ORIGINS OF A MONOTHEISTIC WORLDVIEW AMONG THE ANCIENT ISRAELITES by Isa Hanswille A Senior Honors Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The University of Utah In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Honors Degree in Bachelor of Arts Approved: In The Department of Religious Studies Brandon Peterson Thesis Faculty Supervisor Maeera Shreiber Director, Religious Studies Program Honors Faculty Advisor Name Honors Faculty Advisor Sylvia D. Torti, PhD Dean, Honors College April 2015 Copyright 2015 All Rights Reserved
ABSTRACT The early Israelites, like all of their closest Ancient Near Eastern neighbors, began their journey as a people with the worship of a pantheon full of gods. However, as the books of the Hebrew Bible progress chronologically, a shift in thinking occurs toward an alternate worldview. Proscriptions against worshipping other deities and statements of Yahweh s preeminence, both foundations of monolatry, shift into expressions of his sole divinity and universalism as the one god of the entire creation. In an effort to potentially explain this trajectory of thought, this study suggests that one of the main reasons monotheism evolved in Israel was the existence of pressure and eventual conquest by the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires. Not only did the new monotheistic religion of the Israelites differentiate them from their powerful oppressors, it also provided them with the solace that they were a chosen people who covenanted with the one true god. Monotheism therefore was the result of a centuries-long process among a people who strove to elevate themselves in the face of hard times. Therefore, the research suggests that two events ushered in the specific monotheism that has come to be associated with the Hebrew Bible: the Assyrian conquest of 722 B.C.E. and the Babylonian Captivity that began in 587 B.C.E. ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii INTRODUCTION 1 THE DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS 4 WHERE DID THE ISRAELITES COME FROM? 7 BORROWED STORIES FROM ASSYRIA 12 AND BABYLON ANCIENT ISRAELITE CONCEPTS OF DIVINITY 18 YAHWEH AS SUPREME DEITY 23 MARGINALIZATION AND COVENANT: 25 A PRECEDENT FOR MONOLATRY ASSYRIAN DESTRUCTION OF THE NORTHERN 28 KINGDOM OF ISRAEL ISRAEL IN TRANSITION 30 SCRIPTURES ADVOCATING PURE MONOTHEISM 32 THE BABYLONIAN EXILE AND POST-EXILIC SCRIPTURE 34 CONCLUSIONS 36 BIBLIOGRAPHY 38 iii
INTRODUCTION This project began simply as a study aimed at comparing Hebrew biblical writings to ancient myths from the Near East. The first eleven chapters of Genesis alone hold many borrowed stories and cosmological ideas from Israel s neighbors: precedents for the creation account (Gen. 1-2:3), the creation of human beings (Gen. 2:3-7), the Garden of Eden (2:10-3:24), the flood (6:11-9:29), and the tower of Babel (11:1-10) can alone be found in ancient Assyrian and Babylonian texts. However, upon diving further into the literature on the subject, the similarities between these Near Eastern cultures could be explained in large part due to the proximity of the nations. Two portions of the Hebrew Bible, the Yahwist (J) and Elohist (E) sources, were composed between 922 and 722 B.C.E., when the Northern Kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians. Shortly thereafter, an editor compiled the two different sources into one document in Judah, the Southern Kingdom which remained untouched by Assyria. The Priestly source (P) was developed in Jerusalem not long after J and E were redacted, and the Deuteronomic source (D) took complete formation during the Babylonian Exile that began in 587 B.C.E. 1 Thus, during the time that the Hebrew Bible as we know it today was taking shape, Israel and Judah were under foreign influence from their Assyrian and Babylonian neighbors. This condition certainly can account for the ostensible similarities seen between the texts, similarities that will be explored in depth later in this analysis. The truth of the matter is that the Hebrew Bible and its scribes did not exist immune from the influences of the outside world. In fact, being surrounded by such powerful cultures, it would be nearly impossible for the biblical authors to not borrow ideas, conceptualizations and stories 1 Richard E. Friedman, The Bible with Sources Revealed: A New View into the Five Books of Moses (New York, New York: HarperOne, 2003), 3-6. 1
from their surroundings. This point can further be seen by a quick outlook on the world today. In the global economy that we live in, exchanges of people, ideas, and states of mind are commonplace. We also have seen a great move towards Westernization and Americanization a move that some cultures recognize and attempt to thwart in order to retain their cultural integrity. The widespread availability of technology has created a global economy in which this trade of ideologies and even ways of life are increasingly effortless, especially with the rise of social media platforms. Naturally, the civilizations of the Ancient Near East did not have these modern luxuries, nor could they impose their cultural ways on others in the same thorough manner that is possible today. Yet due to the relative proximity of the civilizations that controlled the area, cultural sharing was inevitable. According to Rosenbaum, Israel s location made it a magnet for spreading ideas. 2 Rosenbaum also notes that trade first arose in the area, at a rudimentary level, around 7,000 years ago. After this an evolution in trade occurred, with international trade between major players occurring between 3000 and 2000 B.C.E. 3 and donkeys being replaced by camels as caravan animals around 1100 B.C.E. 4 With such a long trading history in the area, we can see the close connections that these cultures had and thus the overwhelming influence that the major powers exerted on their smaller counterparts. Against this backdrop, one question that remains largely unanswered and has been the subject of much literature is that of biblical monotheism. Canaanites (people living in the same geographic area as early Israelites), Assyrians, Babylonians, and ancient Egyptians all were polytheistic people. Each had their own pantheon of gods, with many of the deities shared between the pantheons of multiple cultures under different names. A Judean pantheon even existed and is 2 Stanley Rosenbaum, Understanding Biblical Israel: A Reexamination of the Origins of Monotheism (Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 2002), 44. 3 Rosenbaum, 43. 4 Rosenbaum, 142. 2
