Comparative Aspects of the History of Israelite Religion

DOI 10.1515/zaw-2013-0010 ZAW 2013; 125(1): 177–197

Graham DaviesComparative Aspects of the History of Israelite Religion

Graham Davies: Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge; [email protected]

Since the late nineteenth century discoveries of texts and artefacts from the wider environment of Israel and the Old Testament in the ancient Near East have pro-vided materials for a fresh assessment of the meaning and origin of biblical texts, which is of comparable importance for their interpretation to the literary analysis and historical study of the Old Testament which had already established itself before this. Initially such comparative study and its implications for the history of biblical religion and literature were mainly the concern of German scholars, but during and after the First World War the leading roles passed to Scandina-via, Britain and the United States, while in Germany most attention was given to new ways of exploring the origins and theology of the Old Testament in its own terms.¹ In the past thirty years (and even earlier: see below) there has been a notable revival of such studies in Germany. At the same time important work in this field has continued to be done in the United States in particular, includ-ing some valuable work on the appropriate methodology for such studies, but also elsewhere in Europe, so that the following review necessarily has a strongly international aspect. The materials for such studies are now widely drawn from the discoveries at ancient Ugarit as well as Mesopotamia (Egyptian parallels have continued to play a smaller role), but recently the case has been strongly made for more attention to be given to the (as yet much less extensive) textual evi-dence from Israel’s closer neighbours in Phoenicia, Syria and Transjordan and to other evidence from archaeological excavations. The vast extent of work in this field means that only a broad and selective overview of developments in it can be given here.

1 W. Zwickel, Religionsgeschichte Israels. Einführung in den gegenwärtigen Forschungsstand in den deutschsprachigen Ländern, in: B. Janowski / M. Köckert (eds.), Religionsgeschichte Israels. Formale und materiale Aspekte, 1999, 9–56, esp. 9–11.

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New discoveries, editions of texts, translations and reference works

Among newly published inscriptions in Hebrew the greatest religious importance attaches to the »Asherah« texts from Khirbet el-Qôm and Kuntillet ʿAjrud, the silver amulets from Jerusalem and some of the Arad ostraca.² In Aramaic the Deir ʿAlla plaster texts, with their mention of the seer Balaam, and new finds from Tell Fekherye, Tel Dan, Bukan and Zincirli, together with Phoenician inscriptions from Hassan Beyli, Çineköy near Adana, and Incirli and Philistine inscriptions from Tel Miqne/Ekron, have added to our knowledge of the religion of Israel’s neighbours.³ New and enlarged editions of standard collections of West Semitic inscriptions and the Ugaritic texts have appeared, and the set of textbooks by John Gibson has been completed.⁴ Comprehensive collections of translations into German and English have provided an up-to-date guide to the interpreta-tion and study of many religious texts.⁵ A number of valuable reference works

