HEBREW RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT

Ever during King David’s time the ancient Hebrews were no more than a
second – rate political power, and after Solomon’s reign they were not even that.
Hence the Hebrews would not be worth more than passing consideration in this
book were it not for their achievements in a different area, that of religion. Today
Judaism, the religion of the Jews, is a coherent body of beliefs, customs, and
liturgical practices, all of which are founded in passages from the Jewish Bible.
The student of history, however, must recognize that Judaism did not spring
suddenly into place in one moment but was the product of a long process of
change transpiring between the time of Moses and that of the Maccabeus.

Four stages can be distinguished in the growth of the Hebrew religion. The
first known to scholars solely by inference, was that in which the Hebrews were
polytheist, like all other contemporary western Asian peoples. Then came the
stage of national monolatry, initiated by Moses around 1250 B.C, and lasting until
about 750 B.C. Monolatry means the exclusive worship of one God, without
denying that other Gods exist. Due to the influence of Moses, the people of Israel
adopted as their national duty a God whose name was written, “yh,wh” and was
probably pronounced as id spelled “Yahweh”. The Hebrews agreed to worship no
other Gods aside from Yahweh, for Moses insisted “Hear, o Israel, the Lord our
God is one Lord”.

During the time of national monolatry Yahweh was a rather peculiar figure.
He was conceived almost exclusively in anthropomorphic terms. He possessed a
physical body and the emotional qualities of men. He was capricious on occasions,
and somewhat irascible – as capable of evil and wrathful judgments as he was of
good. Sometimes he would punish someone who sinned unwittingly as readily as
one whose guilt was real.

By the way of illustration, Yahweh reportedly struck Uzza dead merely

because he placed his land on the Ark of the Covenant to steady it while it was
being transported to Jerusalem. Yahweh was not omnipotent, for his power was
limited to the territory occupied by the Hebrews. Nonetheless, some of the most
important Hebrew contributions to subsequent Western though were first
formulated during this time. It was during this period that the Hebrews came to
believe that God was not part of nature but entirely outside of it, and that
humans, while part of nature, became the rulers of nature by divine will. This
“transcendent” theology meant that God could gradually be understood in purely
intellectual or abstract terms, and that humanity could be regarded as having the
potential for altering nature as it pleased.

The Hebrews served and honored Yahweh during the period of monolatry
by subscribing to s combination of moral precepts, rituals, and tab us. Although it
is uncertain whether the exact form of the Ten Commandments, as they became
known from the 7th century B.C, onwards existed before the Babylonian Captivity,
there is little doubt that the Hebrews treasured some set of divine
commandments and that these included certain ethical principles such as
injunctions against killing, committing adultery, bearing false witness, and
“coveting anything that is thy neighbors “, in addition the Hebrews strictly
observed ritualistic prohibitions, such as refraining from labor on the seventh day
or boiling a kid in its mother’s milk. Although moral standards may have been
observed vigorously within the Hebrew community, however, they were not
always held to be applicable when dealing with outsiders. Thus even in regard to
murder the Hebrews were no more averse to slaughtering innocent civilians in
warfare than were the Assyrian.

When Joshua conquered territories in Canaan the children of Israel “took

for a pay into themselves all the spoil of the cities, ad every man they smote with
the sword… until they had destroyed then, neither left they any to breathe”.
Rather than having any doubts about such a brutal policy, the Israelites believed
it had been enjoined on them by their Lord himself – indeed that Yahweh had
inspired the Canaanites to offer resistance so that there would be reason to
slaughter them. “For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they shocked
come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly “.

