The concept of History of Religion or History of Religions (Religionsgeschichte in German; the term “Comparative Religion” is sometimes used as a synonym) as a formal discipline arose in the latter part of the 19th century. This chapter will discuss the general discipline of the History of Religions; then, in line with the focus of the volume as a whole, it will move to developments in the study of the History of Ancient Israel; finally, it will give a short overview of the History of Ancient Israelite Religion.
The basic principles of the History of Religions approach were that all aspects of the religion should be systematically considered, including ritual, practice, institutions, as well as belief and theology, that all religions (including Christianity) should be treated on the same level without favoring one, and that they should be studied objectively and critically. These were the original aims, and they remain much the same today. The 19th century was not the beginning of study of other religions, by any means.
Already some Greeks and Roman writers acquired knowledge of other religions and were clearly interested in the subject. Herodotus is an obvious example, with his survey of the history and customs of a variety of other peoples, but there were others, such as Plutarch, who writes about certain Jewish rites (Quaestiones convivales 4.4.4–4.6.2 [669C–672C]) and Lucian of Samosata (the De Dea Syria is in his name, though some doubt that he wrote it). Yet the modern study has its roots in the Renaissance when knowledge of classical religion was revived, but we also begin to find academic studies of other contemporary religions (see the survey by Maier 1997: 576–85). The 19th century thus did not mark the beginning of such study but rather a quantitative leap in the field.
One of the important components of the History of Religions movement was the new social sciences that developed alongside it, sociology and anthropology. Another component was the new textual discoveries that opened up the history of the ancient Near East. These fields were drawn on (sometimes eagerly, sometimes not) for clues to how Israelite religion developed. One early manifestation was the “Babel and Bible” (Babel und Bibel) movement. Associated especially with the Assyriologist Friederick Delitsch (1850–1922), this movement argued that not only had the Hebrew Bible borrowed a great deal from Mesopotamia but also that Babylonia was superior culturally and even religiously to contemporary Israel. A related movement was “Pan-Babylonianism,” which assumed that all cultures and religions with an astral mythology (including those of Israel) arose from Babylonia. Both these movements were soon discredited for their specific conclusions, but these were simply two examples of how the new texts from Mesopotamia and Egypt were pushing biblical study in new directions.
One product of the advance was the “History of Religions School” (Religionsgeschichtliche Schule), of which the theologian Albert Eichorn (1856–1926) is considered the founder. It mainly centered on the University of Göttingen, and most of its members were from there. Eichorn emphasized the need to study ideas in social and historical context and used traditional-historical study to trace developments in Israelite religion. Much of the school’s impact was in the New Testament (NT) area, though a few Old Testament (OT) scholars were also members, such as Herrmann Gunkel (1862–1932) and Hugo Gressmann (1877–1927). The reason for a predominance of NT scholars was that it was really concerned with Christianity, not other religions including Judaism, though it was believed that the main influence on the early church was from Hellenistic Judaism rather than “pagan” Hellenism. World War I and the rise of Dialectical Theology afterward led to the decline of the movement.
One aspect of the study that was strong in the early days but has been much criticized is seeing the development of religion from an evolutionary point of view. For example, the entry “religion” in the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911) is divided into “primitive religion” and “higher religions.” In a discussion on classification, one particular schema is given that divides everything into “nature religions” and “ethical religions.” The view was that religion had begun as nature religion, with animism one of the earliest stages of development. It gradually became more sophisticated, moving through various stages of polytheism and eventually reaching monotheism. We certainly find this scenario in some of the histories of Israel from the 19th century. (The question of the development of monotheism is discussed later under the subheading “Developments to Monotheism.”)
At this point, we shall move from the broader History of Religions movement to the more specific context of the history of religion in relation to study of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and the History of Israelite Religion.
A number have written on this subject (see especially the succinct but helpful overview in Albertz 1994: I, 1–12; also Perdue 2005: ch. 2; Zimmerli 1979; many figures of historical importance have entries in Hayes [ed.] 1999). In many ways we can say that the subject of the History of Israelite Religion begins with Johann Philipp Gabler (1753–1826), in his inaugural address in 1787 (English version in Sandys-Wunsch/Eldredge 1980): “On the Proper Distinction between Biblical and Dogmatic Theology and the Specific Objectives of Each” (De justo discrimine theologiae biblicae et dogmaticae regundisque recte utriusque finibus). In that address he made the fundamental distinction between biblical and dogmatic theology, the first being historical but the second containing timeless truths for the church. He in fact saw biblical theology as containing two functions, to lay out biblical religion as it appeared in history but also to set out eternal truths that could be appropriated by dogmatic theology. Later, he was to refer (with German vocabulary) to what is “true” (wahr), meaning what is historical; and what is “pure” (rein), meaning that which contains timeless truths (suited for dogmatic theology). This recognition that the theology of the church was not necessarily to be equated with what was in the Bible or related to ancient Israel was a major boost to the historical disciplines relating to biblical studies. The result was a significant stride in developing the historical-critical methods. The effect was not seen for a time, however. Even the pioneer in the historical-critical method Wilhelm de Wette (1780–1849) downplayed the historical side of religion in favor of its contribution to dogmatic theology.