evident within the Hebrew Bible, as suggested by Mark S. Smith. 5 This divine council imagery, the idea of a grouping of gods headed off by one supreme deity, was prevalent in the cosmologies of every one of the major Near Eastern civilizations at the time and can be seen in the Hebrew Bible as early on as in Genesis 1:26. With these similar ontological beginnings, why then did biblical monotheism emerge and develop only in Judean texts? 6 Why did the authors of the Hebrew Bible gradually shift from polytheistic beginnings when this religious viewpoint was in fact predominant at the time? The current survey attempts to address and answer these questions by looking at the historical developments in Israel and Judah in relation to two major Near Eastern powers of the time: Assyria and Babylonia. Both of these cultures were flourishing empires at one point or another in history and enacted thorough influence over the region of the Near East. The Hebrew Bible itself makes numerous mention of Assyria and Babylonia. This essay proposes that the reason why monotheism began developing only in Israel and Judah is because these people lived 5 See Mark S. Smith, The Memoirs of God: History, Memory, and the Experience of the Divine in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2004). 6 While monotheism was exclusive to Hebrews in pre-christian times, the example of Egypt should be noted. V. Nikiprowetsky states: From the beginning, the Egyptians recognized a great god, separate from all the others, and Egyptian wisdom literature seems to have come so close to the notion of one God that it is tempting at times to see it as a true precedent of monotheism. In reality, the Egyptian great god is not an only God, but rather a collection of all the gods the divine, or an abstract divinity, along the lines of the theos of the Greek philosophers. The real problem that the Egyptian religion poses with regard to monotheism is exemplified in the religion of Amarnia. Its religion of Aton, the solar disc, represents the result of a process that began with the reign of Tuthmosis IV and reached its pinnacle during the co-reign of Amenophis III and his son Akhenaten. This development was not without its political aspects: it represented an attempt by the Pharaoh to free himself from the tutelage of the all-powerful clergy of Thebes. On the religious level, it resulted in an abrupt split with the past under the reign of Akhenaten. The new religion was aniconic, just as Yahwism was to become in its maturity. It did not allow any figurative portrayal of the deity other than his symbol a solar disc from which light radiates, each ray of light ending with a human hand that holds the hieroglyph for 'life.' The god Aton was different from the Mesopotamian supreme gods who had absorbed the other deities through a henotheistic process. He was also not simply an ancient national god Seth, Horus, Amun, or Re under another name. His power extended to all nations and to the entire universe, and he would not tolerate any other deity. This jealous exclusivism is reminiscent of the personality of Yahweh. It is not certain that Akhenaten eliminated all the other gods of Egypt and in particular the god Re, and this doubt alone prevents us from affirming that the religion of Amarnia represents the first historical incarnation of monotheism. See V. Nikiprowetsky, Ethical Monotheism, Daedalus 104:2 (1975), 74. 3
in the shadow of other powerful empires for the entirety of their existence. Specifically, the two events which propelled and then solidified a unique Hebrew religious tradition were (1) the Assyrian conquest of the Northern Kingdom in 722 B.C.E. and (2) the Babylonian Captivity of the sixth century B.C.E. The new monotheistic religion was therefore the result of centuries of religious development on the part of a people influenced by foreign ruling powers. By forging this new theological identity within the constructs of the Ancient Near East, the Hebrews could set themselves apart from and elevate themselves over their oppressors. In essence, a major factor for the development of monotheism was the necessity of forming a unique cultural identity. In order to fully understand this cultural identity, it is first necessary to consider how the Hebrew Bible as we know it today was compiled during pre-christian times. THE DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS Prior to the academic formulation of the documentary hypothesis, the assumption was that the books of the Hebrew Bible were written as the events in them occurred. The one exception to this rule was that Moses wrote the Torah, Genesis through Deuteronomy, centuries after some of the events took place. Many believers still adhere to this tradition, but in the academic study of biblical literature too many discrepancies arise for this to be true. Therefore, in the late nineteenth century Julius Wellhausen, a noted biblical scholar, determined a new schematic for the origins of the biblical texts. In his magnum opus Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (1883) he proposed that instead of being written during the times of Moses, the books of the Torah were actually compiled later from the works of four separate authors. Scholars since his time have taken this idea and delved deeper into it: over the past 130 years, the hypothesis has evolved and stood up 4
