May all the gods[pl.!] He does claim to be the patron of both Marduk and other national deities,[21]but he makes no mention at all of Zoroaster or of Ahura Mazda and attributes none of his military and political successes to the latter. In 539 BCE, Babylon fell to the Persians; the Babylonian exile ended and a number of the exiles, but by no means all and probably a minority, returned to Jerusalem. Sarna believed this struggle between monotheism and polytheism must have been fought out and decisively settled before the exile took place. READ: The Origin of World Religions (article) | Khan Academy capacity to bring an end to the distress of His own people and provide better leadership for them, even though that leadership could only be found via a non-Babylonian who was not a devotee of Marduk. sfn error: no target: CITEREFJacobs2007 (, sfn error: no target: CITEREFMendes-Flohr2005 (, "The Role of Archaeological and Literary Remains in Reconstructing Israel's History", "Problems and Possibilities: Perspectives on Postexilic Yahwism", Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series, "El the God of Israel-Israel the People of YHWH: On the Origins of Ancient Israelite Yahwism", "Tracking Observance of the Aniconic Tradition", "Yahweh's "Wife" and Belief in One God in the Old Testament", "The Divine Name Yahweh Alohim from an African Perspective", "Yahweh's Asherah, Inclusive Monotheism and the Question of Dating", "A Conversation with My Critics: Cultic Image or Aniconism in the First Temple? A more likely scenario is that the Hebrews, like every other culture in the ancient world, worshipped a variety of deities, with Yahweh in a place of particular importance and centrality. See also pp. Yahwism After the Exile: Perspectives on Israelite Religion in the [1] So Isaiah had indeed spoken of disaster but had also promised that the destruction of the people of God would not be total, for a remnant would be spared. According to modern archaeology, ancient Israelite culture developed as an outgrowth from the Semitic Canaanites. [38]Jeremiah uses the portrait of shepherding as a common description of the ruling nobility in his day, while a short time later, Ezekiel devotes a long oracle (34:1-35) against The Shepherds of Israel, clearly speaking about human rulers. More recently, Yonatan Adler has argued that in fact there is no surviving evidence to support the notion that the Torah was widely known, regarded as authoritative, and put into practice, any time prior to the middle of the 2nd century BCE. "Sure to provoke discussion and debate as it offers a unique approach to some old and perplexing issues in the history of ancient Israel and its religion, Cook's study is a bold new proposal for synthesizing the social history of Israel's religious traditions. [42]Claus Westermann,Isaiah 40-66, The Old Testament Library(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969), 161. The Social Roots of Biblical Yahwism, - Google Books The special relationship between Him and the Hebrews remained, as did the promise of a kingdom of peace, but the Hebrews now held that He was available to them wherever they went and no matter what happened to them. Lisbeth Fried has amplified and defended an earlier suggestion from Klaus Baltzer that this implies a transfer of the idea of messiahship from the dynasty of David to the foreign ruler who accomplished the purpose of YHWH although he himself was neither a Davidide nor even a Yahwist. The Prophetic Movement claimed that the Hebrews should worship Yahweh exclusively, and that Yahweh had a special relationship with the Hebrews that set Him apart as a God and them apart as a people. The prophets were hostile to both the political power structure and to deviation from the exclusive worship of Yahweh. The radical element of Jewish religion, as well as the Jewish legal system that arose from it, the Talmud, was the idea that all Jews were equal before God, rather than certain among them having a closer relationship to God. Up to this point, all religions held that there were many gods or spirits and that they had some kind of direct, concrete connections to specific areas. Judaism's view of idolatry Judaism had historically stood out from other religions in the ancient world because of its exclusive monotheism. In the second place, the great Cyrus of Persia, in a document recovered archaeologically and datable to his era in the sixth century BCE, never mentions one word about Ahura Mazda. [20] Judah, now called Yehud, was a Persian province, and the returnees, with their Persian connections in Babylon, were in control of it. [11]Cyrus H. Gordon,The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations(New York: Norton Library, 1962), 295. [27]But it seems clear that these previously ineffective teachings were among the