I'm an atheist, but I like origin stories. So I have been researching Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Islam's origins are pretty well known, and Christianity started as a sect of Judaism. So what are its origins? I pieced together bits from archeology, OT, and contemporary religions in the area. I want your thoughts. Here's the story as best as I can figure it:
Judaism originated in Canaan. At that time Canaan was polytheistic. Their main god was called El. Some of the lower gods included Ba'al, Asherah (or Asheroth), and Yahweh. Ba'al was a storm god, Asherah was El's wife in many of the stories, and Yahweh was the god of war.
Each god had a temple devoted to him/her. The priests for Yahweh's temple were angry because people didn't show him as much respect as they did Ba'al. In protest, the Yahwists declared they were their own country and started a war against Canaan. What else are you going to do when your god is a war god? This occurred circa 1200-1000 be.
Like any other war, the propaganda began flying. They said Yahweh promised the land to them, they accused the Canaanites of every sin they could think of, and they used religious edicts to cut off economic ties by prohibiting their people from consuming Canaanite goods ,e.g., pork. They also began attributing characteristics and actions of Ba'al to Yahweh. The most conspicuous example is probably Ba'al's hatred of snakes. This is why Yahweh curses a snake in Genesis. As Yahweh supplanted Ba'al, they viewed Ba'al less favorably. Eventually it became a derisive term, a sort of shorthand for evil and sin. This pattern carried on through to Christianity where you find Ba'al as the root word of Beelzebub.
The Yahwists continued to reform and refine their belief system and national identity. This caused some internal conflicts resulting in the two separate kingdoms of Judah and Israel around 900 bce. To be continued...
Greatly influenced yeah but this isn't a helpful response when talking about its real origins.
Luis Butler
I use kingdoms loosely because archeological evidence suggests that both Israel and Judah at this time were little more than tribal chiefdoms.
The religious stories that existed (orally, not written) up to the split were the basics of Genesis and Exodus, and parts of Numbers and Leviticus. As they passed the stories down in each kingdom, the stories slowly changed relative to the other kingdom's version. We will see the consequences of this in a moment.
Since Yahweh was a war god, their (meaning both kingdoms') success on the battlefield was directly tied to their perceived religious/ideological purity. Whenever they lost it was because they were not devout enough. Because of this, the Babylonian Captivity of 586 bce caused a massive crisis of faith. The Deuteronomists, who today we would call fundamentalists, appeared. They wrote a bunch of new laws in Numbers and Leviticus and wrote all of Deuteronomy.
When they returned home around 535 bce, they had to merge the stories of Judah and Israel together into one at least semi-coherent volume. That's why the creation story repeats with some differences in Genesis and why Noah takes two of each animal in one part while taking 17 of each in another part. The different versions were basically shoved together. They of course added and edited their own ideologies into these already existing stories. They also finally demanded strict adherence to monotheism. This is why idols, especially Asherah, didn't completely disappear from homes until about 500 bce. The claim that Judaism was monotheistic since Abraham is actually not true. I left some stuff out, but this is already super long. Thanks for reading it. :)
Parker Phillips
>origins of Abrahamic religion Abraham? Wasn't it Abraham?
Leo Reed
El just means "god". It's like saying, "their main king was called King".
Juan Hall
El became a generic term for god, but the Canaanites used it as the name of a specific god, El Elyon.
Caleb Smith
There's no evidence YHWH was worshiped by anyone but the Hebrew, maybe also the Shasu.
Through selective uses of verses you could make a case that he was the god of war, but by selective use of verse you could make just as strong of a case that he was the god of the sea.
Austin James
El was always a generic term for God. It could be used to reference a specific god, just as king could be used to reference a specific king without mentioning the name.
Michael Cooper
Interesting. Thanks for posting.
Blake Edwards
El itself is derived from the Sumerian god Enlil. Since the Sumerians were the first ones to invent writing, we can really push the origin back further than that.
Kayden Cruz
It's always mentioned that Yahweh was just another member of the Canaanite pantheon, but I've heard a bunch of him coming from Egypt (I may be misremembering this detail) and actually being foreign. Any truth to that or was it just a conspiracy theory?
Connor Williams
I'm not sure what your point is, since we're talking about the Canaanites, not the Sumerians. It's like point out that Deus comes from the Indo-European god Dyeus; by Roman times, the word was much broader in application.
Cameron Carter
There is evidence (clay tablets) that the Canaanites worshipped Yahweh. Also, I didn't use any specific Bible verses, so I don't know how I could have selectively used them. The god of war description doesn't come explicitly from the bible. It comes from the Canaanite tablets. It just happens to fit in with the bible and make a lot of things understandable.
Justin Harris
The earliest mention of YHWH is from Egypt, in reference to the Shasu.
Aaron Cox
>There is evidence (clay tablets) that the Canaanites worshipped Yahweh. Please do link
Luis Rivera
I'm the OP, and since we were discussing the use of El I thought it was fine to mention its origins.
Xavier Roberts
I think that is fine so long as you don't presume that because Hebrews referred to YHWH by the title all gods are called by, it necessitates him being the same as some other El who has nothing in common with YHWH except being referred to as "God".
I like how Christian apologists try hard to impose that El Elyon was not a specific, determinate deity of the Canaanite pantheon, well established and known by scholars, because other gods were called El, and this specific deity evoked by Melchizedek when blessing Abraham. This is like saying that Allah is not a specific deity worshipped by Muslims, because allah is just a generic Arabic word for god. You realize you are only fooling yourselves right?
>The critical scholar and Reform rabbi Abraham Geiger in the 19th century asserted that Elyōn was a word of late origin, dating it to the time of the Maccabees. However, its use in the Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra, Syria) tablets has proven it to be pre-Mosaic (Hertz 1936).
>In Eusebius' account of Philo of Byblos (c. 64–141 CE) record of Sanchuniathon's euhemeristic account of the Phoenician deities, Elioun, whom he calls Hypsistos 'the highest' and who is therefore possibly ʿElyōn
I'm not saying the term "El" couldn't be used primarily to refer to a specific god, I'm saying the Hebrews are going to call YHWH that regardless for the same reason they'd call him "Lord"
Blake Carter
Wut? Allah is the God of Abraham. That's canonical to even the Pope..
Matthew Ward
>the Pope You see, that's your problem. Inshallah and enjoy hell.
Thomas Ortiz
There's a dodgy reference to a 'YW' in some clay tablets from the Canaanite city of Ugarit.
It's far from conclusive.
Isaiah Brown
>Abrahamic >religion
It's like judeo-christian, it's meme-tier
Joshua Scott
YW means Yaw, who is very distinct from YHWH
See
Juan Carter
A group of Asiatics were living in Egypt circa 1800-1600BC. They suddenly left, completely abandoning their settlements. They began a violent invasion into Canaan, destroying many greatly fortified cities, of which there is significant archaeological evidence for. They were inspired by a man who claimed to be a prophet for God. Eventually they conquered the land, but adopted the customs of Canaanites. However, a monotheistic sect in Israel remained fiercely loyal to God, who they said was responsible for all their victories. The religion remained in a state of flux between monotheism and polytheism, until the destruction of Jerusalem. After that monotheism ruled the day.
Isaac Reyes
Dude. This is so good. Could you post your sources so I can do my own research?