against opposition, remaining strong and becoming a fundamental aspect of the study of biblical literature. The current belief among scholars is that the Torah was formed using four ancient sources which were later compiled and edited together to make what we now know as the first five books of Moses. The first source we will discuss is known as the J source which was brought together in southern Judah. This source is given the name J because it uses the name Yahweh (which is written Jahwe in German) in reference to God. J is the main source used to tell the most wellknown Bible stories such as the Garden of Eden, the great flood, and the tower of Babel. The J source is also a commentary on the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Jacob, and Joseph. 7 The second source that makes up the documentary hypothesis is known as the E source, compiled in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The E source derives its name from the use of Elohim instead of Yahweh in reference to deity. The source is not used until midway through the story of Abraham, perhaps demonstrating that the first part of the source is missing. In some ways E matches J in terms of content, but in other ways it differs. It also includes stories that are not present in the J source such as Abraham s sacrifice of his son Isaac. The E source is similar to the J source in recounting many of the same stories such as the lives and dealings of the patriarchs. 8 There are however inconsistencies with J such as in the story of Joseph in Genesis. Genesis 37:21-22, taken from the E source, tells of how Reuben saves Joseph from death. However, in Genesis 37:26-27, Judah is the one who saves Joseph. This demonstrates a clear distinction between the two sources, as Genesis 37:26-27 is a portion of the J source, written in the Southern Kingdom of Judah. 9 Depending on where the source was compiled slight differences exist between biblical stories 7 Friedman, 3. 8 Ibid., 4. 9 Ibid., see footnote, 94. 5
which show often conflicting worldviews. The J and E sources were first redacted when the Assyrian empire took control of Israel beginning in 722 B.C.E. The priestly source, known as P, differs stylistically from the previous two in terms of language and content. Found primarily in Exodus, Numbers, and Leviticus, P utilizes several distinct phrases. Gathered to his people, be fruitful and multiply and the word congregation occur in priestly writing eleven, twelve, and over one hundred times in the Torah, respectively. 10 Numerical inclusions were seemingly of much importance to the priestly source, as dates, ages, and measurements are not found in E, J, or D. P also limits contact with God to those holding the Aaronic priesthood. In this telling, only they have access to the Urim and Thummim and only proper sacrifice on their part can absolve the people of sins. The tabernacle figures predominantly into P s work, mentioned over two hundred times in the text and only three times in E. P s conception of God himself also differs from the other sources. Here, God functions primarily as divine justice, lacking the level of mercy apparent in the other sources. 11 The final source used in the creation of Torah is the D source, of which Deuteronomy primarily consists. D is small part of the Deuteronomic History (Dtr) which was compiled at the time of King Josiah in 622 B.C.E. (Dtr1) and during the exile in Babylon after 587 B.C.E. (Dtr2). 12 We know D is a later text again primarily from style and content. For example, in Deut. 6:5 Moses says love Yahweh, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. In 2 Kings 23:25, Josiah turned to Yahweh with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might. These are the only two places that this expression can be found in the Hebrew Bible. In Deuteronomy 17:8-10 Moses explains that if there is a tough judicial decision to make, one should 10 Ibid., 4, 9. 11 Ibid., 11-12. 12 Ibid., 5. 6
go up to the place that the Lord your God will choose to ask for counsel from Levitical priests and the judge. The only king known to do this in the Deuteronomic History is Josiah in 2 Kings 22:13. 13 Finally, these sources were organized and structured at an unspecified date into the books of Torah that exist today by a person (or persons) called the Redactor (R). WHERE DID THE ISRAELITES COME FROM? Looking back across the centuries, it is difficult to trace the exact heritage of the Israelite people. Therefore, many theories have arisen claiming to explain the origins of the group. Below is a discussion of each of the most prominent theories over the years and how they often fall short. Similarly, as modern scholars cannot know for certain who settled those Canaanite highlands over 3,000 years ago, the authors of the J and E sources of the Hebrew Bible could not either. Accordingly they relied upon stories of exodus from Egypt to explain their origins stories which set the very foundation of Israel within the greater narrative of a powerful nation. As such, even Israel s ontological story was written in relation to a major Near Eastern power. According to the biblical story, God told Abraham that he would be the father of many nations (Genesis 17:5), including Israel. This revelation is fulfilled through Abraham s grandson Jacob, whose name God changes to Israel in Genesis 35:10. Israel s sons and grandsons then constitute the Twelve Tribes of Israel and the whole family seventy souls all go into Egypt (Exodus 1:1-5). While there, the Israelite nation develops in both number and strength, and as a result of this the new Egyptian pharaoh begins to worry about his dominance. He therefore enslaves the entire population (Exodus 1:8-14). Biblical accounts state that the nation was enslaved for 400-13 Ibid., 24. 7
430 years when God sets them free through his prophet Moses (Genesis 15:13, Exodus 12:41, Exodus 14:5-31). However important this story may be to a faith tradition, it cannot be corroborated historically. 14 This noted, the Israelite nation did exist as a viable people around the time that the Exodus supposedly occurred. Israel came into existence as a people during the Late Bronze Age (1550-1200 B.C.E.) 15 according to evidence from the archaeological record. The most telling artifact demonstrating this fact is known as the Merneptah Stele from 1207 B.C.E. Merneptah was a pharaoh of Egypt between approximately 1213 and 1204 B.C.E. The stele mentions several peoples and city-states conquered during a campaign the Pharaoh waged in Canaan. Among them, Israel is a people Merneptah claims to have conquered. 16 According to the stele Israel seemingly was designated as only a fledgling group. While other conquered areas are specifically designated as city-states, Israel is the only one mentioned simply as a group of people. 17 A way to interpret this is by noticing that Canaan is described on the stele as a geographical area while Israel, in 1207 B.C.E. at least, was seen as an ethnic group. Therefore, since perhaps the most powerful man of the known world at the time, the Pharaoh of Egypt, acknowledged Israel specifically within the greater context of Canaan, Israel s close connection to Canaan is undeniable. 18 Who was this group that Merneptah referred to as Israel? Scholarship has traditionally rested upon three main models of how the area that would become Israel was populated. In the 14 Carol A. Redmount, Bitter Lives: Israel in and out of Egypt, in Michael D. Coogan ed., The Oxford History of the Biblical World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 77-79. 15 Hershel Shanks et al., The Rise of Ancient Israel (Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeological Society, 1992), 7. 16 Ibid., 53. 17 Lawrence E. Stager, Forging an Identity: The Emergence of Ancient Israel, in Michael D. Coogan ed., The Oxford History of the Biblical World (New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 124. 18 Jed Robinson, The God of the Patriarchs and the Ugaritic Texts: A Shared Religious and Cultural Identity, Studia Antiqua 8:1 (2010), 27. 8