prophetic messages that claimed the attention of religious professionals in Babylonia as they had been unable to do before the Exile. Pointedly, this linguistic failing produced by mixed marriage reminded Nehemiah of the great Solomon himself, whose foreign wives caused even him to sin (Neh. A Judean king, Josiah, oversaw the imposition of strict monotheism and the compilation of the first books of the Hebrew Bible, the Torah, in 621 BCE. This first great salvation epic about Egypt had been experienced by only a few, but the story had then been expanded to become the defining paradigm of the larger and much more diverse group that participated in the formation of a people. The collection of papers is unique in presenting a multidimensional treatment . J.E. As all three Jeremianic references indicate, it was YHWH Himself who brought about the destruction of Judah, not Nebuchadnezzar. Chapter five is the discussion phase of the meaning of the name Yahweh. We may assert that Judahism, the precursor of rabbinic Judaism, as areligionwas born out of the Exile and that it lived on to bless the world directly as well as through Christianity and Islam. Once the Torah was compiled as a single sacred text by the prophet Ezra, one of the official duties of the scholarly leaders of the Jewish community, the rabbis, was to carefully re-copy it, character by character, ensuring that it would stay the same no matter where the Jews went. Yahweh | Religion Wiki | Fandom In other words, the priests of Yahweh did not claim that he ruled over all people, everywhere, only that he was the correct God of the Hebrews and their land. yqtl-verbal forms are invariably found as names of divine ancestors, the minor deities of Ugarit. many gods exist, but we only worship one of them). Others, no doubt, accommodated the worship of Yahweh to that of Ba'al, and even began to confuse the two.3 That this moment occurred at the watershed of defeat and humiliation is its most remarkable feature. [9]Some scholars believe that a third reference is found in 1 Kings 8:12-13. The oldest manuscripts of the Masoretic tradition come from the 10th and 11th centuries CE, in the form of the Aleppo Codex of the later portions of the 10th century CE and the Leningrad Codex dated to 10081009 CE. [13][14][15], The various national gods were more or less equal, reflecting the fact that kingdoms themselves were more or less equal, and within each kingdom a divine couple, made up of the national god and his consort Yahweh and the goddess Asherah in Israel and Judah headed a pantheon of lesser gods. The presence and activity of such a group may also be argued from the results of its work, i.e., the creative process that appears to have produced what later became canonical literature. What to Know About OceanGate, the Company that Owns the Missing According to the standard prophetic view of sin and retribution, the failure of Judah to heed part A had led to the inevitability of punishment. [8]The Function of Exodus Motifs in Biblical Narrative, (Mellen Press, 2002), p. 10. First, the exodus story itself is cast in the literary format of a cosmic struggle between the deities of Egypt and the deity of the Hebrews who had been previously unknown (see Exodus 5.2). Both reason and history should have dictated that exiled Judahites settle down to life in a new land and learn to appreciate the grandeur and spiritual power of the god whose temple adorned the corner. Over time, this changed into true monotheism: the belief that there is only one god, and that all other gods are illusory. Thus there is important continuity between older materials and the exilic final form. But we still have not explained the howor the why of it all. Much of the Hebrew Bible was assembled, revised and edited by them in the 5th century BCE, including the Torah (the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), the historical works, and much of the prophetic and Wisdom literature. Judaism: Founder, Beliefs & Facts | HISTORY The actions of Cyrus surely buttressed this point of view, offering a political mechanism by which a second spiritual chance could be earned and a return to Judah made possible. John Bright states: It was inevitable that some Israelites should view the agrarian religion as a necessary part of the agrarian life and begin to propitiate the gods of fertility. This was an explicitlyJudahitetheological affirmation, as is clear when the preaching of Deutero-Isaiah is compared with the famous Cyrus cylinder[41]containing the Babylonian version of the decree of Cyrus to allow exiled Judahites (and exiles of other countries as well!) to return to their homeland. That the national paradigms of history and culture had been horribly shattered was undeniable. [4] The literary leaders among the exiles adopted a policy that