In comparison to such dubious ethics and notions of divine justice, the idea
advanced during the third stage of Hebrew religious development can be deemed
revolutionary, in fact the stage is customarily called that of the phrofetic
revolution. The “ prophets “ who effected this revolution in religious thought
were men who lived at the time of the threat to Hebrew Nationhood coming from
Assyria, Babylonia and during the period of the exile in Babylon, that is from
roughly 750 to roughly 550 B.C. Although the word “prophet” has come to mean
some one who predicts the future, its original meaning, and the one that needs to
be understood hre is closer to “preacher” – more exactly some one who has an
urgent message to proclaim, in the belief that the message derives from divine
inspiration. The foremost Hebrew prophets were Amos and Hosea, who
“prophesied” in the kingdom of Israel shortly before. Its fall in 722 B.C, Isaiah and
Jeremiah, who prophesied in Judah before its fall 586 B.C and Ezekiel and the
second Isaiah, who prophesied “by the waters of Babylon “ initially warning of
imminent disaster to Israelites who worshiped and behaved improperly, and then
announcing the justice of God’s retribution, these men’s messages were
sufficiently similar to each other to warrant considering them as id they formed a
single coherent body of religious thought.

Three basic doctrines made up the core of the prophets’ teachings :

1. Through going monotheism – Yahweh is the ruler of the universe : he even

makes use of nations other than the Hebrews to accomplish his purposes ;
the God of others are false gods ;
2. Yahweh is exclusively a god of righteousness : He will only the good and
evil in the world comes from humanity, not from Him ;
3. Since Yahweh is righteous, he demands ethical behavior from his Israelite
children more than anything else : He cares less for ritual and sacrifice than
that His followers should “seek justice, relieve the oppressed, protect the
fatherless, and plead for the window”. Merged with the Canaanites and
practicing settled agriculture after the time of David, some Israelites had
reverted to offering sacrifices to Canaanite fertility gods in the hope that
such sacrifices would ensure rich harvests, while others who remained
thoroughly loyal to Yahweh dedicated themselves ever more to ritualism
as a demonstration of their loyalty. In fierce opposition to such practices,
the prophet Amos summed up the prophetic revolution and marked one of
the epoch – making moments in human cultural development.

The last stage in the shaping of Judaism took place during the four
centuries after the return of Jesus from Babylon ; thus it is called the post –
exilic stage. The major contribution of pot – exilic religious thinkers was a set
of eschatological doctrines, writings on “Last things “ or what will happen at
the end of time. Under the indirect and direct away of Persians and Greeks,
and during the years of the Maccabean revolt, Jewish thinkers in Palestine
began to wonder ever more about what role their small and politically weak
nation would play in the divine plan for the world and hence began to fix upon
messianic and millenarian expectations. In other words they came to believe
that God would soon send them a national savior or “messiah” (meaning
“anointed one” ), who would not only lift up the Jews to greatness but would
spread the worship of Yahweh to the entire world during a millennium of
peace and justice before the end of time.

The ancient Hebrews exerted perhaps the greatest influence of any ancient
peoples on the thought and life of the modern world, which is remarkable
given the fact that the Hebrews never had an empire of a widespread and
enduring civilization compared with the ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians,
Persians and others. The Hebrews never even had until quite late in their
history an organized state or organized church. Why? Their influence was
because of their Hebrew scriptures that form the Hebrew Bible or the Old
Testament of the Christian Bible. Their influence has been rendered from the
Jews’ belief in one God or Yahweh, who demanded righteous behavior from
his human creations. This belief is the basis of both Christianity and Islam in
later centuries. Probably one of the most controversial subjects by Jews and
Christians alike is the creation of humanity by God, and debate has raged
vociferously on this.

The Hebrew Bible is not as old as was commonly supposed for centuries.
Scholars now give 750 B.C.E. for the beginning date of the writings to the latest
from the second century B.C.E. to the first century C.E. Most of it was written
down in the seventh century B.C.E. during the Babylonian Captivity, when the
New Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar took many captured Jews to Babylon.
Originally it was thought that much was written in Moses’ day, circa the
thirteen century B.C.E., and that most of 4 the Psalms were ascribed to King
David, whose rule is thought to have begun circa 1000 B.C.E. However, a good
many of the Psalms refer to events of the Babylonian Captivity that occurred
some four hundred years later. This means that the biblical accounts of early
Hebrew History in many cases centuries removed from the events they
narrate. We do know that earlier written and oral sources were probably
available to these biblical writers, but are lost today. Most biblical scholars
assume the Biblical writers and redactors adopted and transformed earlier
cultures’ material and contemporary practices of their neighbors.