But the rise of the historical-critical analysis of Hebrew Bible texts especially in the first part of the 19th century, along with the History of Religions methods evolving in parallel, caused some important advances in valuing and developing work on the History of Israelite Religion. An important figure was Wilhelm Vatke (1806–1882), who was the first to attempt to write a history of OT religion; he did it according to Hegelian principles and published it in 1835. His reconstruction was one that was continued until toward the end of the 20th century, which saw the religion of Israel as being different from those of the surrounding peoples in Canaan and more widely in the Near East, with the prophets (who included Moses) making a major contribution. In this and certain other ways he anticipated Wellhausen. Although Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918) did not write a major treatment of Israelite religion, he included many observations in his other works. He saw the prophets as the major creators of an advanced ethical monotheism. His approach included both history of religions and major elements more like theology of the Old Testament.
The First World War and its aftermath brought an abrupt halt to much of this work, with the crisis in theology wrought by the War and the rise of Dialectical Theology (especially with Karl Barth). In 1926, Otto Eissfeldt (1887–1973) wrote an article that distinguished OT Theology from History of Israelite Religion (English translation 2004). The latter was a historical discipline, whereas the former was apprehended only through faith. Not everyone agreed. Walter Eichrodt (1890–1978) wrote a theology of the Old Testament that appeared in three volumes (1933–1939). Even though he recognized developments in certain aspects of theology, Eichrodt ultimately did not make a clear distinction between theology of the OT and the history of Israel. After World War II, Gerhard von Rad (1901–1971) wrote his OT theology (1957–1960), which considered history to reside in the development of Israel’s credal statements, not the alleged actions of God or humans. He thus distinguished the History of Religions from OT Theology.
Despite the dominance of Dialectical Theology before and after World War II, there were still those who did historical work with the Hebrew Bible (often drawing on the pioneering work being done in the social sciences), such as Albrecht Alt (1883–1956) and his pupil Martin Noth (1902–1968). Alt is known for his seminal essay, “The God of the Fathers” (1929; English translation 1966), while Noth (1930) is associated with the thesis of an Israelite amphictyony. Antonin Causse (1877–1947) attempted to understand the evolution of Israelite religion by use of French sociological methods, especially those of E. Durkheim and L. Lévy-Brühl (1937). The Myth-and-Ritual School in Scandinavia and the United Kingdom issued some influential studies, including the work of Ivan Engnell (1906–1964) on divine kingship in Israel (1943), and Sigmund Mowinckel (1884–1965) on a New Year celebration that was central to Israelite religion (Mowinckel 1921–1924). Helmer Ringgren’s history of Israelite religion (1963) did not necessarily follow the various views of the Myth-and-Ritual School (though influenced by it), but more important the organizing categories sometimes used in OT theologies structure his study and the “genetic understanding is fossilized in an intellectual system which is historical only out of necessity” (Albertz 1994: I, 9). It was another one of the “uninteresting résumés” that appeared in this period.
In America, William F. Albright (1890–1971) often brought religion of the ancient Israelites into his purview (e.g., 1957). His student Frank M. Cross (1921–2012) did likewise. One of his important contributions was an essay on the “God of the fathers,” tracing some of the same ground as Alt but with new results because of important new material (1973). In Germany two further works appeared. Georg Fohrer’s history of Israelite religion (1969), unfortunately, tended to downplay social developments for religious “impulses” that he tried to disassociate from the social side. Werner Schmidt’s Faith of the Old Testament (German original 1968) claimed to be halfway between a history of religion and an OT theology. It often had an apologetic aim, which was to show that Israelite religion was unique in comparison with other religions in antiquity.
What we find as a general trend in all these works, both in the volumes devoted to theology and those dedicated to religion, is a strong gravitation to conclusions in harmony with the assumptions of the Biblical Theology Movement (on this movement, see Brevard Childs 1970). The result is that even for those writing in the History of Religions mode, the writers were on the whole still especially concerned to show how Israel broke new ground and was different from its neighbors in the ancient Near East. One of the arguments was that Israel had a historical outlook, whereas the other nations had a mythical outlook. The God of Israel was a god of history, while the gods of the ancient Near East were nature gods.