included alternate points of view and competing explanations, ranging from diverse views of the order of creation to competing explanations about the call and commission to service of Moses himself. [32]The concept of the survival of one-tenth is also expressed in Isaiah 6:13. Here the preaching of Ezekiel and Second Isaiah also come to the forefront, joining in the articulation of a new theological paradigm, no longer based uncritically on the Exodus-Conquest model, but expanded to include a more universal scope as well as a more tightly argued doctrine of a God who did more than win merely for His own people. [17]Paganism and Biblical Judaism, 26. We also acknowledge previous National Science Foundation support under grant numbers 1246120, 1525057, and 1413739. [1] [2] [3] According to Jewish theology, idolatry is the ultimate betrayal of God's relationship with humanity. Download for offline reading, highlight, bookmark or take notes while you read Development of Yahwism in Israel's Religion. Buddhism and Daoism also accept the existence of multiple divine beings in various forms and incarnations. Yahweh A 4th-century BCE silver coin from the Persian province of Yehud Medinata, possibly representing Yahweh enthroned on a winged wheel [1] [2] Deities of the ancient Near East Ancient Egyptian Arabian Eblaite Elamite Hurrian Levantine ( Canaanite and Ugaritic) Mesopotamian Religions of the ancient Near East v t e [7] The text of the Hebrew Bible was redacted into its extant form in this period and possibly also canonized as well. In these writings, Yahweh had always been there as the exclusive god of the Hebrew people and had promised them a land of abundance and peace (i.e. But the emphasis is not left to the past. The Amoraim were the Jewish scholars of Late Antiquity who codified and commented upon the law and the biblical texts. The history of. [3] Many of the exiles began to acknowledge that YHWH was indeed sovereign over nations far beyond the borders of one tiny country, a view nurtured by the traditions of now famous prophets who had been involved in international affairs over centuries of time, from Elijah and Elisha down to Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. Accessibility StatementFor more information contact us atinfo@libretexts.org. History of study The school of religious history called the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule, a late 19th-century German school of thought, originated the systematic study of religion as a socio - cultural phenomenon. And the prophetic authorities who had promised hope and restoration were the very same prophets whom history had proven correct about doom. Dimensions of Yahwism in the Persian Period: Studies in the Religion But such ideas are easy to expound from the historical perspective of 20/20 hindsight. Some scholars have argued that there were multiple factors involved in the reasons why the exiled Judahites did not abandon Yahweh for Marduk, but the scaffolding for the multiplicity as it is normally defined is of such a patchwork character as to be unwieldy. [2] The pessimistic Jeremiah had penned a letter advising the exiles to settle down, purchase land and live normal lives as good citizens in Babylonia (Jeremiah 29:1-7). Louisiana State University Development of Yahwism in Israel's Religion - Ebook written by Fai Ebenezer. [19], In 586 BCE, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians, and the Judean elite the royal family, the priests, the scribes, and other members of the elite were taken to Babylon in captivity. [29]Gerhard von Rad,Studies in Deuteronomy(Chicago: H. Regnery, 1953) sees in the short note about the release of Jehoiachin from prison (2 Kings 25.27-30) a note of hope that he rather disparagingly calls quite undeuteronomic (p. 82). Many of the Hebrews regarded this disaster as proof of the corruption of the rich and powerful and the righteousness of the Prophetic Movement. December 2008 The era of the Judahite exile (587-539 BCE) marked cataclysmic changes in the fortunes of the inhabitants of Israel and Judah, changes that were both political and theological. Yahwism - Wikipedia 3 Verses Description Yahwism was the worship of the one true God ( Heb: Elohim or sometimes El), called Yahweh, in ancient Israel, in contrast to the pantheon of the surrounding nations of the day. 2 Pre-Deuteronomistic Yahwism Although witnessed by the Deuteronomistic texts only in vestiges, it is necessary to give a brief overview of the development predating and leading to Deuterono-mistic conceptions. The sacred writings compiled during these events were all in the mode of the new monotheism. [11][12] The two kingdoms shared Yahweh as the national god of their respective kingdom, for which reason their religion is commonly called Yahwism. This need not be viewed as acreatio ex nihilo, as I have argued elsewhere, but should be viewed as a recasting, or creative canonizing beamed to a defeated and dispirited people.