modern scholarly study of biblical times these theories have generally fallen out of favor, but they provide an important springboard from which other theories have developed. The first is known as the conquest model and is presented within the Hebrew Bible. It has increasingly fallen out of disfavor due to an extreme lack of verifiable archaeological evidence. This model attempted to find proof in the archaeological record of how the Bible shows that God s chosen came by their Promised Land. In the books of Joshua and Judges, the traditional telling of the story relates the experience of a people escaped from Egyptian slavery who, after wandering the desert for forty years as penance for their idolatrous ways, are directed by God to conquest land belonging to the Canaanites. 19 This is the essence of the story, yet Joshua and Judges present conflicting accounts. Thus, according to most every eminent biblical scholar, including William 20, 21 Dever and Yair Hoffman, the conquest model cannot seriously be taken as historical fact. The second theory, called the peaceful infiltration model, was particularly espoused by a group in the mid-twentieth century under the tutelage of Albrecht Alt. This Altian school of thought posited that nomadic groups from the Transjordan area crossed the River Jordan and eventually settled in the central hill country of Palestine in a process known as sedentarization. Based on the lives of modern Bedouin tribes as an example for how the infiltration may have occurred, the model failed to take the reality of Bedouin life into account and the reasons why these people occasionally create settlements. Essentially, modern Bedouins only sedentarize out of absolute necessity, such as due to famine or political problems. As soon as they feel any threat to their well-being has disappeared, they will go back to their nomadic life as soon as possible. 22 19 Shanks et al., 5. 20 Ibid., 29. 21 Yair Hoffman, The Conquest of Canaan: 13th-12th Centuries BC, in Eli Barnavi ed., A Historical Atlas of the Jewish People: From the Time of the Patriarchs to the Present (New York, New York: Schocken Books, 1994), 8-9. 22 William Dever, Who Were the Ancient Israelites and Where Did They Come From? (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), 50-52. 9
Therefore, the peaceful infiltration model lies on shaky foundations when faced with an anthropological survey. Of course, this is only if compared to the habits of modern people while this makes sense in the aforementioned anthropological sense, historians and scholars naturally cannot know for certain whether the actions of a modern group would mimic those of an ancient one. Generally, however, this model lacks a very sound foundation. The third and final traditional model is the peasant revolt theory. Put forward by Norman Gottwald, this discusses the possibility that the Israelites were once a part of the indigenous Canaanite population who, unhappy with their social status, rose up and left Canaanite society for the surrounding hill country. 23, 24 This is perhaps the most controversial of these three traditional hypotheses mainly because it is the only one for which the archaeological evidence could corroborate the model, dependent upon which biblical archaeologist is consulted. According to William Dever, noted to be a biblical minimalist, this theory holds weight primarily because of the pottery record found in both the Israelite hill country and the Late Bronze Age Canaanite society in which the Israelites were likely situated. According to him, there is a continuum in the type of pottery product fashioned by the Late Bronze Age Canaanites and the Iron I Age Israelites this in his eyes demonstrates that the Israelites were indeed of Canaanite origin. 25 While Dever may not espouse the peasant revolt theory exactly as Gottwald hypothesized, he still maintains the idea of a continuum between Canaanite lowland society and the Israelite highlanders. However, one of Dever s most vocal opponents, Israel Finkelstein, tells a quite different story. According to him, this model is simply wrong, highly speculative, and has little real support from 23 See Norman K. Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250-1050 B.C.E. (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1979) 24 J.P.M. Walsh also espouses a modified version of this theory in his text The Mighty from Their Thrones: Power in the Biblical Tradition (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1987), 33-36. 25 Dever, 118-125. 10
archaeology. 26 However, Finkelstein can agree with the previous theory on one note: according to the archaeological record, the highlands were settled in waves of migrants. Therefore, the inhabitants were coming from somewhere. Although modern theorists and archaeologists cannot agree exactly where Israel came from, we at least know they migrated to the area during the Middle Bronze Age. Modern theorists have moved past the constructs determined by these theories into new territory. According to the work of several prominent biblical scholars, a single major Exodus as chronicled in the Bible likely is not a historical fact. However, the possibility of several small exoduses occurring over centuries and being redacted into one cohesive mass exodus within the texts of the Hebrew Bible is seemingly what happened. 