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The central element 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.
The Israelite religion was not exclusively monotheistic from the beginning as suggested in the Hebrew Bible, rather, the archaeological evidence indicates that, before the Babylonian exile in the 6th century BCE, the early Israelites were polytheistic (or, rather, henotheistic) and worshiped the local god Yahweh alongside his "wife," a ...
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 final verses, Deuteronomy 34:10–12, "never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses," make a claim for the authoritative Deuteronomistic view of theology and its insistence that the worship of Yahweh as the sole deity of Israel was the only permissible religion, having been sealed by the greatest of prophets. [11]
The region of Israel and Judah was sparsely populated during the time of Moses. As such many different areas worshipped different gods, due to social isolation. [94] It was not until later on in Israelite history that people started to worship Yahweh alone and fully convert to monotheistic values.
The core of the book lies in chapters 5, "Archaeological Evidence for Folk Religions in Ancient Israel", 6 "The Goddess Asherah and Her Cult", and 7 "Asherah, Women's Cults, and 'Official Yahwism '". These chapters describe polytheistic religion in ancient Israel, which, Dever points out, was the reality in the religious lives of most people.
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.
The general interpretation is the former; that Jethro, a non-Jew, recognized the true God in Yahweh, the God of Israel, and paid him homage. Proponents of the Kenite hypothesis, on the other hand, interpret the passage as the latter; that Jethro expresses to his proud joy that the God he and his people already worshipped, Yahweh, has proved ...