2 See J. Renz / W. Röllig, Handbuch der althebräischen Epigraphik I-III, 1995–2003; A. Lemaire, Hebrew and West Semitic Inscriptions and Pre-Exilic Israel, in: J. Day (ed.), In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel, JSOTS 406, 2004, 366–385; F. W. Dobbs-Allsop / J. J. M. Roberts, C. L. Seow / R. E. Whita-ker, Hebrew Inscriptions: Texts from the Biblical Period of the Monarchy with Concordance, 2005.3 J. Hoftijzer / G. van der Kooij, Aramaic Texts from Deir ʿAlla, DMOA 19, 1976; A. Abou-Assaf / P. Bordreuil / A. R. Millard, La statue de Tell Fekherye et son inscription bilingue assyro-aramé-enne, 1982; A. Biran / J. Naveh, An Aramaic Stele Fragment from Tel Dan, IEJ 43 (1993), 81–98; id., The Tel Dan Inscription: A New Fragment, IEJ 45 (1995), 3–18; Lemaire, Une inscription ara-méenne du VIIIe S. av. J.-C. trouvée à Bukân (Azerbaïjan iranien), StIr 27 (1998), 15–30; D. Par-dee, A New Aramaic Inscription from Zincirli, BASOR 356 (2009), 51–71; Lemaire, L’inscription phénicienne de Hassan-Beyli reconsidérée, RSF 11 (1983), 9–19 (republication = KAI 23); R. Tekoǧlu / A. Lemaire, La bilingue royale louvito-phénicienne de Çineköy, CRAIBL 2000, 961–1007; S. A. Kaufman, The Phoenician Inscription of the Incirli Trilingual: A Tentative Recon-struction and Translation, Maarav 14/2 (2007), 7–26; S. Gitin, Seventh Century B.C.E. Cultic Elements at Ekron, in: A. Biran / J. Aviram (ed.), Biblical Archaeology Today 1990, 1993, 248–258; S. Gitin / T. Dothan / J. Naveh, A Royal Dedicatory Inscription from Ekron, IEJ 47 (1997), 1–16.4 B. Porten / A. Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt I-IV, 1986–1999; H. Donner / W. Röllig, Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften, 52002; M. Dietrich / O. Lo-retz / J. Sanmartin, The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani and other places, ALAPM 8, 21995; J. C. L. Gibson, Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions. 3: Phoenician Inscrip-tions, including inscriptions in the mixed dialect of Arslan Tash, 1982; J. F. Healey, Aramaic In-scriptions and Documents of the Roman Period (Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions 4), 2009.5 O. Kaiser et al. (ed.), Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments, 1982–2001, Neue Folge 2004 ff.; W. W. Hallo / K. L. Younger, The Context of Scripture: Canonical Compositions, Monu-mental Inscriptions, and Archival Documents from the Biblical World, 1997–2002 (the latter work includes some valuable essays on method in comparative study).



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have appeared, illuminating both the relevant languages and the religions of the ancient Near East (on publications of seals, impressions and amulets see below).⁶ Mark S. Smith’s account of research on Ugaritic contains a mass of information and indicates well the changing priorities and presuppositions in comparative study.⁷

The History of Yahwism in Comparative Perspective

A bridge between the earlier and the later periods of intense German interest in the comparative approach is formed by the voluminous work of Otto Eißfeldt.⁸ Already in a very early essay (1914) he sketched the history of the »ununterbro-chenen Kampf zwischen Jahve und Baal«, writing of Yahweh too as in origin a storm-god, but not only that: »ist er mehr als Natur-, mehr als Gewittergott«.⁹ He it was who early on delivered the generally negative German view of Sigmund Mowinckel’s reconstruction of an Israelite Autumnal New Year Festival.¹⁰ But it was also he who was one of the first to see the significance of the Ugaritic texts for Israelite religion and used them extensively, along with the Phoenician and classical sources that were already known, in his many studies of the history of Canaanite and Israelite religion. It may be no coincidence that the republication of his Kleine Schriften came at a time when a new interest in the wider context of Israelite religion was already developing in Germany. This took the form, for many, of attempts to find in the cultic traditions of Jerusalem (preserved mainly in the Psalms and Isaiah) evidence of Israel’s debt to Canaanite religion, and spe-cifically that of the former Jebusite inhabitants of Jerusalem. ¹¹

6 G. del Olmo Lete / J. Sanmartin, A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tra-dition, 22004; J. Hoftijzer / K. Jongeling, Dictionary of the North-West Semitic Inscriptions, 1995; E. Lipiński, Dieux et déesses de l'univers phénicien et punique, StPh 15 (OLA 64), 1995; K. van der Toorn / B. Becking / P. W. van der Horst, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible [=DDD], 1995, 21999; H. Niehr, Religionen in Israels Umwelt, NEB EB 5, 1998; J. Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan, 2000.7 M. S. Smith, Untold Stories: The Bible and Ugaritic Studies in the Twentieth Century, 2001, 196–200.211 f.221–225.8 On him see R. Smend, Otto Eißfeldt 1887–1973, in: A. G. Auld (ed.), Understanding Poets and Prophets (Festschrift Anderson), 1993, 318–335.9 O. Eißfeldt, Jahve und Baal, Kleine Schriften (below KS) 1, 1962, 1–12 (citations from 1–2).10 Eißfeldt, Jahwe als König, ZAW 46 (1928), 81–105 = KS 1, 172–193.11 G. von Rad, Die Stadt auf dem Berge, EvTh 8 (1948–9), 439–447, 440; id., Theologie des Alten Testaments, 1, 1957, 51–55; H. Schmid, Jahwe und die Kulttraditionen von Jerusalem, ZAW 67 (1955), 168–197; H.-J. Kraus, Psalmen, 1, BKAT 15,1, 1958, 197–205; O. Kaiser, Die mythische Be-