[8], A major part of the creative process involved decisions about which literary treasures were so significant as to be deemed theologically and culturally essential to the life of the exiled community. [21], The Yahweh-alone party returned to Jerusalem after the Persian conquest of Babylon and became the ruling elite of Yehud. Here a single example can suffice. Later, this monolatristic belief cemented into a strict monotheistic belief and worship of Yahweh alone, with the rejection of the existence of all other gods, whether Canaanite or foreign. [13], Other neighbouring Canaanite kingdoms of the time each also had their own national god from the Canaanite pantheon of gods: Chemosh was the god of Moab, Milcom the god of the Ammonites, Qaus the god of the Edomites, and so on. Second, no effort was made to hide the contact of Moses with a Midianite priest from whom he learns much that bears ongoing theological, legal, and administrative significance for the developing Israelite people (see Exodus 18:13-27). [3]Here too we may note the argument by Ephraim Stern about the Philistines as an example of one people whose fate was far different from that of the Judahites: They were destroyed and exiled; they never returned From that point on, there were no more Philistines.BAR28:3 (2002), 39. [14]Brueggemann,Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy(Minneapolic: Fortress Press, 1997), 145, n1. Among the many "Yahwisms" coexisting . clusive Yahwism (in this respect like the religion of Akhenaten) in this environment. This is, so far as historians know, the first instance in world history in which the idea of a single all-powerful deity emerged among any people, anywhere (although some scholars consider Akhenatens attempted religious revolution in Egypt a quasi-monotheism). religion. The commitment to tradition was renewed, a commitment exemplified by three concerns expressed in the Book of Nehemiah. As law, judging and destroying; 2. as gospeli.e., in the David prophecy, which was constantly being fulfilledsaving and forgiving (p. 89). Without including a complete assessment of the literary features that testify to this renewed interest in the past, we may note at least one telling point. [6], From the 5th century BCE until 70 CE, Israelite religion developed into the various theological schools of Second Temple Judaism, besides Hellenistic Judaism in the diaspora. [31] Daniel Boyarin (2002) proposes a revised understanding of the interactions between nascent Christianity and nascent Rabbinic Judaism in Late Antiquity which views the two religions as intensely and complexly intertwined throughout this period. Although it has been argued that such creative literary activity occurred initially during the post-exilic period, the biblical view is that the work of Ezra depended upon some form of a text that had already achieved broad acceptance. We know from the biblical text itself that numerous literary works were considered important enough to cite, but not important enough to be deemed essential. The prophets were also responsible for enunciating the idea that Yahweh was the only god, in part in reaction to the demands of Assyria that all subjects acknowledge the Assyrian god Ashur as the supreme god. The Ascension of Yahweh: The Origins and Development of Israelite Israel) in return for their exclusive worship of Him. Development of Yahwism in Israel's Religion - Google Play SeeBDBsubevedfor references. In the whole of chapter eleven, there is no mention of double punishment that triggers the forgiveness of YHWH, merely the blind hope that some distant day, a new era of perfection in a second Garden of Eden would somehow arrive. See conveniently C. F. Kraft,IDB, 2, 203. I call this Israelite religion pagan Yahwism. But the contrasts extend further. [2] [33]Once part A had been verified, survivors in Babylonia would have discovered reason to hope that part B might be true as well. [3] Even the frightfully negative Amos had argued that after the people of God had been torn apart by YHWH as a lion ravages a defenseless sheep, a couple of shank bones or a piece of an ear (Amos 3:12) would be snatched away to safety. As we have seen, that few if any had believed this aspect of prophetic preaching before the defeat of Judah is not to be doubted, and perhaps only the reality of defeat and exile could have served as confirmation of the truth of what part A had emphasized. It was not Marduk of Babylon who beheld with pleasure his (i.e., Cyrus) good deeds and his upright mind (note 44:28), or who traveled at his side like a real friend (45:2a). November 15, 2022. The activities of Cyrus had begun at the pleasure