27, 28 Therefore, in the case of the people known as Israel, it appears that this was an umbrella term for those inhabiting the highland country of Canaan. From its very beginnings Israel may have been a grouping of some lowland Canaanites, runaway slaves from Egypt, other biblical groups such as Amalekites and Midianites, and even the nomadic apiru, who were a nomadic group of people that did not really fit in anywhere. 29 The idea above is known as the mixed multitudes theory and has its basis in the other three classic theories of Israelite emergence. It can further be corroborated by the biblical account, which states that a mixed crowd also went up with [the Israelites] (Exodus 12:38, E source). According to Rosenbaum, again, [V]arious, even all, of the Exodus phenomena might be based upon real, if misremembered and conflated, historical events woven into a single story. 30 Thus, the idea that 26 Israel Finkelstein, Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed (New York, New York: Simon and Schuster Inc., 2002), 338. 27 Rosenbaum, 165. 28 Ann E. Killebrew, Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, and Early Israel, 1300-1100 B.C.E. (Atlanta, Georgia: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005), 152. 29 Ibid., 184. 30 Rosenbaum, 172. 11
the Israelite highlands, settled in waves as already established, were also settled by various groups of peoples over time may in fact be the key to early Israelite origins. Understanding where the people who would become the Israelites came from is very important in the context of understanding why an enduring form of monotheism arose in the midst of the Near Eastern desert over two thousand years ago. If the mixed multitudes theory is correct, this means that members of the Israelite highlands not only identified with different ethnic traditions, but differing religious constructs as well. Since polytheism was the dominant religious model of both the time and the area, it is safe to assume that these people worshipped multiple gods, yet most likely different pantheons of them as their backgrounds would suggest. Yet over time, the melting pot of the area achieved a sort of confluence in both ethnic and religious identity due to pressure from foreign powers, as demonstrated by the major vestige left behind by later generations: the Hebrew Bible. BORROWED STORIES FROM ASSYRIA AND BABYLON Assyria and Babylonia were situated in what is now modern-day Iraq. These empires saw heights of power between around 2000 B.C.E. and 500 B.C.E. Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, fell to the Babylonians in 612 B.C.E. and the Assyrian empire was subsequently lost to history shortly thereafter. Babylonia stuck around much longer. In 538 B.C.E. Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, dealt a major blow to the empire, ending Judah s exile. Even after this, the capital Babylon thrived until after being conquered by Alexander the Great in 331 and subsequently was not obsolete until 141 B.C.E. under the Persian Parthian Empire. 31 Of the surrounding influences that Israel had, Assyria and Babylon are perhaps the greatest, at least from a mythological 31 See, for example, Cyrus R. Gordon, The Ancient Near East (New York, New York: The Norton Library, Third Edition Revised, 1965) for an overview of the history of the area. 12
standpoint. Early biblical accounts from Genesis like the flood and the tower of Babel have remarkable precedents in Assyrian and Babylonian myth. While each empire had its own complete pantheon of gods, these cultures borrowed extensively from each other s mythological databases. For example, archaeologists have uncovered tablets from an Old Babylonian version of the Epic of Atrahasis dating from 1700 B.C.E. and versions of the same story in the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal from the mid-seventh century. 32 This story chronicles a brief description of the creation of humankind and then discusses a flood account very similar to what is found in Genesis. The account of the flood found in the Epic of Gilgamesh addresses the same story and perhaps forms the basis for the later Assyrian/Babylonian myth of Atrahasis as well as the biblical narrative. These instances of mythological borrowings from surrounding cultures alludes to these cultures powerful influence over Israel during its formative centuries. In order to fully appreciate the close connections to the account found in Genesis, let s take a look at the story of the flood found in Gilgamesh. This story originated in ancient Sumerian cuneiform texts dating at its earliest to 2150 B.C.E. 33 The epic was so pervasive in these early years that several versions exist, both Babylonian and Assyrian. The version described here, however, is Babylonian, as it is useful to note that slight differences exist between the two. Gilgamesh was the brave, arrogant, and powerful king of Uruk who, after becoming acquainted with the loss of his beloved friend Enkidu, wandered on a quest in search of immortality due to his fear of death. 34 He sought out a man named Utnapishtim who was said to have received 32 Stephanie Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others (Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2000), 3. 33 Ibid., 41. 34 Ibid., 104. 13
the secret of everlasting life from the gods. 35 It is this Utnapishtim figure who recounts the tale of the flood and his involvement in it to Gilgamesh. According to Utnapishtim, the warrior god Enlil had decided to flood the entire earth. Ea, one of the most powerful gods of both the Babylonian and Assyrian pantheons, commands him to build a boat on which he is to put the seed of all living things. 36 After giving a description of exactly how large the boat was to be and how it was constructed, Utnapishtim recounts that he loaded it with silver and gold, the seed, his family, wild and tame beasts, and many craftsmen. Once the rains come even the gods are frightened: Ishtar (mother goddess, goddess of love and sexuality) laments for her dying children and the Annunaki (judges of the underworld, children of the god Anu) weep with her. The tempest rages for six days and seven nights before the seas finally calm: however, by this point, all humankind has perished. The boat comes to rest on the tip of Mount Nimush and after seven days Utnapishtim releases a dove to find dry land. The dove returns with nothing, so he sends a swallow out. The swallow does the same. However, upon sending out a raven the third time, the bird does not return. Utnapishtim then burns offerings to the gods as a thank you for sparing his life. When Enlil discovers that Ea has intervened to save a portion of life on earth he is greatly angered. His goal was to wipe out every human. The other gods chastise him for this, saying that there were other methods of purifying the earth than flooding it and killing all. However, as the deed is already done, Utnapishtim and his wife are blessed with the eternal life of the gods for surviving the tempest as the gods did. 37 Similar events occur in the biblical account. While the Gilgamesh story apparently is a precedent for the narrative in Genesis, Noah s tale has been revisited and reworked by P and J. In 35 Ibid., 95-97. 36 Ibid., 110. 37 Ibid., 112-116. 14