Yet several works in the 1960s and early 1970s anticipated changes in thought that were to come. One of the most important of these was History and the Gods by Bertil Albrektsen (1967); this showed that Israel was no more “historical” in its thinking than the neighboring peoples. James Barr had written a series of books that questioned a number of the shibboleths of the Biblical Theology Movement: the idea that Hebrew thought was unique and different from Greek thought, and the idea that the Bible was particularly historical in its thinking and formulation, as compared to other peoples in the ancient Near East (1961; 1965: 65–102). Finally, there was the seminal article by J.J. M. Roberts (1976), demonstrating that Israel’s world view was no less mythical than those of the surrounding nations.
A much more critical and skeptical approach, which queried many of the conclusions reached before and after World War II, developed in the 1970s. By 1970 interest in the history of Israel had waned considerably, at least in North America, and was replaced by a focus on the application of new literary theory (New Criticism, deconstruction, postmodernism, feminist criticism, and the like). However, a small number of biblical scholars continued to plow the field of history. A major shakeup came in the mid-1970s with the studies on Abraham of Thompson L. Thompson (1974) and John Van Seters (1975) and the collection of essays, Israelite and Judean History, edited by John Hayes and J. Maxwell Miller (1977). Then Norman Gottwald’s Tribes of Yahweh appeared in 1979 (though written several years earlier). In the 1980s and early 1990s a new school of “minimalism” was born. Associated especially with the University of Copenhagen (Thompson and Niels Peter Lemche), it also encompassed some British scholars (Philip Davies and Keith Whitelam) as well. Their concern was the whole of the history of Israel and the ancient Near East, but that also included religion.
In 1992 the original German version of Rainer Albertz’s History of the Religion of Israel appeared, to be followed shortly by the English version (1994). This formed a major break with earlier histories of Israelite religion, though it was not in the minimalist mold by any means. It was followed by a number of more specialized monographs that focused on the development of the concept of the deity (Mark S. Smith, 2001, 2002; Robert Karl Gnuse 1997; Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger 1998), Yahweh’s consort (William G. Dever 2005), the sacrificial cult (Joachim Schaper 2000; cf. Gary Anderson 1987; Gary A. Anderson and Saul M. Olyan 1991), and religious specialists (Lester L. Grabbe 1995). Another full study, Ancient Israelite Religion, by Susan Niditch appeared in 1997. Although it was covered most of the main areas of the subject and was reviewed favorably, it was essentially a 150-page textbook for undergraduates.
The next comprehensive study of comparable weight to Albertz’s was the History of the Religions [sic] of Israel (2001), by Ziony Zevit. Zevit is especially strong on archaeology and epigraphic material, covering cult places and altars, whether YHWH had a consort, textual data from the Deuteronomistic history and prophetic literature, and the names of deities used and worshipped in ancient Israel. Unfortunately, little or nothing is given on a number of topics that are usually seen as an essential part of the religion (such as death and eschatology, creation, prayer, festivals, and how the cult actually functioned). Most of these studies showed a step change from the histories of Israelite religion of the period before 1970.
One area bringing important new understandings to the History of Israelite Religion was the contributions from the social sciences. Many of the studies mentioned in this section had some social science input. One particular social scientist had a considerable impact on Hebrew Bible studies, especially in the area of purity and the books of Leviticus and Numbers: Mary Douglas. Her seminal book Purity and Danger was a major attempt to work out the meaning of the biblical system in detail. One area where she tried to apply the insights of social anthropology was on the “abominations” of Leviticus 11. This cannot claim to have been a success, since it was criticized both by biblical scholars and anthropologists, but she took up the question again in Implicit Meanings (1975) at several points, especially in her last chapter, to clarify various points and take the issue further (Grabbe 1993: 55–62). She also went on to comment specifically on the books of Numbers (1993), relating it to events around Ezra and Nehemiah. Her final major work was Leviticus as Literature (1999). This was evaluated in an issue of the Journal of Ritual Studies 18/2 (2004): 152–191, with article-length reviews by Suzette Heald, Lester L. Grabbe, Don Handelman, Alan F. Segal, Ronald S. Hendel, and a reply by Mary Douglas.