of YHWH (note in 44:28), and the entire spectrum of his accomplishments had been the creation (note the three roots , , and in 45:7 andpassim) of YHWH the God of Israel, even though the Persian monarch remained ignorant of that fact. These reforms were complete when the Neo-Babylonians conquered Judah in 586 BCE and enslaved tens of thousands of the Hebrews. Media, Video and Lectures From The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies of the University of Arizona, Teaching the Bible in Public Schools and Higher Ed, Scholars, Frauds, the Media and the Public, Essays on Minimalism from Bible and Interpretation, Final Reports on the Yehoash Inscription and James Ossuary from the Israeli Antiquities Authority, Essays on the James Ossuary and the Temple Tablet from Bible and Interpretation, University of Arizona, Center for Judaic Studies, Department of Archaeology and Art History, University of Evansville. The early vision of Yahweh present in the Yahwist faith was of a powerful but not all-powerful being whose authority and power was focused on the Hebrew people and to the territory of the Hebrew kingdom only. They were the descendants of the original exiles, and had never lived in Judah; nevertheless, in the view of the authors of the Biblical literature, they, and not those who had remained in the land, were "Israel". [1]In short, had the Judahites exiled into Babylon reacted in a fashion consistent with their own theological paradigm, nothing would have remained except to acknowledge the superiority of Marduk, convert to the new deity, and have done with the old stories of YHWHs might and sustenance of His people. Logically, of course, this same line of reasoning should have dictated the conclusion that since YHWH had justlostthe last war, the time had come to transfer religious loyalty to Marduk, i.e., to turn away from YHWH, the God who had defeated Egypt, sustained in the desert, defeated the Canaanites and conquered the land, but who had now lost the ultimate battle against Marduk of Babylon. [19]Note that 1 Kings 7:14 identifies Hiram of Tyre as a half-Israelite. [39]The list includes Abraham, Isaac, Jacob/Israel, Caleb, David, Hezekiah, Zerubbabel, Eliakim, Ahia, Jonah, and Isaiah of Jerusalem. [20], This should not be taken to imply that nothing unique can be attributed to the people who constituted Israel and Judah. Long. These changes have created ample work for scholars of religious studies and related fields as virtually all disciplines have something to say about recent archaeological and scholarly developments concerning Yahwism and its early development. Likewise, as the exclusive worship of Yahweh grew in importance among the Jews (now sundered from the other Hebrews, who had been enslaved), the concept of Yahwehs omnipotence and omnipresence grew as well. DepartmentBldg Tucson, AZ 85721 TEL 520-621-6897 FAX 520-626-9014. [12][16][17], By the late 8th century, both Judah and Israel had become vassals of Assyria, bound by treaties of loyalty on one side and protection on the other. [23]Shaul Shaked, Qumran and Iran--Further Considerations,Israel Oriental Studies2 (1972), p. 443. Only YHWH had acted freely to create history as He desired, using Cyrus as His pawn. This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions. This international deity both blesses and manipulates foreign powers to punish His own people and then calls to obedience and forgives, once again manipulating a foreign power to makes restoration possible. This outlook was taken up by the Judahite landowning elite, who became extremely powerful in court circles in the next century when they placed the eight-year-old Josiah (reigned 641609 BC) on the throne. In other words, this too is a clear theological claim depicting a deity acting in a universal (or at least an international!) Likewise, the gods in most religions were largely indifferent to the actions of individuals so long as the proper prayers were recited and rituals performed. Some scholars have argued that there were multiple factors involved in the reasons why the exiled Judahites did not abandon Yahweh for Marduk, but the scaffolding for the multiplicity as it is normally defined is of such a patchwork character as to be unwieldy. [8] Adler explored the likelihhood that Judaism, as the widespread practice of Torah law by Jewish society at large, first emerged in Judea during the reign of the Hasmonean dynasty, centuries after the putative time of Ezra. To the contrary, in Scripture, not least of all in those texts that stem from the Persian period, it is clear that YHWH and YHWH alone is Creator of everything, both good and evil! , Part 2. June 19, 2023. the religion practiced in the 5th c. BCE Elephantine community and which is reflected in the so-called Elephantine documents represent a well-attested