The Early History of God

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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 finds and studies.

The history of the emergence of

Canaanite gods from the very beginning of Israel's history. Smith and others believe that Israel and its religion emerged gradually from a West Semitic and Canaanite
background.

Summary

Smith says that Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in origin, and that deities such as El, Baal and Asherah, far from being alien to the Israelites, formed part of their heritage. He therefore sees Israelite monolatry (the insistence that Israel should worship one god, Yahweh, but without denying the reality of other gods) as a break with Israel's own past.

Yahweh, he argues, originated in Edom/Midian/Teman as a warrior-god and was subsequently assimilated into the highland pantheon headed by El and his consort, Asherah and populated by Baal and other deities.[2]

Smith sees this process as marked by two major phases, which he describes as "convergence" and "differentiation". In the period of the

storm god) were assimilated into Yahweh. In the period from the 9th century BC through to the Babylonian exile certain features of the Israelite religion were differentiated from the Yahweh cult, identified as Canaanite, and rejected: examples include Baal, child sacrifice, the asherah poles, worship of the sun and moon, and the cults of the "high places".[4]

See also

References

  1. ISBN 0-8028-3972-X
  2. ^ Mark S. Smith, 2nd edition of The Early History of Israel, p.32
  3. ^ Mark S. Smith, 2nd edition of The Early History of Israel, p.6-13
  4. ^ W. Lee Humphries, review of The Early History of God, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Spring, 1993), pp. 157–160.

External links

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