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Outside Germany the leading force in the comparative study of the history of Israelite religion has been F. M. Cross of Harvard, with his pupils and other followers.¹² Cross went to Johns Hopkins University in 1946 to study with W. F. Albright and inherited from him the conviction that Israel and its religion were very much part of ancient Near Eastern culture and needed to be studied in a way that gave full weight to this. But for Cross this did not mean the use of »exter-nal evidence« to prove the reliability of Israelite tradition about early history, as Albright had famously argued. Nor did it mean a comparison which was chiefly a contrast. Cross has seen the unifying thread of Israel’s own religion as »a per-ennial and unrelaxed tension between the mythic and the historical« and in relation to the early period he prefers to speak of »epic« rather than »history«.¹³ He is in no doubt that specific historical events were of crucial importance at the beginning of the process (and later), but even they only got their meaning from what is in a broad sense the »mythical« perspective from which they were presented. Cross’s confidence in insisting on such a beginning came from the central place which he gave to a series of very ancient poetic passages (mainly in the Pentateuch) which had already been the focus of his doctoral work (with D. N. Freedman) under Albright in the 1940s.¹⁴ The foundations for key chapters in his major work Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (1973) were laid in articles published in the 1960s.¹⁵

deutung des Meeres in Ägypten, Ugarit und Israel, BZAW 78, 1959; W. H. Schmidt, Königtum Gottes in Ugarit und Israel: Zur Herkunft der Königsprädikation Jahwes, BZAW 80, 1961, 21966; J. Jeremias, Theophanie. Die Geschichte einer alttestamentlichen Gattung, WMANT 10, 1965; R. Rendtorff, El, Baʿal und Jahwe, ZAW 78 (1966), 277–292; F. Stolz, Strukturen und Figuren im Kult von Jerusalem, BZAW 118, 1970; in Britain R. E. Clements, God and Temple, 1965, 68–76. Jeremias’s much later work, Das Königtum Gottes in den Psalmen, FRLANT 141, 1987, is interes-ting for the place which it (unusually) gives to north Israelite traditions for the adoption of such ideas.12 But as an influential representative of Scandinavia we also note H. Ringgren, with his two textbooks, Israelitische Religion, 1963 (ET 1965), and Främre Orientens Religioner i Gammal Tid, 1967 (ET 1973), as well as other studies.13 F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 1973, viii.14 Most readily accessible as F. M. Cross, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry, SBLDS 21, 1975.15 For details of these and other publications by Cross see the list in his Festschrift: P. D. Mil-ler / P. D. Hanson / S. D. McBride, Ancient Israelite Religion, 1987, 645–656. His early doctoral students examined aspects of the same themes: R. J. Clifford, The Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament, HSM 4, 1972; P. D. Miller, The Divine Warrior in Early Israel, HSM 5, 1973; P. D. Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic, 1975; W. R. Millar, Isaiah 24–27 and the Origin of Apoca-lyptic, HSM 11, 1976.




Cross and his followers place the first impact of Canaanite religious ideas earlier than many other scholars: »One is astonished by perennial attempts to discover the source of kingship and creation motifs in the Jebusite cult of ʾĒl ʿElyōn. In fact the cult of King El (ıl͗u milku) was ubiquitous in Canaan in the Late Bronze Age as we have seen, and the cult of Prince Haddu was well known. Of the many shrines of ʾĒl, Jerusalem was merely one.«¹⁶ For Cross such impact is there from the beginning. Unlike some more recent writers, this does not mean primar-ily the storm-god pattern exemplified by Baal, but the figure of El, who is argued to be the basis of both the religion of the patriarchs in Genesis and of the name of Yahweh himself, as Cross already argued in 1962.¹⁷