Genesis 6-8, Yahweh tries to annihilate all of humankind, but sees that Noah is still a decent human being (6:11-13). Therefore he instructs Noah to build an ark according to specific measurements and guidelines (Gen 6:14-16). Noah is to fill it with his family, two of every beast, 38 and seed of every plant (6:18-21). And then, the rains come and the waters of the earth burst forth, flooding the globe for forty days and nights (7:11-17). After 150 days the waters abate and the ark comes to rest atop Mount Ararat (8:3-4). Noah waits another forty days before sending out a raven, which disappears. He then sends a dove which returns with nothing. Waiting another seven days, he sends the dove again and this time it returns with an olive branch (8:6-12). Noah now knows that he and his family can exit the ark and after waiting for more periods of time, he and his family and every living thing they brought along with them step out onto dry land. Noah prepares a burnt offering for Yahweh, who promises to never flood the earth again (8:20-22). Alexander Heidel, noted as one of the foremost scholars on the Epic of Gilgamesh and other Babylonian stories, describes several categories in which the epic compares and contrasts with the Genesis account. Focusing on similarities, the main ones exist within the framework of the story s main events. One of the first parallels seen is concerned with why the flood was sent in the first place. In Genesis, Yahweh finds that the human race has been corrupted by evil and cannot be saved, thus must be exterminated (Genesis 6:1-13). In essence, the people have displeased their god and creator. Gilgamesh, however, does not offer an explanation as to why the people were destroyed. Heidel therefore draws upon another ancient text, the Atrahasis Epic, to explain why the flood was 38 A few verses later in Genesis 7:2,3 God commands Noah to take seven pairs of each pure animal and one of the impure. The difference between 6:19 and 7:2,3 is that the former is P and the latter is J. Friedman (43) explains the difference in these terms: in J, Noah will offer sacrifices at the end of the flood, so he needs more than two of each animal or else his sacrifice would end a species. But in P, there are no sacrifices in the story until the establishment of the Tabernacle in Exodus 40, so two of each animal are sufficient. 15
sent. In this story, mortals become so noisy that Enlil 39 cannot sleep or rest. After sending many plagues, he finally decides to annihilate them all with the flood. 40 So, according to Heidel s interpretation, both stories end in the destruction of humanity due to a god s displeasure with them. In this account it is not only the main points of a story that show its thorough similarities. Even small things can demonstrate a clear external influence on the Genesis flood. For example, both Utnapishtim and Noah use doves and ravens to determine whether the waters have receded and new life has begun to spring forth. In both cases, although Noah sends it out first and Utnapishtim last, the raven is the bird that does not return. Compare the biblical account and that found in the Gilgamesh epic: At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made and sent out the raven; it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth (Gen 8:6-7) The raven went, and saw the waters receding, and it ate, preened, lifted its tail and did not turn round. (Tablet XI.iii) 41 Both these verses are oddly specific about the actions of the raven. Two important points can be gathered from these lines: (1) the raven takes full advantage of its newfound freedom and (2) the waters have receded by the time it is let out. Based upon the similarities explored above alone as well as the self-evident ones that arise by looking at the texts, we cannot say that the Israelites certainly drew upon this Babylonian myth. However, it is worthwhile to note that the oldest Babylonian version in existence dates to the early second millennium, with the story handed down through the generations as can be verified by 39 It is also interesting to note that both Enlil and Yahweh, senders of the flood, are considered warrior gods. See Dalley, 115, for a statement from the Epic of Gilgamesh concerning Enlil and Memoirs of God by Mark S. Smith, 93, for a treatment of Yahweh. 40 Alexander Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1949), 226. 41 Dalley, 114. 16
school tablets found inscribed with it dating to the eighth or seventh century B.C.E. 42 In contrast, the J and P sources which were redacted to create the account in Genesis date from between 922 and 722 B.C.E. for J and 715 and 687 B.C.E., the reign of King Hezekiah, for P. 43 Even if it is impossible to verify that the biblical authors did without a doubt draw upon this story from their ruling neighbors, we certainly can see that a precedent was set for this flood myth long before Israel even coalesced as a people and the school tablets show that the story was pervasive in the culture of their primary oppressors for centuries. Another traditionally biblical story has its origins in Babylonian myth. Tablet K 3657, found over one hundred years ago and still housed in the British Museum, contains a narrative of a great tower being built. The tablet is badly damaged and many lines end in lacunae. However, the text of column I lines 6 and 8 mention a mound where the people of Babylon mingle, and column II line 10 discusses a stronghold which the people were working on. Anu apparently is angered by this construction and entirely an end he made (II:11) to all the work they had done. On top of this, he gave a command to make strange their speech. 44 The same occurs in Genesis 11:4-9: the people build a tower to the heavens, God is angered by their sinfulness, and he therefore confuses their language. As these examples demonstrate, several stories and tropes from even more ancient sources find their way into the Torah. Since Assyria and Babylon were so predominant in the Ancient Near East at the time that these Hebrew Scriptures were compiled, it makes sense that some of their mythology and literature would find its way into the works of surrounding and often subordinate 42 Dalley, 45-46. 43 Friedman, 3, 21. 44 W. St. Chad Boscawen, trans. The Legend of the Tower of Babel, in Julian Hawthorne et al. eds., The World s Great Classics: Babylonian and Assyrian Literature and Armenian Literature (New York, New York: The Colonial Press, 1901), 232-234. 17