Despite some criticisms against Douglas, a number of her points about the meaning of the Israelite religious system have not been affected and still seem valid, especially the notion that the system of permitted and forbidden animals was a microcosm of the world according to the Israelite view. The many forbidden animals represented the surrounding nations; the few clean animals, the Israelites; and the sacrificial animals, the priests. Just as Israelites were not to eat certain animals, they were not to mix with other nations. The dietary regulations had both a practical and a symbolic function; symbolically they stood for the fact that Israel was to keep itself free from intercourse with non-Israelites; practically, inability to eat certain animals meant that Jews could not socialize with those who ate these animals. The rules of pollution and purity also drew strict boundaries around the altar and sanctuary. No pollution and no polluted persons were allowed to penetrate into the sacred area. This clear and rigid boundary drawing suggests a concern with political boundaries as well as social ones. Just as the Israelites were concerned about mixing with the surrounding peoples, so their political boundaries may have been threatened by others who claimed the territory for themselves. If so, the message of the rules which, on the surface, might seem arcane ritual turn out to be a rich symbolic system with significant meaning for understanding the concerns of ancient Israel.
In order to illustrate the History of Religions approach and also to do justice to the focus of the present volume on ancient Israel, I shall now give a brief sketch of Israelite religion from a historical perspective. As will become clear, the earlier religion has to be reconstructed because the biblical texts have themselves been heavily edited at a later time from a monotheistic perspective. Information to “correct” the edited text comes from inscriptions, archaeology, proper names, and occasional passages that have escaped full editing and other “fossils” within the text. For further information, see Grabbe 2017 and the sources cited there.
These two related pairs of concepts are important for most religions and certainly for the History of Israelite Religion. The two pairs of concepts are parallel but not the same, and they must not be confused. The idea of “sacred” or “holy” is integral to most religious systems. “Sacred/profane” come from Latin terms: “sacred” means that associated with the divine or its power or its sphere; “profane” is the broader ordinary sphere that we all live in. “Profane” is not a negative term; it simply means that which is not sacred. For a general discussion, one can consult the famous book by R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy (German original 1917), which still has value. The importance of “the sacred”—whether space, time, or objects—is its function as a “focusing lens” that concentrates attention on the activities of a particular time and place and invests them with a particular significance in relationship to the divine (cf.J. Z. Smith 1987).
Another of the basic concepts of Israelite society, as it relates to religion and the cult, is that of ritual purity and pollution. “Clean” (tāhōr) and “unclean” (tāmē’) were very important images. Ritual purity is perhaps one of the most misunderstood concepts in the religion of ancient Israel. It has little or nothing to do with hygiene or with clean/dirty in a physical sense. For example, in the Israelite system, excrement was not usually included in the category of unclean, even though ancient Israelites had much the same view toward it that we do today. At the most basic level, to be clean allowed one to enter the sacred sphere—to participate in the cult—whereas those unclean were prohibited. It was no sin to become unclean. Many activities caused impurity, including many of the normal aspects of daily life: menstruation, nocturnal emission, contact with the dead, touching or eating unclean (non-kosher) animals, child birth. Yet one also receives the impression that uncleanness was to be removed even when access to the cult was not likely in the near future. Being pure is not the same as being sacred. Impurity can cause the sacred to become profane in some cases, but one can be ritually pure in a profane context.
One of the important discoveries of anthropology in the past half century is that purity and pollution systems are not arcane, primitive superstition. The precise form of the rituals may well be arbitrary, at least to some extent, but recent study suggests that broader concerns are at the heart of the purity system. The insights offered by social and cultural anthropology have gone a long way toward explaining the deeper meaning and foundation of these laws that may seem “primitive” to many today. Purity and pollution form an important mirror of the society itself, especially its social relations and attitudes. They map the ideological cosmos of the people who hold these views. These regulations can be seen as a language, in the broad sense of the term, communicating to those within the society the “correct” attitudes toward relations between the sexes, marriage, kinship, and intercourse with outsiders. Ritual cleanliness tells the people how to classify the entities—human and animal—that inhabit the world around them and communicates to the society how to fit in new forms that enter its world. The animal world and how it is treated is also a map of human society, and the human community is represented by the body of the individual.
Like the Northwest Semitic religions in general, the original divine world was a polytheistic council of gods, headed by El. He had a consort named Asherah, and some of the other gods were his offspring. Also important was YHWH, apparently a weather god originally. Evidence for the original relationship between El and YHWH can be found in a couple of biblical passages. The first is Deut 32:8. The Septuagint text seems to presuppose a different Hebrew original, and a manuscript with the passage at Qumran (4QDeutj = 4Q37) reads “[according to the number of] the sons of God” (bny ‘lhym). All of these data suggest that the passage originally read something along the lines of the following (my translation):
When Elyon [perhaps another name for El] gave the inheritance of the nations,
When he divided the sons of Adam (or man),
He established the boundaries of the peoples
According to the number of the sons of El.