Cross, like others, has contested Albrecht Alt’s view that the »gods of the fathers« were originally anonymous and not associated with fixed places of wor-ship.¹⁸ Rather, as Old Assyrian texts from Cappadocia show, was it normal for such family deities to be identified with named gods known from elsewhere.¹⁹ The El-names that occur in Genesis fit perfectly into this pattern and also into the extensive evidence for the prominence of El as the name of a deity in the third and second millennia B.C. and later.²⁰ Although the fullest evidence for this (and for El’s attributes as patriarch and warrior and his mountain abode, most likely in the Amanus) comes from the Ugaritic texts, Cross more than once notes that El was also revered among the semi-nomadic Amorite population of inland Syria.²¹ More boldly, Cross argues from an analysis of the name Yahweh, its inter-pretation in Exod 3,15 and Amorite personal names that »Yahweh« is in origin a sentence name deriving from a cultic formula, most probably ʾēl zū yahwī ṣaba ʾ ôt [his vocalisation], »ʾĒl who creates the (heavenly) armies«, later shortened to the widespread yhwh ṣbʾt and eventually simply to yhwh. On this view Yahweh was »originally a cultic name of ʾĒl, perhaps the epithet of ʾĒl as patron deity of the Midianite league in the south«.²² A number of features of early Yahwism

16 Cross, Canaanite Myth, 99 n. 30: cf. Cross’s summaries of the history of Yahwism on p. 89–90.143–144.163.169.211. 17 F. M. Cross, Yahweh and the God of the Patriarchs, HTR 55 (1962), 225–259, the basis for the section »Yahweh and ʾĒl« in Cross, Canaanite Myth, 44–75. 18 A. Alt, Der Gott der Väter, BWANT 3/12, 1929.19 Cross, Canaanite Myth, 7–11.20 Cross, Canaanite Myth, 11–43.46–60.21 Cross, Canaanite Myth, 14.48.22 Cross, Canaanite Myth, 70–71.75. In a footnote Cross notes Julius Wellhausen’s similar view (though without the same basis) in his article »Israel« for the Encyclopaedia Britannica: »Jeho-vah was only a special name of El…« (cited from the reprint in Prolegomena to the History of Israel, 1885, 433 n. 1).



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are claimed to fit well with such an origin. Later Cross argues specifically that the »ritual conquest« texts in Ex 15,1–18, Deut 33,2–3, Jud 5,4–5, Hab 3,3–6 and Ps 68,18 all incorporate mythical elements, mainly from Canaanite El-traditions, and derive from a spring festival at Gilgal in the Judges period. Thus features like the divine council, the Divine Warrior and creation made their entry into Israelite religion already at this stage and helped to give »mythic ›depth‹« to the recollec-tion of the formative events in Israel’s early history.

The adaptation of features from the myths about Baal is attributed mainly to the period after the building of the Jerusalem temple by Solomon with Phoeni-cian support and guidance. A beginning had already been made, Cross holds, in Ex 15,1–18, but only in a restrained way: there is no battle between the god and the sea there nor any sign of the »division of the sea« motif that occurs elsewhere: only the outline pattern of conflict, building a sanctuary and manifestation of kingship follows the Baal-cycle at all closely.²³ By contrast poems from the mon-archy period such as Ps 18; 29; 46; 89,6–19; 93; 97 draw much more fully on cosmic mythical ideas such as the theophany of Baal in the storm, his battle with the sea or a sea-monster and his assumption of kingship.²⁴ Further effects of the assimi-lation of this mythological material are to be seen in exilic and later literature such as Job and the »proto-apocalyptic« poetry in parts of the books of Isaiah and Ezekiel. But earlier prophecy, which challenged the encroachment of the actual worship of Baal into Israel, dispensed with the language of Baal’s theophany (cf. I Reg 19,11–12) and drew its ideas rather from the El tradition, with its conception of revelation by word or decree in the divine council (cf. I Reg 22; Isa 6; Ps 82). These traditions were evidently preserved in the northern kingdom as well as in Judah: Cross is in no doubt that the name Bethel meant what it said and referred originally to »an ʾĒl shrine«.²⁵

