples have been found at Dan on Israel's northern border and at Arad in the Negev and
Beersheba, both in the territory of Judah.[14] Shiloh, Bethel, Gilgal, Mizpah, Ramah, and Dan were also major sites for festivals, sacrifices, vow-
making, private rituals, and the adjudication of legal disputes.[15]
During an era of religious syncretism, it became accepted among the Israelite people to consider the Canaanite god El as the same as
Yahweh.[16] This is arguably the beginning of the end for Yahwism and the very beginnings of Judaism. Indeed, as this idea became prevalent in
the Jewish people's religion, El soon was thought to have always been the same deity as Yahweh, as evidenced by Exodus 6:2–3 (https://www.
mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0206.htm#2),[16]

The worship of Yahweh alone began at the earliest with prophet Elijah in the 9th century BCE, and at the latest with prophet Hosea in the 8th;
even then it remained the concern of a small party before gaining ascendancy in the exilic and early post-exilic period.[17] The early supporters
of this faction are widely regarded as being monolatrists rather than true monotheists,[18] as instead of believing that Yahweh was the only god
in existence, they instead believed that he was the only god the people of Israel should worship,[19] a noticeable departure from the traditional
beliefs of the Israelites, nonetheless. It was during the national crisis of the Babylonian Exile that the followers of Yahweh went a step further
and finally outright denied that the other deities aside from Yahweh even existed, thus marking the transition from monolatrism to true
monotheism, and from Yahwism to Judaism.[20] Certain scholars date the start of widespread monotheism to 8th century BCE, and view it as a
response to Neo-Assyrian aggression.[21][22][17]

Worship of Baal and Yahweh coexisted in the early period of Israel's history, but they were considered irreconcilable after the 9th century BCE,
following the efforts of King Ahab and his queen Jezebel to elevate Baal to the status of national god,[23] although the cult of Baal did continue
for some time.[24]

Beliefs and practices

Pantheon

There is a broad consensus among modern scholars that the religion of the Israelites prior to the
Babylonian exile was basically polytheistic, involving a plethora of gods and goddesses.[25] Heading the
pantheon was Yahweh, whose role as the supreme god of Israel is confirmed by such external evidence as
Remains of an altar built by
the preponderance of Yahwistic names on personal seals from the late 8th to the 6th centuries BCE.[26] Jeroboam in 931 BC, where
Alongside Yahweh was his consort Asherah,[27] although at the 5th century Jewish colony at Elephantine in Yahweh was worshiped in the form
Egypt, Yahweh's consort was seen as the Egyptian goddess Anat, and the goddess "Anat-Yahu" was of a bull statue
worshiped in the settlement's temple.[28] Various biblical passages indicate that statues of Asherah were
kept in Yahweh's temples in Jerusalem, Bethel, and Samaria.[29][30]

Below Yahweh and Asherah were second tier gods and goddesses such as Baal, Shamash and Yareah (these
two, found in the second level of the pantheon throughout the West Semitic world, are addressed directly in
Joshua 10:12), Mot the god of death (who appears in Hosea and Jeremiah as a deity who would punish
Judah for its sins on Yahweh's behalf), and the goddess Astarte, all of whom had their own priests and
prophets and numbered royalty among their devotees.[31] A goddess called the "Queen of Heaven" was also
worshiped: she was probably a fusion of Astarte and the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar,[29] although the
phrase is possibly a title of Asherah.[32]
A third tier was made up of specialist deities such as the god of
snakebite-cures - his name is unknown, as the biblical text identifies him only as Nehushtan, a pun based
on the shape of his representation and the metal of which it was made[33] - and below these again was a
fourth and final group of minor divine beings such as the mal'ak, the messengers of the higher gods, who in
later times became the angels of Christianity, Judaism and Islam.[34]

The idea that Yahweh alone should be worshiped began at the earliest with the 9th century prophet Elijah
and more probably with Hosea in the 8th; it remained the concern only of small groups opposed to the
mainstream except for a brief period when it was championed by King Josiah, but triumphed in the exilic
and early post-exilic periods.[17] The Holy of Holies in a ruined
temple at Tel Arad, with two incense
pillars and two stele, one to
Worship Yahweh, and one most likely to
Asherah. The temple was probably
The practices of Yahwism were largely characteristic of other Semitic religions of the time, including destroyed as a part of Josiah's
festivals, sacrifices, vow-making, private rituals, and the adjudication of legal disputes.[15] The center of reforms
Yahweh-worship lay in three great annual festivals coinciding with major events in rural life: Passover with
the birthing of lambs, Shavuot with the cereal harvest, and Sukkot with the fruit harvest.[35] They became
linked to events in the national mythos of Israel: Passover with the exodus from Egypt, Shavuot with the law-giving at Sinai, and Sukkot with
the wilderness wanderings.[13] The festivals thus celebrated Yahweh's salvation of Israel and Israel's status as his holy people, although the
earlier agricultural meaning was not entirely lost.[36]

Animal sacrifices played a big role in Yahwism and Judaism (prior to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE) on altars, with the
subsequent burning and the sprinkling of their blood, a practice described in the Bible as a daily Temple ritual for the Jewish people. Sacrifice
was presumably complemented by the singing or recital of psalms, but the details are scant.[37] The rituals detailed in Leviticus 1–16, with their
stress on purity and atonement, were actually followed only after the Babylonian exile and the Yahwism/Judaism transition. In reality, any
head of a family was able to offer sacrifice as occasion demanded.[38] Prayer itself played little role in practice.[39]