For Yhwh’s lot is his people
And Jacob his inherited portion.
This suggests that YHWH (as one of these sons of El) inherited Israel as his particular portion. Such a situation in which YHWH is merely one among the sons of El in the divine assembly is also found in Ps 89:7-8, which reads literally (my translation):
For who in heaven compares to Yhwh?
Who is like Yhwh among the sons of the Elim (gods)?
El creates awe in the council of the Holy Ones.
He is great and strikes fear in all about him.
Here YHWH is a son of El, among other sons, even if he is said to be incomparable to his fellow sons of El. Similarly, Ps 82:1 speaks of God judging among the gods in the “council of El.”
Yet this was the earliest phase of Israelite religion. YHWH was the national or folk deity of Israel. As time went by, the Gestalt of YHWH developed and changed. One of the major developments was the assimilation of El and YHWH, so that YHWH took over the characteristics and even the name of El. There is evidence that he retained some of the characteristics of the storm and fertility god that he had originally been, but he became wise, benevolent, and more parental in relations with humans. The name El is used of the Israelite God but can also mean simply ‘god’ in a generic sense. This is in line with much Northwest Semitic usage in which ‘el (or the earlier form ilu) could stand both for the head of the pantheon (the god El) and for “god, divinity” in general.
The references to the God of Israel in the biblical text also contain other names, though the many other names and titles are often translated in Bible translations as epithets or descriptions rather than rendered as names. For example, the name El Shaddai (or just Shaddai alone) is also used in a number of passages in Genesis (17:1; 28:3; 35:11; 48:3; 49:25). It is also the divine name found through most of the poem of Job and seems to be the prime divinity for the original composer of the book’s core (the name YHWH occurs in Job only in the framework). Genesis 14:18 attests the deity El Elyon, not known anywhere else. (Some scholars doubt the accuracy of the text here, although the name Elyon by itself also occurs in Num. 24:16, Deut. 32:8 and Isa. 14:14, while the Ugaritic equivalent [ely] is applied to Baal [KTU 1.16.3.6, 8].) The point is that these other names may once have applied to other members of the pantheon (just as El and YHWH did) but have become assimilated to YHWH.
As for El’s consort Asherah, she has become YHWH’s consort with YHWH’s assimilation to El (cf. Dever 2005). At Kuntillet Ajrud in the Negev, an inscription dated about the 8th century bce is conventionally read, “I blessed you by Yhwh of Samaria and by his Asherah” (Gogel 1998: #6.1.14; Davies 1991: #8.017, #8.021). A similar inscription was found at Khirbet el-Qom near Hebron (Gogel 1998: #6.1.12; Davies 1991: #25.003).
There was naturally some question as to whether the “Asherah” was a reference to a cult object or to a goddess. It partly hinges on the grammatical question of whether one can put a pronominal suffix on a proper name in the Northwest Semitic languages. After considerable debate, the consensus is moving definitely in the direction of seeing a consort alongside YHWH, a female divinity called Asherah.
1 Kings 15:13 mentions a cult object made for Asherah. This was presumably in the temple; indeed, 2 Kgs 23:4, 7 mentions vessels of Asherah (among others) and cult personnel dedicated to Asherah in the Jerusalem temple, and 2 Kgs 21:7 also speaks of an image of Asherah in the temple. Thus, the biblical text itself preserves evidence that Asherah was worshipped—even in the Jerusalem temple—most likely as a consort of YHWH. Worship of the “host of heaven,” referred to in 2 Kgs 17:16; 21:7; 23:4–5, is confirmed by solar symbols found on a number of Israelite seals (Keel and Uehlinger 1998: 282–309). Jeremiah (44:17–19, 25) mentions worship of the “Queen of Heaven,” who is likely to have been Asherah or Anat or perhaps even an amalgam of the two goddesses. Yet even though the text presents these as acts of apostasy, there is no hint that such worship was criticized or opposed at the time. If there was criticism, it was likely to have been a minority movement, perhaps a “Yhwh-alone movement” (as argued by Morton Smith 1971).