In conclusion it should be emphasised once again that, important as Cross sees the use of mythological traditions to have been for the history of Israel’s religion, for him its real driving force lies elsewhere. This is apparent in his strong adherence to the covenantal basis of that religion from its beginnings and the centrality of historical events to the early festival cult and the epic tradition. Moreover, although Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic did not pretend to be a com-plete account of Israel’s religious traditions (classical prophecy, for example, is barely touched upon), it does include chapters in which mythological themes are marginal if present at all: on the priestly families, the royal ideology and the Deu-

23 Cross, Canaanite Myth, 141–142.24 Cross, Canaanite Myth, 151–163.25 Cross, Canaanite Myth, 177–94; cf. 73–75.




teronomistic History. A similar breadth can be seen in the work of his doctoral students.

In a way it is two scholars who were not doctoral students of Cross who have been most active in carrying forward his comparative agenda, in different ways, into the later twentieth century and beyond, J. C. de Moor and Mark S. Smith. De Moor’s The Rise of Yahwism²⁶ shares Cross’s high regard for early Israelite poetry and for the Ugaritic and other non-biblical texts for its elucidation.²⁷ He also argues that the Hebrew patriarchs were worshippers of a manifestation of El (though he believes that this deity was known to them as Yahweh) and for him too covenants have an important place in the origins of Israel.²⁸ But his reconstruc-tion of the history of early Israel and its religion is very different from the biblical narrative which Cross follows in its broad outlines (so far as Cross is interested in the actual sequence of events at all). De Moor dates Ps 68 (at least vv. 2–25) and Hab 3,3–15 to the pre-Exodus period, since they say nothing about the Exodus, and he understands them to represent a march of conquest by early Yahwists in the Amarna period from the southern desert to Bashan. Deut 32 is also dated, for reasons that are less clear, much earlier than is usual, to the time of Moses. By contrast, the poem in Ex 15,1–18 is dated later than Cross, to the tenth century, which does make possible a more plausible understanding of its final verses in relation to Jerusalem. The details of de Moor’s speculative historical reconstruc-tion need not concern us here: what is of greatest interest is his very distinctive theory about the origins of Yahweh and his use in it of Ugaritic texts.²⁹ This takes its departure from the similarity of the name Yahweh (analysed as a yqtl form of a root hwy, probably in the simple, i. e. Qal, stem) to the first part of a number of Amorite personal names which include Iawi-DINGIR (Il).³⁰ But could such per-sonal names of human beings be the basis for the name of a god? De Moor begins by observing that names of the same form, including some abbreviated to the initial verbal element alone, are in fact also attested as the names of gods in texts from Mari and Ugarit.³¹ How this might have come about, de Moor suggests, is clarified by the (now generally recognised) fact that after death the kings of Ugarit (who were probably regarded as »sons of Ilu« in their lifetimes) were deified (as

26 J. C. de Moor, The Rise of Yahwism: The roots of Israelite monotheism, 1990, 2nd ed. 1995. Page references here are to the first edition.27 Cf. his own earlier studies, J. C. de Moor, The Seasonal Pattern in the Ugaritic Myth of Baʿlu, according to the version of Ilimilku, 1971; id. New Year with Canaanites and Israelites, 1972.28 De Moor, Rise, 1990, 176–182.255–259.29 De Moor, Rise, 1990, 237–260. 30 Cf. H. B. Huffmon, Amorite Personal Names in the Mari Texts, 1965, 71–73.159–160.31 De Moor, Rise, 1990, 239.