Yahwism was famously aniconic, meaning that Yahweh was not depicted by a statue or other image. Yahweh's throne on the mercy seat of the
Ark of the Covenant is described as two cherubim forming the seat and a box as a footstool, while the throne itself was empty. This is not to say
that Yahweh was not represented in some symbolic form, and early Israelite worship probably focused on standing stones.[40] No satisfactory
explanation of Israelite aniconism has been advanced, and a number of recent scholars have argued that Yahweh was in fact represented prior
to the reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah late in the monarchic period: to quote one recent study, "early aniconism, de facto or otherwise, is purely
a projection of the post-exilic imagination".[41]

In addition to the sacrificial priests, a great role in Yahwism, and still later Judaism, were played by prophets and epic heroes, reflected in the
modern Jewish texts by legends about Samson and Joshua. Worship was performed on literal high places, with the Jerusalem Temple sitting on
Mount Moriah/Mount Zion (hence, the Temple Mount), and the Samaritans' temple sitting on Mount Gerizim, although this may just be more
of a coincidence than an intentional practice. Talismans and the mysterious teraphim were also probably used. It is also possible Yahwism
employed ecstatic cultic rituals (compare the biblical tale of David dancing naked before the Ark of the Covenant) at times where they became
popular, and potentially, according to some scholars, even human sacrifice.[42]

Later amendments to Yahwistic practice are difficult to qualify, as there is an unclear scholarly consensus on what explicitly connotes Judaism
vs. Yahwism during the generally accepted "transition period" of the Babylonian captivity. According to Biblical scholar Yehezkel Kaufmann,
“The exile is the watershed. With the exile, the religion of Israel comes to an end and Judaism begins.”[43]

See also
Monotheism
Monolatry

References

Citations
1. Miller 2000, p. 1. 23. Smith 2002, p. 47.
2. Miller & Hayes 1986, pp. 110–112. 24. Smith 2002, p. 74.
3. Smith, Mark S. (2003). The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's 25. Sommer 2009, p. 145.
Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts. Oxford University 26. Niehr 1995, p. 54.
Press.
27. Niehr 1995, pp. 54-55.
4. Smith 2002, p. 32. 28. Day 2002, p. 143.
5. Moore & Kelle 2011, p. 127.
29. Ackerman 2003, p. 395.
6. Kaiser 2017, p. unpaginated.
30. Barker 2012, pp. 154–157.
7. Dever 2003b, p. 125. 31. Handy 1995, p. 39-40.
8. Miller 2000, p. 40.
32. Barker 2012, p. 41.
9. Moore & Kelle 2011, p. 113-114.
33. Handy 1995, p. 41.
10. Moore & Kelle 2011, p. 126-127. 34. Meier 1999, p. 45-46.
11. Miller 2000, p. 90. 35. Albertz 1994, p. 89.
12. Petersen 1998, p. 23.
36. Gorman 2000, p. 458.
13. Davies 2010, p. 112.
37. Davies & Rogerson 2005, pp. 158–65.
14. Dever 2003a, p. 388. 38. Davies & Rogerson 2005, pp. 151–52.
15. Bennett 2002, p. 83.
39. Cohen 1999, p. 302.
16. Smith 2001, pp. 141–142, 146–147.
40. Mettinger 2006, pp. 288–90.
17. Albertz 1994, p. 61. 41. MacDonald 2007, pp. 21, 26–27.
18. Eakin 1971, pp. 70 and 263.
42. Gnuse 1997, p. 118.
19. McKenzie 1990, p. 1287.
43. "Secrets of Noah's Ark – Transcript" (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/no
20. Betz 2000, p. 917. va/video/secrets-of-noahs-ark). Nova. PBS. 7 October 2015.
21. Levine 2005, pp. 411–27. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
22. Keel 2007, p. 1276.

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von Rad, Gerhard; Brueggemann, Walter (2001), "A History of
Jahwism" (https://books.google.com/books?id=oYmCofVU_1MC&
pg=PA1), Old Testament Theology: The Theology of Israel's
Historical Traditions, The Old Testament Library, 1, Louisville,
Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, pp. 1–102, ISBN 0-664-
22407-5
Vriezen, T. C.; van der Woude, Simon Adam (2005), Ancient
Israelite and Early Jewish Literature (https://books.google.com/boo
ks?id=VeOwyTae71cC&q=Ajrud+potsherd+Asherah&pg=PA18),
translated by Doyle, Brian, Leiden: Brill Publishers, ISBN 978-90-
04-12427-1.

External links
Amzallag, Nissim (August 2018). "Metallurgy, the Forgotten Dimension of Ancient Yahwism" (https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/2018/0
8/amz428015). The Bible and Interpretation. University of Arizona. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20200726101534/https://bibleinter
p.arizona.edu/articles/2018/08/amz428015) from the original on 26 July 2020. Retrieved 21 November 2020.
Brown, William, ed. (October 2017). "Early Judaism" (https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1139/early-judaism/). World History Encyclopedia.
Retrieved 21 November 2020.
Gaster, Theodor H. (26 November 2020). "Biblical Judaism (20th–4th century BCE)" (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Judaism/Biblical-Jud
aism-20th-4th-century-bce). Encyclopædia Britannica. Edinburgh: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 28 December 2020.

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