Did Hebrew Old Testament develop out of Canaanite Polytheism?

[gnostic]

What other possibilities? All that can be is El being a mesopotamian deity, BUT BUT it does not follow the Mesopotamian mythology, it CLEARLY follows the Canaanite mythology to a T. And you know it.

Except you are forgetting that Mesopotamian myths have spread as far west as Egypt, and we know that the stories of Gilgamesh and the flood, were well known to the levant region, which included Canaan. Fragmentary tablets were found at Megiddo and Ugarit, dated mid-2nd millennium BCE, are evidences of Babylonian literature were available to Canaan.

So clearly, Canaan wasn't so isolated from the outside world, so you can't assume that the Iron Age Israel were unaware of Babylonian myths of creation or the Flood.

Editor's note: the above line should read "Canaan wasn't so isolated", so I made the changes in bold/red. Sorry, if I had confused anyone. This is what happened when I wrote my reply in bed at 2 in the morning.

 

[metis]

None of which argues against a southern, monotheistic sect of Hebrews asserting greater and greater influence on an Israelite federation.

Virtually nothing is provable in this area, so we take the few gimmes we have and try and deal with them. Various forms of polytheism appear to substantially predate the first developments of monotheism. Our various names for God found in Torah are from the Sumerian religion, which was polytheistic. The idolatry found with Abraham's father and the golden calf incident in Exodus seemingly indicates polytheistic tendencies early on.

Does this all prove that both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms were both polytheistic if we go back far enough? No. But if I were a betting man, that's where I'd place my bet.

 

[outhouse]

Except you are forgetting that Mesopotamian myths have spread as far west as Egypt, and we know that the stories of Gilgamesh and the flood, were well known to the levant region, which included Canaan. Fragmentary tablets were found at Megiddo and Ugarit, dated mid-2nd millennium BCE, are evidences of Babylonian literature were available to Canaan.

So clearly, Canaan was isolated from the outside world, so you can't assume that the Iron Age Israel were unaware of Babylonian myths of creation or the Flood.

We know when the Mesopotamian influences into the culture of Israelites after the exile.

We also see the Mesopotamian influence on the other cultures in the Levant, and they were widespread.


While we both have seen El going back thousands of years, and look where we have found that evidence. But what we do notice is the Mesopotamian influence on Canaanites as well as Egyptian influences.


In this thread so far we have nothing but BIAS and wish and want, and no evidence towards anything other then the Canaanite origins of Israelites.


The only reason they cannot explain away the Canaanite alphabet, pottery and deities, is because Israelites evolved from Canaanites.

50 years after the collapse of the Canaanite cultures, we have people slowly migrating to the highlands if Israel.


The only thing left here to debate, is what other Semitic people joined the vast majority of displaced Canaanites

 

[outhouse]

None of which argues against a southern, monotheistic sect of Hebrews asserting greater and greater influence on an Israelite federation.

Of which, there is ZERO evidence for.


And a mountain for the Canaanite origins. A mountain that has yet to be overturned.

 

[outhouse]

Virtually nothing is provable in this area, so we take the few gimmes we have and try and deal with them. Various forms of polytheism appear to substantially predate the first developments of monotheism. Our various names for God found in Torah are from the Sumerian religion, which was polytheistic. The idolatry found with Abraham's father and the golden calf incident in Exodus seemingly indicates polytheistic tendencies early on.

Does this all prove that both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms were both polytheistic if we go back far enough? No. But if I were a betting man, that's where I'd place my bet.

There are certain things that are proven.


With monotheism being born with the reforms of king Josiah, we see that this was a government decision who was a known Yahweh loyalist. As you stated, we have scripture that show people were not all on board to this reform.



I think something the biased people forget. Israelites were a multi cultural people for a very long time before we can even begin to define them as "A" people. They were widespread through the region, there was no "one culture" to be loyal to Yahweh. These early Israelites were wiped out and rebuilt so many times they really had no unity what so ever OTHER then being in the same geographic location that ended up being a place for Semitic people to settle.

Polytheism before 622 BC is not up for debate. The real question now is, how long while this monotheism was put in place by the powers that be, before it became orthodoxy within the culture itself.

That is a hard question to answer because of the diversity of Judaism due to how many different cultures made up Judaism.