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rpʾum). In his view Yahweh-El was originally just such a minor deity, probably the deified ancestor of one of the proto-Israelite tribes and as such, he supposes, an aspect of El.³² At a certain point, which de Moor associates with an early religious conflict with the worshippers of Baal, Yahweh-El ceased to be identified with El and became a deity in his own right.³³ This theory has an advantage over Cross’s explanation of the name Yahweh in that it presumes the loss only of an element (El) with which the same verbal form is known to have been combined in ancient Near Eastern nomenclature, and it could probably be defended even apart from de Moor’s specific reconstruction of the movements of early Yahweh-worshipping tribes. But it has serious difficulties of its own, among which are the lack of any real traces of ancestor-worship in Israelite tradition (despite what de Moor pro-poses on pp. 247–252) and the very strong associations between Yahweh and the Exodus and Mount Sinai.

Mark Smith is likewise a specialist in Ugaritic,³⁴ but he has also written three large comparative studies of Israelite religion.³⁵ The first of these begins with a focus on the issues already treated by Cross, particularly the relationship between Yahweh, El and Baal and their respective literatures. But in at least three ways Smith’s approach is different. He takes very seriously the change in schol-arly perspective which sees Israelite culture, and also Israelite religion, as largely overlapping with and deriving from Canaanite culture and religion.³⁶ There is also much less concern here, compared with Cross and de Moor, with Israel’s traditions about its earliest history, including the early poetry, and indeed with debates about ultimate origins.³⁷ Finally, the focus is notably more on the charac-teristics and interrelationships of specific deities, as it is in later chapters which deal with Asherah, the sun and Molech. There are several reasons for thinking that »The original god of Israel was El« (not least its name) and that »Yahweh and El were identified at an early stage«. Already in the Judges period »Yahweh held

32 De Moor, Rise, 1990, 240–241.244–245.33 See further de Moor, Rise, 1990, 252–255; the occurrence of yw in KTU 1.1 iv.13 might be »a deliberate caricature of YHWH« (ibid., 113–118).34 See especially his edition and commentary, M. S. Smith, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, 1, 1994; 2 (with Wayne T. Pitard), 2009.35 M. S. Smith, The Early History of God, 1990, 22002 (I refer to the first edition); M. S. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts, 2001; M. S. Smith, God in Translation: Deities in Cross-cultural Discourse in the Biblical World, FAT 57, 2008.36 Smith, Early History, xxii-xxiii, 1–7.37 Smith in fact prefers a monarchic date for all the poems except Judg 5: Smith, Early History, 74 n. 94.




hegemony«, but in a religious outlook that made room, in different ways, for El, Baal and perhaps Asherah, with associated features such as the divine council.³⁸ There is no attempt to explain where Yahweh came from, only brief references to the »old tradition« about his »southern sanctuary« with its different names and »Israel’s early tradition of the Exodus from Egypt«.³⁹

In the monarchy period Smith’s primary focus is on the relationship of Yahweh and Baal worship, in terms respectively of challenge, toleration (as under the Omrides in the northern kingdom in the ninth century, most likely in the form of Baal-shamem, as Eißfeldt had earlier suggested) and two concepts which Smith helpfully takes up in place of older talk of »syncretism«: convergence and differentiation. The former is seen in the widespread adaptation of Baal (and El) imagery to refer to Yahweh in Israelite poetry, often with a political motive; the latter in the resistance to Baal worship by figures such as Elijah, Jehu and Hosea. ⁴⁰

The »missing« consideration of ultimate origins can in fact be found in Smith’s second book. After reviewing again the evidence for the worship of El in the Bronze Age and also the Iron Age and reaffirming his view that El was the original god of Israel, Smith now considers the stages by which Yahweh may have become identified with El and what his original »profile« may have been.⁴¹ Some passages preserve the memory of when El and Yahweh were still distinct deities (Ps 82; and according to Smith also Gen 49,18–25 and Num 23–24), and Deut 32,8–9 LXX more precisely makes El (or rather Elyon, »the Most High«) the head of a pan-theon of which Yahweh is one member, it seems as one of El’s sons (cf. Ps 82,6). The equation of Yahweh with El then took place as »perhaps the cult of Yahweh spread further into the highlands of Israel … infiltrating cult sites of El and accommodat-ing to their El theologies«. Earlier in the same chapter Smith has suggested Shiloh and Shechem as specific places where this »infiltration« may have taken place. ⁴²