manifestation of lived Persian period. Traditionally it has been assumed that Yhwh did not This crisis eventually gave the impetus for the emergence of Judaism. Symbolically, Isaiah had given to one of his children the ominous name Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, swift is the booty, speedy is the prey (see Isaiah 8:1-4). The series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZAW) covers all areas of research into the Old Testament, focusing on the Hebrew Bible, its early and later forms in Ancient Judaism, as well as its branching into many neighboring cultures of the Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world. But the same prophet had also predicted that exile itself would be ended within 70 years (see Jeremiah 29:10) after which restoration would begin. It may surely be argued, in particular, that the firm traditions of the diverse origins of Israelites were maintained, with traditional yet originally separate narratives linking all or part of the group to Mesopotamia, Egypt, Midian, and Canaan itself. This graphic picture is thought by some scholars to be tied to the law of responsibility for a sheep left in ones possession, the presentation of scraps of the animal to its owner serving as proof that it had been destroyed by a wild beast rather than the custodian. [6]Thus we note that H. W. Wolff (Hermeneia) assigns the same text to the era of Josiah, while Anderson and Freedman (Anchor Bible) place it in the midst of the eighth-century career of Amos himself. See also Marc Brettler,How to Read the Bible(Philadelphia: JPS, 2005), 154. Starting in the latter half of the 20th century, some scholars have begun to argue that the historical picture is quite a bit more complicated than that.[29][30]. [26] Wellhausen believed that this narrative should be accepted as historical because it sounds plausible, noting: "The credibility of the narrative appears on the face of it. Chapter 11. Onlythe prophets had been proven correct by history, and thusonlythe prophets had earned enough respect to command the attention of people who had lost everything. Only literature considered important enough to function as normative for faith and praxis was copied from the classical Hebrew alphabet into the Aramaic script in which it could be read by a new generation and preserved. He was not capricious and cruel like the Mesopotamian gods, for instance, nor flighty and given to bickering like the Greek gods. The time span between Cyrus the Great and Alexander the Great was a theatre of shifts and changes. By the Cyrus cylinder we are told that [Marduk] pronounced the name of Ku-ra-a (Cyrus), king of Anshan, declared him to be(come) the ruler of all the world. According to Deutero-Isaiah, I YHWH am the One who calls your [Cyrus] name; I called you by your name, I gave you your title. [4]Nahum M. Sarna, Paganism and Biblical Judaism,Great Confrontations in Jewish History: The J. M. Goodstein Lecture Series on Judaica, 1975, edited by Stanley M. Wagner and Allen D. Breck (Denver: University of Denver, Department of History, 1977/5737), reprinted inStudies in Biblical Interpretation(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2000/5760), 17. History of ancient Israel and Judah - Wikipedia On the cylinder, Cyrus gives credit for his victory over the city of Babylon to the Babylonian deity Marduk, who, claimed Cyrus, was so angered at the misrule of Nabonidus, that He (Marduk) acted out of compassion for the oppressed, as well as because of the numerous ruined sanctuaries throughout the country. With Josiah's support, the "Yahweh-alone" movement launched a full-scale reform of worship, including a covenant (i.e., treaty) between Judah and Yahweh, replacing that between Judah and Assyria. Idolatry in Judaism - Wikipedia Israel rebelled and was destroyed c. 722BCE, and refugees from the former kingdom fled to Judah, bringing with them the tradition that Yahweh, already known in Judah, was not merely the most important of the gods, but the only god who should be served. Due largely to censoring and the burning of manuscripts in medieval Europe, the oldest existing manuscripts of various rabbinical works are quite late. [35]Lisbeth S. Fried, Cyrus the Messiah? keeping a kosher diet), and the duty of all Hebrew men to study the sacred books, all in order to preserve their identity. Repeatedly Second Isaiah argues that the true test of God is His ability to declare in advance the future that He alone can create. The Bible describes Yahweh as the one true God who delivered Israel from Egypt and gave the Ten Commandments, "Then God spoke all these words. In Exile, the story of the Exodus provided the pattern whereby a second great salvation epic, this one with overtones of a possible release from captivity in Babylonia, could be told.