Closely associated with worship in Israel and Judah is the question of whether it was aniconic. A number of biblical texts forbid the use of images in worship, such as the second commandment (Exod 20:4; Deut 5:8) and images are ridiculed (Isa 40:18-20; 44:9–20; 46:1–2; Jer 10:2–10). We know from later Jewish texts that the use of images or living forms of any kind was considered abhorrent and strongly rejected (Wisdom 13–15; Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum 44; Testament of Job 2–5; Apocalypse of Abraham 1–8; see also the quote from Hecataeus in the next section). Yet there are a number of indications that images were used in divine worship in Israel and Judah.
An early example is the bronze bull image of the “Bull Site” in northern Samaria (Mazar 1983), but does the bull represent YHWH or Baal? The existence of an image of Asherah in the temple (as discussed in the previous section) does not by itself prove that there was also a cult image of YHWH, but the existence of the one certainly suggests the other. Then, for the Northern Kingdom we have an inscription of Sargon II relating to the fall of Samaria about 722 bce. The Nimrud Prism states as follow (4.29–33, minor restorations not indicated):
(29) With the power of the great gods, my lords,
(30) against them I fought.
(31) 27,280 persons with their chariots
(32) and the gods in whom they trusted, as spoil
(33) I counted.
The chief deity worshipped in the Kingdom of Israel was of course YHWH, but “the gods” in this inscription is clearly a reference to divine images. We also have the many “Astarte” images found by archaeologists all over Palestine during the period of the monarchy (Moorey 2001; Stern 2001: 205–11). These by themselves do not prove that idols were used to represent YHWH, but we can summarize by noting that the presence of an image of YHWH in the Jerusalem temple at one stage is a reasonable inference from the data just presented.
We know from other ancient Near Eastern peoples that sometimes the deity was represented not by a carved image but by a sacred pillar, an unformed stone pillar called a maṣṣēvāh (plural maṣṣēvôt) in Hebrew (Graesser 1972). We have many examples from the ancient Near East, including in the Sinai and the Negev, that go back many millennia bce. There are also a number of references in the biblical text, including Gen 28:18–22; 31:45–52; Exod 24:4; 34:13, as well as physical examples known from the time of the monarchy. A prominent example comes from the excavations at Arad, where a temple complex was found with unformed pillars (cf. Herzog 2001; 2010).
Historically, we have evidence that a number of polytheistic systems gradually evolved to a monotheistic or monistic stage. We already see this in the classical period, with much speculation by Greek and Roman philosophers and thinkers. Stoicism definitely had a trend toward a single overall universal Reason, but the general movement among well-educated individuals in the later Greco-Roman period was toward a single deity or universal mind (cf. Athanassiadi/Frede [ed.] 2002). Hinduism is a well-known example of a religion whose early writings (the Vedas) were polytheistic, yet the later philosophical interpretation of the old myths (in the Upanishads) was monoistic, not exactly the same as monotheism but a similar idea of uniting the divine world into a single entity.
As discussed earlier, YHWH was originally conceived as one god among many, even a son of El or at least subordinate to him. He created by fighting and defeating various monsters of chaos, such as Leviathan, Tannin, and Rahab, much as Baal did in the Ugaritic texts. When monotheism became the dominant view, these older views were simply expunged or, in some cases, they were reinterpreted so as not to be an embarrassment to monotheistic views. Some biblical texts suggest a henotheistic interpretation, in which YHWH is not the only deity but the only one to be worshiped by Israel. A good example is the first commandment (Exod 20:3; Deut 5:7) in which “other gods” are not to have precedence over YHWH or to detract from his sole worship by Israelites, but their existence does not seem to be denied.
The question is, when did Israel—or at least the writers of the biblical books—become monotheistic. This is debated because it depends on how one interprets various texts. For example, the texts that I considered henotheistic in the previous paragraph have been taken as monotheistic in some contexts. Not all agree, but there are many scholars of the Hebrew Bible who see evidence of monotheism in the texts of Deutero-Isaiah, with such statements as, “I am the first, and I am the last: besides me there is no god” (Isaiah 44:6), or “I am Yhwh and there is no other; besides me there is no god [or “there are no gods”]” (Isaiah 45:5). Not only do many passage make YHWH the supreme deity but they also seem to deny the very existence of any other gods. This is why many think that the writer of Deutero-Isaiah (though not necessarily all Judeans or Israelites) was a monotheist. Deutero-Isaiah is widely dated to the 6th century bce. As noted previously, the situation in Elephantine about 400 bce still has other gods named (Anat-Bethel, Herem-Bethel), but it may be that these were only manifestations of Yahu. In other words, even though these divinities had their origin in polytheism, the Judean community there may already be taking something close to a monotheistic view.
