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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, [41] although the cult of Baal did continue for some time. [42]
The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities in Ancient Israel [1] is a book on the history of ancient Israelite religion by Mark S. Smith, Skirball Professor of Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at New York University. The revised 2002 edition contains revisions to the original 1990 edition in light of intervening archaeological ...
The early supporters of this faction are widely regarded as being monolatrists rather than true monotheists; [88] [needs update] they did not believe Yahweh was the only god in existence, but instead believed that he was the only god which the people of Israel should worship. [89]
This revision was expressed in the Deuteronomistic history, the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings, which interpreted the Babylonian destruction as divinely-ordained punishment for the failure of Israel's kings to worship Yahweh to the exclusion of all other deities. [104]
The Mesha Stele bears the earliest known reference (840 BCE) to the Israelite god Yahweh. [16]Judaism, the oldest Abrahamic religion, is based on a strict, exclusive monotheism, [4] [17] finding its origins in the sole veneration of Yahweh, [4] [18] [19] [20] the predecessor to the Abrahamic conception of God.
Much of this evidence comes from the Bible itself, which records that many Israelites chose to worship foreign gods and idols rather than Yahweh. [16] [17] [original research?] During the 8th century BCE, the monotheistic worship of Yahweh in Israel was in competition with many other cults, described by the Yahwist faction collectively as Baals.
After the time of Solomon [63] and particularly after Jezebel's attempt to promote the worship of the Lord of Tyre Melqart, [62] however, the name became particularly associated with the Canaanite storm god BaĘżal Haddu and was gradually avoided as a title for Yahweh. [63] Several names that included it were rewritten as bosheth ("shame"). [64]
[56]: 3–4 Yahweh's war campaign in Canaan validates Israel's entitlement to the land [77]: 158–159 and provides a paradigm of how Israel was to live there: twelve tribes, with a designated leader, united by covenant in warfare and in worship of Yahweh alone at a single sanctuary, all in obedience to the commands of Moses as found in the ...