Polytheism was the norm
Embellished with its post-Exilic reconstruction, the Hebrew Bible states that the religion of Israel and Judah was always monotheism, but, as previously noted, this is not the case. Abraham Kuenen, in his seminal work referenced below and published in 1869-1870, says that:
(t)he religion of Israel was initially polytheism. During the 8th century, the majority of the people still acknowledged many deities and, moreover, worshipped them. During the 7th century and until the beginning of the Babylonian captivity (586BC), this situation did not change. So Jeremiah could say: “as the number of your cities, are your Gods, O Judah!”[1]. This polytheism cannot be taken exception to as a later thing crept into it; on the contrary, everything suggests its originality[2].
The Kings of Israel and Judah worshipped other gods, and this was the norm. The God of the Jews evolved gradually from the Canaanite El, who was in all likelihood the God of Abraham. The Israelite religion was therefore polytheistic in accordance with general Canaanite beliefs and practices. In Ancient Israel and Judah, there was competition between different priests, but those who worshipped Yahweh composed the Hebrew Bible and this was the genesis of the one-god idea. The formative period of Israelite monotheism occurred in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, two centuries before the cult reformation, which started under King Josiah just before the exile and achieved its apotheosis per medium of the Babylonian-Persian diaspora.
According to Dijkstra[3], there is a distinction between what may be described as the early Yahwism of Moses and the popular religion in Israel. Belief in a personal God, the God of Abraham, the God of the ancestor(s) which is dormant in the traditions inherent in the primeval stories and the cycles of the patriarchs in Greece, finally emerged (retrospectively) under Moses. Under the name YHWH, this God of the patriarchs concluded a covenant with Israel of which Moses was the mediator.
But, as Julius Wellhausen points out[4], this view of an original Mosaic Yahwism, with a Torah at the beginning covering and regulating the whole range of Israelite religious life, is a canvas laid over the selection of religious and historical traditions composed and revised by the redactors of the Pentateuch and Prophets. Where multiplicity and pluriformity initially existed, the Babylonian diaspora created ultimate unity: one God, one People, one Faith and one Cult. Belief in one God, one cult and one sanctuary in Jerusalem later became the norm for Israel’s religious life and history, and as a matter of course the accounts of idolatry and polytheism could be written and interpreted as deviation from this norm. This perspective is particularly evident in the Former Prophets (the books of Joshua to Kings, also called the Deuteronomistic History) who interpreted the Exile as a punishment from God because the people worshipped idols.
No trace of a strict Torah in Joshua or the period of the Judges [5]
The Pentateuch creates a picture of Israel living in concentric circles around the Torah and cult in a central sanctuary (in the desert, the tabernacle) with Moses, the Lawgiver and Aaron, the High priest. However, as soon as the stories of Sinai and the desert are left behind and the history of Israel in the Promised Land begins, the picture changes. In the book of Joshua, no trace is found of the well-organised cult of the Tabernacle by which all prescriptions and rituals were neatly established in the desert, and in the Middle Ages of Israel - the period of the Judges - the Israelites do almost everything that was forbidden in the Torah: Gideon made an Ephod; the Danites built a new sanctuary for YHWH in which they set up Micah’s statute of YHWH and established a cult under the guidance of a Levite priest Jonathan; Samuel, David and Solomon built altars and offered sacrifices in a number of sanctuaries spread all over the country, consulted spirits of the dead, or received divine messages in dreams, as if it were not written in the Law of Moses that there should be only one central place of worship for YHWH’s veneration and as if such forms of veneration were not prohibited [6]. In this early period, ancient Israelite religion still exhibited a varied and confusing picture. Here YHWH was not only an outsider, a newcomer, a new deity and divine being in the religion of a new people, but also the focus of ancient religious ideas and convictions, a belief grafted on the ancient conservative stem of Canaanite religiosity and elements of pre-Israelite family religion.
[1] Jeremiah 11:13.
[2] Abraham Kuenen, Godsdients van Israel I (Haarlem: A.C, Kruseman, 1869), p 222, cited in Dijkstra, op cit, 90.
[3] Dijkstra, ibid, 90.