One of the first and best indications of monotheistic, aniconic worship is found in Hecataeus of Abdera, a Greek writing about 300 bc. He describes the Jews in Palestine in a long paragraph, which was then picked up and quoted by Diodorus of Sicily (40.3.4). The significant passage states:
But he [Moses] had no images whatsoever of the gods made for them, being of the opinion that God is not in human form; rather the Heaven that surrounds the earth is alone divine.
Worship in most religions takes place in a variety of contexts, but most relate to altars and temples, high places, or religious meeting places (synagogues, churches, mosques). In ancient Israel, the main regular worship places were high places and temples, until the end of the monarchy. Synagogues evidently arose only in the 3rd century bce in Egypt and did not spread to Palestine itself until the 1st century ce (or possibly the 1st century bce). The main function of the synagogue seems to have been as a substitute for the temple, which was inaccessible most of the time to Jews outside Palestine. The existence of a sanctuary assumes the existence of sacred space and sacred time. Not all places of worship are seen as sacred, but they often are.
Although the Hebrew Bible rails against high places in many passages, it is clear that high places were important places of worship in the pre-monarchic and monarchic periods. The high place was a type of temple, but other more conventional temples seem to have existed as well: the Jerusalem temple, apparently one at Bethel, another at Tel Dan and, at least in the post-exilic period, one on Mt. Gerizim. The Idumean ostraca of the 4th century bce refer to a “house of Yhw” which is probably a local temple (Lemaire 2002: 149-–156). One of the best attested temples outside Jerusalem is the one built by the Judahite community at Elephantine in Egypt.
Almost all religions appear to have cult personnel of some sort. They might be priests with a formal office and formal duties or they might be senior figures of the religious community who lead in worship on a part-time basis. The ancient Roman religion did not have priests as such, but the head of the family normally undertook cultic duties. Ancient Israel may not originally have had a hereditary priesthood, since we have accounts of a variety of figures who took on cultic duties (Jonathan [Judges 17–18]; Samuel [1 Samuel 1–3]; David’s sons [2 Sam 8:18]). But at some point a hereditary priesthood was appointed, with various ranks that exercised a variety of specialized duties. These included the Aaronites and the Levites, but also a number of other classes of temple servant with other (sometimes more menial) duties (Ezra 2:41–58; Neh 7:44–60).
Priests were not the highest rank of cult specialist, however. A number of passages make it clear that the king was in charge of the temple and all personnel who served there (1 Kgs 4:2–5; 6–8; 1 Chron 22:1–23:6), even if attempts were made to edit the text in such a way that the king was subject to the priests (Deut 17:14–20; 2 Chron 26:16-21). The temple was the king’s chapel, and at various times he led the religious ceremonies (1 Kgs 3:4–15). It is hardly surprising since, as in many neighboring nations, the king was considered the son of God and had a special religious place in the national order (cf. Psalm 2). Further information on the king as the leading cultic figures is found in Grabbe 1995: ch. 2.
The concept of sacred time is found in most, if not all, religions and is taken for granted in most forms of liturgical worship. The weekly Sabbath and the annual festivals are described in Leviticus 23, as well as being referred to in other passages (e.g., Deut 16:1–17). They correspond with the holy days known from later in Second Temple Judaism and historical Judaism even to today. There are hints at other festivals or observances, however. The most obvious one is Purim, which is described in the book of Esther, although it was never designated a holy day. We also have some references to “fasts” in Zechariah (7:5; 8:19), which might be observances that pertained for a time but were dropped.
Although the new moon in its calendrical function is mentioned in Leviticus, it is not labelled a holy day in any passage, but some scholars have thought that it was one of the original holy days, perhaps even a forerunner of the Sabbath. Other celebrations are known, although they do not seem to have been holy days as such and are not treated in the same way as the annual Sabbaths. Hanukkah comes from the time of the Maccabees. We know from the Qumran Tempel Scroll that there were Feasts of the Firstfruits of Oil, of the Firstfruits of Wine, and of the Wood Offering (11QT 19–25) in its cultic calendar. Josephus mentions in passing a Festival of Woodgathering (War 2.17.6 §425), and Neh 10:35 makes a point about bringing the wood offering for the altar in the temple.
Leviticus 25 describes the sabbatical year and the jubilee year. These were not holy as such but designated certain required observances. We know from later indications that the sabbatical year was observed (Grabbe 1991). However, there is no evidence that the jubilee was ever kept; it seems to have been only theoretical.
The cult is often slighted or even ignored when Israel’s religion is discussed, because it revolves around animal sacrifice. Any description of Israelite religion has to take stock of its complexities, but one cannot get away from the fact that the sacrificial cult, especially blood sacrifice, lay at the heart of worship in Israel. The various aspects of the temple cult are too lengthy to describe in detail here (see Grabbe 1993), so only two aspects will be commented on in this section.