cultures. The Torah therefore remains an enduring testament of the mythology of these ruling nations that met their demise so long ago as well as the strength of the Hebrew cosmology to have remained a part of Western culture for millennia. ANCIENT ISRAELITE CONCEPTS OF DIVINITY The Hebrew Bible is filled with a plethora of evidence denoting that Israel was not always a monotheistic nation. Caught up in the monotheistic language of the text and the push for loyalty to Yahweh, it can be difficult to see an underlying recognition of and often allegiance to multiple gods in the Israelite pantheon. Just like the other cultures of the Ancient Near East in the millennia before Christ s birth, Israel at times worshipped more than one divinity. Based upon archaeological and textual evidence, a rough timeline of the shifting Israelite view of deity emerges. Prior to the time that J and E were writing, most inhabitants of Israel were practicing polytheists. Not until the time of J and E did monolatry the acceptance of the existence of many gods but the worship of only one take root, and this mixture of polytheistic and monolatrous belief held until post-exilic times in the sixth century before Christ. Only in these post-exilic times did monotheism finally begin flourishing amidst these two other belief systems. Here are just a few examples both from the Hebrew Bible and the archaeological record of these earlier polytheistic and monolatrous ideologies. Based on discoveries found in 1975 at Kuntillet, Ajrûd, Israelites were practicing polytheism at least into the 9 th or 8 th centuries the Assyrian conquest of the Northern Kingdom of Israel occurred during the late 8 th century. Kuntillet, Ajrûd was a shrine located in the Sinai wilderness and it bears upon it two curious inscriptions: I bless you by Yahweh of Samaria, and 18
by his Asherah, and Yahweh of Teman and his Asherah. 45 Asherah is a complicated figure. She is a goddess most closely associated with Yahweh but known for origins in Assyrian, Babylonian, and Canaanite myth. She is synonymous with perhaps a more famous goddess, Ishtar, the Assyrian goddess of love. Also, asherah (lowercase) were wooden poles that were symbolic of living trees and the goddess and were used frequently by ancient Israelites in cultic ritual. 46 Whatever the complications may be surrounding this figure, one point is clear within the literature: Asherah comes up time and time again in both the archaeological record and in the Hebrew Bible itself. That she was a pervasive element in pre-exilic Israel and Judah cannot be denied. According to William Dever, recent archaeological discoveries provide both texts and pictorial representations that for the first time clearly identify Asherah as the consort of Yahweh, at least in some circles in ancient Israel. 47 This knowledge we have of the goddess Asherah is a part of what demonstrates that at least three tiers of divinity existed in Israel. This is known as a divine council, and this sort of imagery can be found throughout the Hebrew Bible and was a popular representation of deity in the Ancient Near Eastern world. It consisted of a primary tier defined by a head god and often his consort, a secondary tier of divine children, a tertiary with helper gods, and a final tier consisting of angels, servants and workers. 48 The third level is often ill-defined and difficult to ascribe deities to, but exists in the religion of Ugarit (a principal Canaanite city-state) and in the late Deuteronomic conception of satan (Job 1-2). 49 45 Robert Gnuse, The Emergence of Monotheism in Ancient Israel: A Survey of Recent Scholarship, Religion 29.4 (1999), 317. 46 Judith Hadley, The Cult of Asherah in Ancient Israel and Judah: Evidence for a Hebrew Goddess (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 4-11 47 William Dever, Asherah, Consort of Yahweh? New Evidence From Kuntillet Ajrûd, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 255 (1984), 21. 48 Smith, Memoirs, 101-102. 49 Ibid., 115. 19
According to Mark S. Smith and Jed Robinson, in pre-monarchic ancient Israel the head god of the pantheon was not Yahweh, but instead the god El. Based on the texts found at Ugarit (modern day Ras Shamra), El was the supreme deity of the Bronze Age Canaanite pantheon. 50 He ruled presumably with Asherah, leading his council composed of gods such as Baal, Shahar, Shalim, and Yahweh, who was considered an outsider god of a different neighboring people. 51 Yahweh is mentioned consistently throughout the Hebrew Bible as the God, but several scriptural references give away his foreign origins. Baal, Shahar, and Shalim are also mentioned in the text, perhaps alluding to their early positions within an Israelite pantheon despite a later demotion as monolatry and then monotheism started gaining traction. The Hebrew Bible itself suggests where Yahweh originally came from, with Judges 5:4 stating that he went out from Seir and marched from the region of Edom. In this and other verses, Edom is a general southern area with Seir (or Midian, Teiman, or Paran) alternately being used to denote this area. That Yahweh is not of Israelite origin and that he somehow gradually became Israel s supreme deity can perhaps be illustrated by the following scriptural examples. Jacob, who later becomes Israel, the father of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, is instructed by God to make an altar. In Genesis 35:7, we find out that he names the place of the altar El of Bethel. Even more telling is the name of another altar that Jacob constructs in Genesis 33:20: El, God of Israel. Furthermore, many personal names throughout the text prior to the revelation at Sinai use El as their base: Eldaah (Gen 25:4), Eliphaz (Gen. 36:4), Eleazar (Ex. 6:25). Even after this, El is still a prominent component of the culture, evident in such names as Elijah (1 Kings 17:10) and Elisha (1 Kings 19:16) who supposedly lived during the reign of King Ahab in the Northern Kingdom. Perhaps most simple and telling is what Mark S. Smith notes: the name El in the word Israel 50 Robinson, 26. 51 Smith, Memoirs, 105. 20