[4] Cited in Dijkstra, ibid, 90-91.
[5] Ibid, 91-92.
[6] Deuteronomy 18:10-11.
(t)he religion of Israel was initially polytheism. During the 8th century, the majority of the people still acknowledged many deities and, moreover, worshipped them. During the 7th century and until the beginning of the Babylonian captivity (586BC), this situation did not change. So Jeremiah could say: “as the number of your cities, are your Gods, O Judah!”[1]. This polytheism cannot be taken exception to as a later thing crept into it; on the contrary, everything suggests its originality[2].
The Kings of Israel and Judah worshipped other gods, and this was the norm. The God of the Jews evolved gradually from the Canaanite El, who was in all likelihood the God of Abraham. The Israelite religion was therefore polytheistic in accordance with general Canaanite beliefs and practices. In Ancient Israel and Judah, there was competition between different priests, but those who worshipped Yahweh composed the Hebrew Bible and this was the genesis of the one-god idea. The formative period of Israelite monotheism occurred in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, two centuries before the cult reformation, which started under King Josiah just before the exile and achieved its apotheosis per medium of the Babylonian-Persian diaspora.
According to Dijkstra[3], there is a distinction between what may be described as the early Yahwism of Moses and the popular religion in Israel. Belief in a personal God, the God of Abraham, the God of the ancestor(s) which is dormant in the traditions inherent in the primeval stories and the cycles of the patriarchs in Greece, finally emerged (retrospectively) under Moses. Under the name YHWH, this God of the patriarchs concluded a covenant with Israel of which Moses was the mediator.
But, as Julius Wellhausen points out[4], this view of an original Mosaic Yahwism, with a Torah at the beginning covering and regulating the whole range of Israelite religious life, is a canvas laid over the selection of religious and historical traditions composed and revised by the redactors of the Pentateuch and Prophets. Where multiplicity and pluriformity initially existed, the Babylonian diaspora created ultimate unity: one God, one People, one Faith and one Cult. Belief in one God, one cult and one sanctuary in Jerusalem later became the norm for Israel’s religious life and history, and as a matter of course the accounts of idolatry and polytheism could be written and interpreted as deviation from this norm. This perspective is particularly evident in the Former Prophets (the books of Joshua to Kings, also called the Deuteronomistic History) who interpreted the Exile as a punishment from God because the people worshipped idols.
No trace of a strict Torah in Joshua or the period of the Judges [5]
The Pentateuch creates a picture of Israel living in concentric circles around the Torah and cult in a central sanctuary (in the desert, the tabernacle) with Moses, the Lawgiver and Aaron, the High priest. However, as soon as the stories of Sinai and the desert are left behind and the history of Israel in the Promised Land begins, the picture changes. In the book of Joshua, no trace is found of the well-organised cult of the Tabernacle by which all prescriptions and rituals were neatly established in the desert, and in the Middle Ages of Israel - the period of the Judges - the Israelites do almost everything that was forbidden in the Torah: Gideon made an Ephod; the Danites built a new sanctuary for YHWH in which they set up Micah’s statute of YHWH and established a cult under the guidance of a Levite priest Jonathan; Samuel, David and Solomon built altars and offered sacrifices in a number of sanctuaries spread all over the country, consulted spirits of the dead, or received divine messages in dreams, as if it were not written in the Law of Moses that there should be only one central place of worship for YHWH’s veneration and as if such forms of veneration were not prohibited [6]. In this early period, ancient Israelite religion still exhibited a varied and confusing picture. Here YHWH was not only an outsider, a newcomer, a new deity and divine being in the religion of a new people, but also the focus of ancient religious ideas and convictions, a belief grafted on the ancient conservative stem of Canaanite religiosity and elements of pre-Israelite family religion.
[1] Jeremiah 11:13.
[2] Abraham Kuenen, Godsdients van Israel I (Haarlem: A.C, Kruseman, 1869), p 222, cited in Dijkstra, op cit, 90.
[3] Dijkstra, ibid, 90.
[4] Cited in Dijkstra, ibid, 90-91.
[5] Ibid, 91-92.
[6] Deuteronomy 18:10-11.