With the discovery in the 1940’s and 1950’s of the Dead Sea Scrolls in caves
about twenty-some miles from Jerusalem, it was hoped by scholars that more
original sources would become available to reconstruct the history of the
Hebrews.3 After decades of research and debate, it is now realized that half of
the scrolls were of Jewish literary sources, compiling fragments of about four
hundred manuscripts with some of the previously known. Onefourth of the
manuscripts that were in tattered condition were from the Hebrew Bible, and
made up only about two hundred of the manuscripts. The last one-fourth of
the pieces of manuscripts were sectarian in nature. No startling new biblical
discoveries were found. It was recognized by biblical scholars that the various
Jewish sects even as late as the time of Jesus Christ’s ministry, were arguing
and debating what the scriptures said and meant. For many Christians the Old
Testament is believed to be divinely inspired revelation, but scholar research
has yet to verify this.

The first stage of the ancient Hebrews’ religious development was

polytheistic as the patriarch of the three monotheistic religions, Abraham,
came from Ur in Ancient Mesopotamia, where the religious tenets were
definitely polytheistic. According to the Bible the Hebrews between 1900-
1500 B.C.E. migrated from Mesopotamia to Southern Syria or Palestine.
Experiencing famine in Palestine, the surviving Hebrews under Jacob,
Abraham’s grandson, migrated to Egypt, circa 1600 B.C.E. where there were
usually plenty of jobs and food, and in the Bible is the story of Joseph being
sold into slavery. Now the Hebrews began calling themselves Israelites, which
was Jacob’s alternative name after Jacob wrestled with the angel and received
the name Israel meaning soldier of God. These passages are in Genesis too.
Another version that has intrigued scholars is that this was the time when the
Hittites and Egyptians were fighting each other and the Jews became prisoners
of war and taken to Egypt.

Mosaic history under the patriarch Moses is perhaps some of the most
well- known stories from The Bible. Moses’ exact dates have not been
determined by scholars, but it is suggested they were circa 1400-1200 B.C.E. It
is thought by Christians and Jews today that Moses led his band of 7 followers
who were enslaved out of Egypt, an event known as the Exodus. For forty
years Moses and the Israelites wandered in the wilderness of the Sinai desert.
It is believed that under Moses’ leadership, the Israelites were forged into a
unified people. God’s name was now Yahweh and traditionally translated as
Jehovah. Archaeological and biblical scholars have searched extensively in the
Sinai Peninsula for artifacts dating from this time, but all that has been
recovered are Egyptian items. The plan was to move back to Canaan, and this
is when the second stage of the Hebrew’s religious developments occurred.
This is referred to as National Monolatry and spans the timeframe from circa
1250 to 750 B.C.E. Monolatry is a special type of monotheism which means the
exclusive worship of Yahweh, but without denying other gods exist. This is
when Moses received the Ten Commandments from Yahweh. The Israelites
agreed to worship no other gods for God had chosen the Hebrews to set an
example of righteous behavior for other nations. Many of the moral precepts,
rituals, and taboos as outlined in the Hebrew Bible come from this period.

It was impossible for these Jews to move in and settle down in Canaan for
the land was occupied by many other tribes, including the Canaanites or
Phoenicians, the Philistines and the Amorites. This necessitated the Jews
fighting their way in. According to the Bible, Joshua, who by now was the
leader replacing Moses, brought the walls of the city of Jericho tumbling 8
down almost immediately. However, archaeologists and others biblical
scholars believe that this probably was a two-hundred year process. Much
more evidence is becoming available for scholars to research this timeframe.
The topography of this region is very dry and the water source is
unpredictable, so for the Israelites as they moved into this area, they had to
grow their own crops, besides herd their animals. The indigenous people here
were worshipers of Baal and Astarte, and this influenced the Jews to at times
abandon their worship of Yahweh and accede to the religious views of
strangers. When matters were strained, the Jews elected when necessary a
wise man or judge to assist them in any predicament that they might
encounter. One of the famous judges according to the Bible was Deborah,
whose leadership in the fight against the Philistines is noted.