Our best guess is that monotheism became well established between 200 and 400 BC as cultural identity to Judaism.

 

[outhouse]

For those who appose the Canaanite heritage.


Why don't you pick apart the video I posted and show the errors in Karen Armstrongs work??????????????????


Is because you cannot?



I have a found a few small errors, very few. But nothing that would change anything.

 

[Desert Snake]

For those who appose the Canaanite heritage.


Why don't you pick apart the video I posted and show the errors in Karen Armstrongs work??????????????????


Is because you cannot?



I have a found a few small errors, very few. But nothing that would change anything.

I'm not opposing history that is based on more stable evidence, but when we start discussing religion it isn't so simple, something can appear to be perfectly rational deity shift but upon further examination, doesn't make so much sense.
The term for God in the OT is a good example, if the 'title' god(that's how it's used) is completely prevalent and consistant in the entire bible, doesn't it make you wonder how it possibly could have been a proper name that then turned into a title?? Add to that, the 'title' and the 'name" are used for the same deity...see, it looks simple but it isn't...unless you're suggesting the entire language format for religious topics changed overnight???? or what?

 

[outhouse]

I'm not opposing history that is based on more stable evidence, but when we start discussing religion it isn't so simple, something can appear to be perfectly rational deity shift but upon further examination, doesn't make so much sense.
The term for God in the OT is a good example, if the 'title' god(that's how it's used) is completely prevalent and consistant in the entire bible, doesn't it make you wonder how it possibly could have been a proper name that then turned into a title?? Add to that, the 'title' and the 'name" are used for the same deity...see, it looks simple but it isn't...unless you're suggesting the entire language format for religious topics changed overnight???? or what?

It is simple.


You may not understand how the books were collected and compiled and redacted TO monotheism.


YOU would also have to forget that we have the Canaanite mythology that existed prior to Israelites existing, and we see exactly how that previous mythology evolved into the Israelites early text.

El is the father deity. Redacted in the bible as one god using Elohim in many places.

El was the father of Yahweh, and Asherah was Els wife long before some Israelites attributed Els wife to Yahweh.

Your ignoring this.

History of ancient Israel and Judah - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Israelite monotheism evolved gradually out of pre-existing beliefs and practices of the ancient world.[76] The religion of the Israelites of Iron Age I, like the Canaanite faith from which it evolved[77] and other ancient Near Eastern religions, was based on a cult of ancestors and worship of family gods (the "gods of the fathers").[78] Its major deities were not numerous – El, Asherah, and Yahweh, with Baal as a fourth god, and perhaps Shamash (the sun) in the early period

 

[outhouse]

I can't take your statements seriously when you include terms like 'not up for debate'...
I think you are not examining the arguments critically enough to be unbiased.

Do you have a problem with comprehension?


What makes you think you know more then a encyclopedia? because my opinion only mirrors what is common knowledge.


is that why you cannot refute Karen Armstrongs work? which also mirrors exactly what wiki states, and what William Dever states, and what every credible college teaches as common knowledge?

 

[Desert Snake]

Do you have a problem with comprehension?


What makes you think you know more then a encyclopedia? because my opinion only mirrors what is common knowledge.


is that why you cannot refute Karen Armstrongs work? which also mirrors exactly what wiki states, and what William Dever states, and what every credible college teaches as common knowledge?

Idk, you might have a problem with comprehension tho,
My point was that all throughout the Bible El is a title, it means "God or 'god', the same way we use it. It isn't a name dude. When other gods are referenced in Hebrew it's the same word.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Virtually nothing is provable in this area, so we take the few gimmes we have and try and deal with them. Various forms of polytheism appear to substantially predate the first developments of monotheism.

Therefore?

Our various names for God found in Torah are from the Sumerian religion, which was polytheistic.

Again, therefore? Furthermore, from Wikipedia …

Origens

Early worship of Yahweh likely originated in southern Canaan during the Late Bronze Age.[14] It is probable that Yahu or Yahweh was worshipped in southern Canaan (Edom, Moab, Midian) from the 14th century BCE, and that this cult was transmitted northwards due to the Kenites. This "Kenite hypothesis" was originally suggested by Cornelius Tiele in 1872 and remains the standard view among modern scholars.