suggests that it was this god and not Yahweh who was the original head of the divine household in Israel s earliest pantheon. 52 The separation of the god El from the god Yahweh is not the story that the E source tells. E structures his narrative around the assumption that God is known by the names El and Elohim until he speaks to Moses through the burning bush in Exodus 3:13-16. Here, God reveals his name as being Yahweh (Exodus 3:15). Thus according to E s interpretation, El and Elohim were simply the generic names for deity that were used prior to the revelation of his proper name. Despite this, peppering the term El throughout the source may be indicative of an older tradition that E would have historically been a part. To him, the word may have just been a general way to discuss deity, but El was a proper name for deity in Canaanite lore and could have filtered through to Israelite belief systems prior to when E was writing. 53 In keeping with Mark S. Smith s interpretation, El and Yahweh were separate deities and at their earliest cultural naissance Israelites worshipped El. Naturally this is just one interpretation out of many and cannot be taken as strict fact, but does indeed pose an interesting theory of early Israelite conceptions of deity. Exodus 22:20 reads whoever sacrifices to any god, other than the Lord alone, shall be devoted to destruction (E source). Injunctions like this can be found throughout the Torah as well as in the later books of the prophets. What this indicates is that although Israel had a historically imposed monolatrous creed set upon them by the authors of the E source (written between 922 and 722 B.C.E.), their worldview consisted of a cosmology containing many gods. Rollston seconds this position by saying the fact of the matter is that the constellation of biblical and Old Hebrew epigraphic evidence (i.e., Iron Age Hebrew inscriptions) converges to demonstrate that 52 Ibid., 106. 53 Ibid., 101. 21
monotheism was actually not a characteristic feature of Israelite religion during the first few centuries. 54 To further this same sentiment, in both Exodus 20:3 and Deuteronomy 5:7, Yahweh is cited as giving the commandment, you shall have no other gods before me. Added by the Redactor and DTR1 55, respectively, this simple verse makes the reader ask several important questions. Why would Yahweh, from the point of view of the authors, need to even mention such a thing unless other gods existed in the minds of his people? Furthermore, why would they include the idea that Yahweh is not the only god in the Israelite cosmology? Would it not be easier to simply eradicate that notion altogether? This verse holds more meaning than immediately meets the eye. In order to answer the above questions, it is necessary to consider the idea of monolatry. The trajectory toward monotheistic thought in early Israel followed a progression from the folk worship of multiple gods and idols as seen in the golden calf story of Exodus 32 to a pure monotheistic statement as found in Isaiah 43:10: before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. Between these two extremes existed a type of bridge ideology that enables a transition to pure monotheism: monolatry is the idea espoused in Exodus 20:3, 22:20 and Deuteronomy 5:7. In these verses and many more, it appears that other gods are indeed a reality but one god only is worthy of the worship of the group. Gnuse states that many scholars espouse the notion that monolatry is the stage that exists in the biblical culture prior to the adoption of pure monotheism. 56 Therefore, in Yahweh s biblical accession of power, the early polytheism practiced by the Israelites could not just immediately be shifted to a one-god-only policy. In order for the worldview to take, an 54 Christopher A. Rollston, The Rise of Monotheism in Ancient Israel: Biblical and Epigraphic Evidence, Stone- Campbell Journal 6 (2003), 96. 55 Friedman, 153, 319. 56 Gnuse, 315. 22
intermediary stage of a belief in Yahweh s primacy amidst other gods was introduced. As mentioned below, we can place this introduction of monolatry within the historical record somewhere during the time that E and J were recording their sources due to archaeological findings dating from that era. This is because these findings denote that Israelites still were practitioners of polytheism at this time and had not yet fully converted to the idea that Yahweh was somehow fully special amidst the other gods (see below). Thus, although it appears that some Israelites were practicing polytheists at the time that E and J were writing, the stories that these authors wrote express Yahweh s dominance in the history of their people in order to perhaps counteract polytheistic tendencies. Whether the assumed audience is the ancient Hebrews at the foothills of Mt. Sinai or a people seeking a strong cultural foundation in the face of large oppressive powers, the message is the same: Yahweh s dominance is being asserted in perhaps the most fundamental way possible. Worship him, and only him. By placing the idea that Yahweh had to assert himself to his people back in time in the greater narrative of the early Israelites, the biblical authors effectively demonstrate two things: (1) they were well aware of the ancient polytheistic beginnings of their people and (2) the worship of multiple gods was ongoing in their time and they were pushing for a shift with their writings. YAHWEH AS SUPREME DEITY The most important thing to remember about the biblical writings is that they were committed to paper long after the events they chronicle supposedly happened. These Israelite origin stories along with the God they represent are a part of a long oral tradition of a culture with beliefs shifting from polytheism to monotheism. Naturally, over 2000 years after the fact, we 23