After the death of Solomon, the North rebelled and refused to pay taxes to
pay for the Temple when they were unable to benefit from it. This resulted in
the northerners seceding from the united Hebrew state and set up their own
kingdom of Israel with their capital at Samaria. The southern half was called
the Kingdom of Judah with the capital staying at Jerusalem. With this political
division came religious divisions. Israel managed to survive by paying tribute
for two centuries under Assyrian domination, but by 722 B.C.E. the Assyrians
conquered Israel and forced their flight into exile. This is where the eight tribes
were dislodged and have not resurfaced. Scholars now have artifactual
evidence of the Assyrians leading the Jews into exile. The Assyrian king
Sennacherib now was determined to attack and capture the southern kingdom
of Judah. First to fall after two sieges was the city of Lachish in 701 B.C.E. only
twenty miles from Jerusalem. Apparently Jerusalem was able to hold out for
up to one hundred years, for it was a well-fortified city.

As the Assyrians were attacking Jerusalem, they in turn were captured by

the New Babylonians under their king Nebuchadnezzar in 587 B.C.E. 11 Many
of the leading Jewish citizens were taken to Babylon, which is called the
Babylonian Captivity, where they lived for fifty years from 587-538 B.C.E. This
is when most biblical scholars think that the majority of the Hebrew Bible was
committed to manuscript form instead of oral transition.

Prophets kept Yahweh’s religion alive in the midst of the far older
Babylonian religious practices. This is called by scholars the third stage of the
Jews’ religious development or the Prophetic Revolution. It happened
concurrently with the political changes that were on going. The prophets such
as Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel gave freely of their advice to the
Jews and served as social critics as well as great poets. Their dates are usually
given as 750 B.C.E. to 550 B.C.E. thus it was during the Assyrian and then the
Babylonian attacks. While a prophet today means someone who predicts the
future, its meaning during the Prophetic Revolution was closer to preacher.
These prophets had an urgent message they avowed came from divine
inspiration. While there are many intriguing stories in the Bible, scholars have
delineated three basic doctrines that are the core principals of the prophets’
teachings: complete monotheism where Yahweh is the ruler of the universe
and other gods are false gods. Secondly, Yahweh is a God of righteousness and
goodness, who wants only good things to happen to his chosen people. He is
not responsible for evil, only humans are responsible for evil. Thirdly, Yahweh
demands ethical behavior 12 from his chosen children. He cares less for ritual
and sacrifice. Justice, relieving the oppressed, and protecting the orphans and
widows are now the most important goals.

During the Babylonian Captivity, the Persians under the King Cyrus the Great
conquered Babylon circa 538/9 B.C.E., and he allowed 40,000 Jews to return to
Palestine. Although many Jews stayed in Babylon, those who returned
established their rule semi-independently under the Persians. With Persian
monetary assistance they rebuilt the tenth century temple. In the centuries to
come Palestine was conquered first by the Greeks and later by the Romans.
 The Jewish Maccabean dynasty attempted to rule the Jews, but this only lasted
for about one hundred years. When the Roman General Pompey turned
Palestine into a Roman Protectorate, in 66 C.E. discontented Jews revolted,
and the famous epic battle at Masada, an ancient Roman fortress near the
Dead Sea, saw a prolonged Roman siege (72-3 C.E.) resulting in what is
thought to be mass suicide by the Jews in order to avoid capture. In 70 C.E. the
Roman Emperor Titus put down the Jewish uprising and razed their temple in
Jerusalem. It has never been rebuilt, and what remains of this second temple
is the western or wailing wall, a major pilgrimage site for 13 Jews around the
world. During these centuries when the Jews were first under the Persians,
and then other rulers, is when the fourth stage of the Jews’ religious
development occurred.

Plan

1. Hebrews political position during King David’s time

2. Religious stages of Hebrew

3. The effect of prophets in the revolution

4. Polytheism and monotheism