In its classical form suggested by Tiele, the "Kenite hypothesis" assumes that Moses was a historical Midianite who brought the cult of Yahweh north to Israel. This idea is based on an old tradition (recorded in Judges 1:16, 4:11) that Moses' father-in-law was a Midianite priest of Yahweh, as it were preserving a memory of the Midianite origin of the god. According to Exodus 2, however, Moses was not a Midianite himself, but a Hebrew from the tribe of Levi. While the role of the Kenites in the transmission of the cult is widely accepted, the historical role of Moses finds less support in modern scholarship.

Egyptian Attestations

The earliest putative reference to Yahweh in the historical record occurs in a list of Bedouin tribes of the Transjordan made by Amenhotep III (c. 1391- BCE - 1353 BCE) in the temple of Amon at Soleb. Therein, the name Yhw is included in a passage referencing "the land of Š3sw-yhw," or "the land of Shasu-y/iw" The place name appears to be associated with Asiatic nomads in the 14th to 13th centuries BCE. In 1979, Michael Astour suggested that the hieroglyphic rendering of Yhw corresponded very well with what would be expected if the term signified Yahweh. A later mention from the era of Ramesses II (c. 1279 BCE – 1213 BCE) associates Yhw with Mount Seir. From this, it is generally supposed that this Yhw refers to a place in the area of Moab and Edom. Whether the god was named after the place, or the place named after the god, is undecided.

Donald B. Redford thinks it reasonable to conclude that the demonym 'Israel' recorded on the Merneptah Stele(1208 BCE) refers to a Shasu enclave, and that, since later Biblical tradition portrays Yahweh "coming forth from Se'ir" the Shasu, originally from Moab and northern Edom, went on to form one major element in the amalgam that was to constitute the "Israel" which later established the Kingdom of Israel. Rainey has a similar view in his analysis of the el-Amarna letters.

Semitic Attestations

The oldest West Semitic attestation of the name is the inscription of the victory stela erected by Mesha, king of Moab, in the 9th century BC. In this inscription, Yahweh is not presented as a Moabite deity, but as the National God of Israeli people. Mesha rather records how he defeated Israel, and plundered the temple of Yahweh, presenting the spoils to his own god, Chemosh. This is an alternate vision of the events described in 2 Kings 3.

The name Yahweh does not occur in Canaanite - that is to say Phoenician language, Ammonite language, Moabite language - texts and inscriptions. The only North-West Semitic evidence that can plausibly be linked to the Hebrew name 'Yahweh' are some male Amorite names with syllables -yaffwi or -yawi, which may resemble the -jah in Hebrew names such as Abijah. Friedrich Delitzsch Babel and the Bible (1903) was the first to make the proposal that Amorite names with -yawi indicated the existence of an Amorite Yawhi deity equivalent to Hebrew Yahweh. This was supported by Huffmon (1965). However modern scholars such as Toorn (1996) note that such names do not attest to the existence of worship of a Yaffwi. Yahweh or Yahu appears in many Hebrew Bible theophoric names, including Elijah itself, which translates to "my god (el) is Yahu", besides other names such as Isaiah (Yesha'yahu "Yahu saved"), Jesus (Yeshua "Yahweh's Salvation"), Ahaz (Yahu-haz "Yahu held"), and others found in the early Jewish Elephantine papyri.

Yw in the Baal Cycle

More recently, the damaged Ugaritic cuneiform text KTU 1.1:IV:14-15 is also included in the discussion:

From KTU II:IV:13-14

• tgr.il.bnh.tr [ ] wyn.lt[p]n il dp[id...] [J yp 'r] Sm bny yw 'ilt
  My son [shall not be called] by the name of Yw, o goddess, [Jfc ym smh (?)] [but Ym shall be his name!]
• wp'r $m ym
  So he proclaimed the name of Yammu.
• [rbt 'atrt (?)] t'nyn
  [Lady Athiratu (?)] answered,
• lzntn ['at np'rt (?)]
  "For our maintenance [you are the one who has been proclaimed (?)]

Many scholars[who?] consider yw a reference to Yahweh. Others[who?] consider that yw is unlikely to have be derived from yhw in the second millennium. However the Ugaritic text is read, the verbal play on the similarity between yw and ym (the sea-god Yam) is evident.

