Development of Israelite Religion
Polytheism I
El (the chief god of the Canaanite Pantheon) and Yahweh (the god of Midian) are two separate gods.
Polytheism II
El and Yahweh have been assimilated. Traces of the earlier distinctions between the two gods are still present in some texts (Deut. 32:8-9: see initial post on this topic). However, because the two have been assimilated, El is not seen as a threat to Yahweh.
Polytheism III
A movement to assimilate the other gods into the being of Yahweh. The battle with Ba’al at Carmel (1 Kings 18) is an example of how some gods are being discredited and Yahweh is taking on the characteristics usually associated with them (e.g. the storm god). However, other gods, such as Asherah, are still being worshipped.
Monolatry
While other gods exist, the only one worthy of worship is Yahweh. This is reflected in the final edition of the Book of Kings.
Monotheism
There are no gods other than Yahweh. The first explicit literary expression of this can be found in Second Isaiah (Isa. 43:1-11; 44:6-9; 45:5-6; 21-22).
My thanks to Prof. Ellen White at Assumption College for this brief summary.
First of all, I have found your last couple posts quite intriguing. Although I must claim complete ignorance about the sources and theories you and Eric mention, I have appreciated your discussion nevertheless. Very interesting ideas, indeed.
ReplyDeleteA couple ideas I must ask you to expand on.
First you said: Originally the Old Testament gods “Yahweh” and “El” were two separate entities.
Isn’t “El” in some cases a simple form of “Elohim,” which was the first name mentioned in the OT for God? Elohim is used over 2300 times in the OT.
El is often combined with other words to show various attributes of God. Some examples: El HaNe'eman - The Faithful God: (Deuteronomy 7:9). El HaGadol - The Great God: (Deuteronomy 10:17). El HaKadosh - The Holy God: (Isaiah 5:16). El Yisrael - The God Of Israel: (Psalm 68:35). El HaShamayim - The God Of The Heavens: (Psalm 136:26). El De'ot - The God Of Knowledge: (1 Samuel 2:3). El Emet - The God Of Truth: (Psalm 31:6). El Yeshuati - The God Of My Salvation: (Isaiah 12:2). El Elyon - The Most High God: (Genesis 14:18). Immanu El - God Is With Us: (Isaiah 7:14). El Olam - The God Of Eternity (Genesis 21:33). El Echad - The One God: (Malachi 2:10).
Other nations definitely had their own gods. It’s no shock that El was the name used for the Cannanite god.
This brings me to your mention of Mt. Carmel. More interesting to me than your assimilation theory of El and Yahweh, is the content of story itself.
Did this God of Israel really send down fire to obliterate a sacrifice in the presence of hundreds of witnesses?
If you believe no, then the whole OT is just fairy tales. And if this is the case, why spend so many hours excavating the text and doing word studies and tracing the history and culture and language of a book of complete nonsense?
If you believe yes, then oh, the implications for one’s life…
See the following post for the first part of my response.
ReplyDeleteYour collection of El conjoined names attest to the completeness of the assimilation of El to Israelite religion. This is the point professor White was making in her Polytheism II above: El is no longer seen as a threat. El's characteristics have been transferred to Yahweh. This was a common process. For example, in the Ugaritic poems Baal is known as the "Rider of the clouds." The writer(s)of Psalm 68:4 and 104:3 have given Yahweh this distinction. In addition, just like the god Baal who has his abode in the "farthest North" and upon a mountain, so too Yahweh (Is. 14:13; Ps. 48:2- The NIV translators have correctly pointed out in these instances that "Zaphon was the most sacred mountain of the Canaanites," again we see the connection to Canaanite religion and deities).
ReplyDeleteNow to your question about Mount Carmel and your statement that if I don't believe the supernatural sacrifice event to have taken place, I would have to admit that 1) "the whole OT is just fairy tales" and 2) there would be no point in "spending hours" tracing the history etc. This assumes a number of things about the nature of "fairy tale", (I prefer myth), and the substance of the Hebrew narrative itself. It presupposes that there are only two responses to the text: 1) Understand the events are historical, or 2) Understand they are myth and dismiss the whole exercise. This is patently a false dichotomy. It misunderstands the role of myth, the importance of the hermeneutical function, and it misunderstands the nuances involved in the study of historical events and documents.
Of course, I don't believe the story is "historically" accurate in every detail. There may have been an actual confrontation, but it is highly unlikely the events unfolded exactly as narrated. The story serves a rhetorical function that we must not forget, in other words, its ideological function is more important than its historical one per se. This ideological function as such has real historical consequences. For example, while the gods may be mythological in character, the myths surrounding these gods often authenticate the claim certain people groups have to the land, to a special status, etc. This is their ideological function. Historically Yahweh, as a historical being, has no more substance than El or Baal. They are tribal gods whose role satisfies the needs of a particular group. The competition between them reflects the competition between social entities. Their assimilation reflects the assimiliation of culture as such.
Well explained! Thanks for all this. Entirely illuminating!
ReplyDeleteI remember reading The Mabinogion in University and pondering how, if just this or that historical detail had been different, such a collection of mythic stories might have become 'The Bible' as it were. As it is, The Bible, is well, the bible. What Northrop Frye, following Blake, calls "the Great Code" of our civilization.
Or perhaps the guiding mythos could have been The Odyssey* or the Socratic Dialogues? (Imagine that world!)
*Actually, James Joyce, among others, argues - i think somewhat successfully - that Homer's great work has in fact, become part of the guiding ideology of our culture. But its inflections, not being of an ethical nature, have not become 'religious', having instead stratified on a more aesthetic/imagistic, or perhaps even intuitional, level, deep within the substage clockwork of our lives.. Ulysses is basically his capital thesis on this latter notion.