The Israelite cult, like all religious ritual—and all religions have their ritual—was extremely meaningful to the participants even if we do not always understand it from our time and culture millennia later. A number of recent studies have focused on the symbolism of the cult and attempted to decipher the priestly world view that lay behind it. For example,F. H. Gorman (1990) argues that a complex creation theology is presupposed and represented by the cult. The priestly view had a cosmological and sociological dimension, as well as a cultic. In order to express this, it made distinctions between holy and profane, clean and unclean, life and death, order and chaos.
The lengthy ritual described in Leviticus 8–9 has many characteristics of what is often referred to as a “rite of passage” (Van Gennep 1960). This is an anthropological term for rites that take place as a person passes from stage to another, such as from boyhood to manhood or girlhood to womanhood. There is first a rite of separation, next a transitional rite during which the person is in a “liminal” state (on the doorstep between one phase and another). There may be dangers while in this liminal state, and various rituals have to be carefully performed to protect the one undergoing the transition. In the case of Aaron and sons, they were undergoing the passage from “common” to “sacred.” Thus, the ceremony of consecration in Leviticus 8-9 is very much parallel with rites of passage known both from preliterate modern societies and from many examples in modern Western culture.
The term “law” (tôrāh) is used many times in the Hebrew Bible, usually in reference to God’s law. This includes statements about the “book of the law,” which also relates to divine instructions. Law is a concept widespread in the ancient Near East, even if the vocabulary in reference to it is not necessarily standardized in the way it is in the Hebrew Bible. We should also keep in mind that much of what we find regarding ethics is found in legal sections of the Hebrew Bible, though ethical instruction is also found in the prophetic and wisdom literature, as well as exemplified in narrative sections. In addition, Mary Douglas (1999) in her analysis of Leviticus has emphasized the implications of both the teachings and the structure of the book for matters of ethics and morality.
A number of law codes from Mesopotamia have surfaced in the past century, the most famous as well as the most extensive and developed of these being the Codex Hammurabi. The relationship between the law codes and the legal documents from actual life is an interesting one that may throw light on the relationship of law in the Bible to practice in Israel (see especially Greengus 1976). It is by no means straightforward. The law codes were not, as one might expect, analogous to a statute book that judges would consult for information and guidance. On the contrary, actual legal decisions never refer to the law codes as precedent or authoritative legislation (for a different opinion, see Westbrook 1985). Yet the codes were to a large extent based on standard legal process as it functioned in society at the time. There is a certain utopian quality about the codes, but they are more than just theory. The situation in Israel seems to be similar. As with the ancient Near Eastern law codes, the laws in the Pentateuch did probably bear some relation to actual practices within society. They were not completely divorced from how the society really worked, but they were not law codes in a modern sense.
To conclude, there is a broad similarity in law over much of the ancient Near East from Israel to Mesopotamia. Each people selected, modified, refined, and developed the tradition in its own way, but a significant overlap is still easy to spot in the extant literature. Israel evidently drew on the common legal and ethical tradition of its world so that differences are generally those of detail and emphasis rather than conceptualization. However, there is one major difference from the “law codes” known elsewhere in the ancient Near East: the biblical text mixes civic, religious, cultic, and ritual law in the same texts. Since much of Leviticus is cultic material, this is not generally paralleled in the legal texts of Mesopotamia and elsewhere (although there may be parallels in ritual texts). It is mainly with regard to Leviticus 19–20 that legal comparisons can be made.
The basic principles of the History of Religions approach is that religion is studied comprehensively, historically, and critically, without favoring one religion over another or normally making judgments about what is good or bad. With regard to the History of Israelite Religion, which is the focus of the present chapter, it should be investigated without assuming it is better than other religions or unique. Neither should it be seen primarily as simply the precursor of later Judaism or Christianity.
Although this might seem an elemental point about the History of Religions approach, it has taken several centuries to reach the stage of describing the religion of ancient Israel historically and in its own terms rather than as a handmaid for Christianity or Rabbinic Judaism or as a shining beacon in the midst of primitive and unenlightened pagan religions. From the point of view of the church or synagogue, various aspects of ancient Israelite religion may be emphasized or ignored, embraced or rejected, praised or condemned. But this can be done only when the beliefs and practices of the ancient Israelites are described (and understood, as far as is possible for an ancient people) with the best historical and critical scholarship, by investigators whose aim is historical, not ideological.