The idolatry found with Abraham's father and the golden calf incident in Exodus seemingly indicates polytheistic tendencies early on.

So you view these pericopes as significant but the numerous appeals to monotheism as redaction and embellishment. This strikes me as classic selection bias?

Does this all prove that both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms were both polytheistic if we go back far enough? No. But if I were a betting man, that's where I'd place my bet.

Roughly when do you think monolatry was replaced by monotheism? Under Josiah? Earlier? Later?

 

[metis]

Therefore?

Should be self-explanatory. If not, please re-ask it in terms of what you're looking for.

Again, therefore? Furthermore, from Wikipedia …

​

Which doesn't discount at all what I said, as I never stated nor implied that Sumeria was the only source of influence.

So you view these pericopes as significant but the numerous appeals to monotheism as redaction and embellishment. This strikes me as classic selection bias?

Actually not. My terms were cloaked in terms of "betting"-- not as absolutes. Secondly, my reference was in looking at this long-term going back into our history. (see below)

Roughly when do you think monolatry was replaced by monotheism? Under Josiah? Earlier? Later?

Too hard to say. One question I have long had was whether the development of monotheism with one of the Egyptian pharaohs set up a paradigm that might have encouraged that drift for us.

Sorry to be brief, but dinners on, and it's far more important than you are!

 

[outhouse]

Idk, you might have a problem with comprehension tho,
My point was that all throughout the Bible El is a title, it means "God or 'god', the same way we use it. It isn't a name dude. When other gods are referenced in Hebrew it's the same word.

And if you ever picked up a real history book on the subject you would see El is one of the longest standing deities to exist.

It is a name. And I already posted a credible source that stated just that.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Our various names for God found in Torah are from the Sumerian religion, which was polytheistic.

Which doesn't discount at all what I said, as I never stated nor implied that Sumeria was the only source of influence.

What is the Sumerian origin of the name yhwh?

 

[outhouse]

What is the Sumerian origin of the name yhwh?

When you can show yhwh was only worshipped by Israelites would your question be valid.

It is well known Egyptian and Mesopotamian influences shaped the Canaanite religions.

Canaanite religion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Canaanite religion was influenced by its peripheral position, intermediary between Egypt and Mesopotamia, whose religions had a growing impact upon Canaanite religion.

 

[metis]

What is the Sumerian origin of the name yhwh?

None as far as I'm aware of. I checked back with what I wrote and you quoted to I see what the problem is, and it was my fault. I wasn't intending to state that all the names we have for God came from ancient Sumer, but my wording certainly states as such. My error.

 

[Desert Snake]

It is a name. And I already posted a credible source that stated just that.

okay you clearly didn't understand my earlier comments. In Hebraic writing it isn't a name, it's a title, that's why the same word is used for other gods, like we say 'god thor, god zeus etc.
If anything the fact that it is a name in another pantheon might suggest the influence was in the other direction, but that isn't even important, the Hebraic writings use it as a title, if you think a proper name changed overnight into a title that's great, you can believe whatever you want.

p.s. that theory also means that various people in the bible were open polytheists.

 

[outhouse]

In Hebraic writing it isn't a name, it's a title,

It can be used both ways

History of ancient Israel and Judah - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Israelite monotheism evolved gradually out of pre-existing beliefs and practices of the ancient world.[76] The religion of the Israelites of Iron Age I, like the Canaanite faith from which it evolved[77] and other ancient Near Eastern religions, was based on a cult of ancestors and worship of family gods (the "gods of the fathers").[78] Its major deities were not numerous – El, Asherah, and Yahweh, with Baal as a fourth god, and perhaps Shamash (the sun) in the early period

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

None as far as I'm aware of. I checked back with what I wrote and you quoted to I see what the problem is, and it was my fault. I wasn't intending to state that all the names we have for God came from ancient Sumer, but my wording certainly states as such. My error.

Not a problem. Enjoy your dinner. We're off to see Così Fan Tutte. Until later …

L'Shalom.

 

[Desert Snake]

@outhouse
We can't just guess how terminology is being used in the Bible, if you want to try to figure out the intention/meaning of every reference to deity go for it, but don't expect everyone else to just go along with your and other theorists opinions.
later