How then did the cult of Yahweh become established in the highlands of Canaan in the first place? Smith now suggests that it may have been transmit-ted by southerners such as Amalekites, Kenites or Midianites, for whose pres-ence in Canaan there is some evidence, and he wonders if trading contacts may have brought them (and the cult of Yahweh) there. As he observes, the traditional explanation, favoured by some scholars, would be that the »Israelite« group who

38 Smith, Early History, 7–8.26.39 Smith, Early History, 3.40 Smith, Early History, 49–64 and 45–49 respectively: see xxxiii n. 12 for earlier scholars, inclu-ding Cross, who have highlighted the same distinction in a different way.41 Smith, Origins, ch. 7, specifically 143–148. 42 Smith, Origins, 144, cf. 140.



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came from Egypt had Yahweh as their God. Smith does not dispute that there was such a group, but he holds, with some other scholars, that the original God of the Exodus was not Yahweh but El. His main reason for this is that two verses in the Balaam oracles (Num 23,22; 24,8) affirm this and that references to El in these oracles are much more frequent than references to Yahweh. The greater continu-ity which this would provide with the religion of the patriarchs in Genesis lends some support to this view.⁴³

What then was the original nature of Yahweh? Smith, with some others, finds the idea that he was from the beginning »a title of El« incompatible with his south-ern origins and his associations with the storm and war. But he doubts whether a god from the desert is likely to have been a form of the »coastal storm-god« like Baal either. The closest analogy is perhaps Ugaritic Athtar. But in a telling conclu-sion he seems to question whether the sheer quantity of material from Ugarit may not have exercised too great an influence on scholars. »The momentous evidence provided by the Ugaritic texts may have steered research toward El and Baal to seek Yahweh’s original profile; this direction may be partially misleading.«⁴⁴ It may even be that part of Yahweh’s original profile has been lost.

There are of course some unresolved problems with this reconstruction. The key evidence in the Balaam oracles is open to other interpretations: Hebrew ʾēl need no more be a proper name, rather than a title, here than in many other places and both of its associations with the Exodus are closely preceded by occurrences of Yahweh (23,21; 24,6). In addition, Smith’s hypothesis of the displacement of El from priority at his cult centres by a deity introduced into the country by traders is much less convincing than one that attributes this to the arrival of a group of people who brought with them a tale of this god’s mighty action in their libera-tion from the still powerful kingdom of Egypt and a confident hope that he would enable them to settle (or had already done so) in Canaan.

To return, finally, to Germany: without doubt the intense preoccupation with Religionsgeschichte in the past twenty years owes much to the appearance – after an interval of nearly sixty years in which only one German scholar (G. Fohrer [1969]) published a book-length history of Israelite religion – of Rainer Albertz’s comprehensive two-volume work and the debates stimulated by a deliberately provocative essay of his.⁴⁵ Compared to older treatments of the subject, Albertz’s

43 Smith, Origins, 145–148. 44 Smith, Origins, 146. 45 R. Albertz, Religionsgeschichte Israels in alttestamentlicher Zeit, ATD/E 8, 1992 (ET 1994); id., Religionsgeschichte Israels statt Theologie des Alten Testaments! Ein Plädoyer für eine for-schungsgeschichtliche Umorientierung, JBTh 10 (1995), 3–24 (cf. 177–187).




treatment is refreshingly and convincingly innovative in the seriousness with which it takes the social and political context of religious developments through-out the Old Testament period as well as in other aspects of numerous individual discussions. Other factors and many more contributions to the subject have been insightfully examined in W. Zwickel’s valuable history of research in German-speaking countries, which also makes some proposals of its own about appro-priate methodological principles.⁴⁶ In the limited space available here attention will be focused on the work of two scholars whose work is also innovative, but in different ways.

One new approach to the history of Israelite religion that has been given much greater prominence in recent years, and deservedly so, is the use of ico-nography, visual portrayals of deities and their attributes. This has been fostered especially by Othmar Keel and his students, both in large volumes of synthesis⁴⁷ and in monographs on specific topics. These investigations have been greatly assisted by projects to collect and catalogue pictorial seals and their impressions which have been directed by Keel at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.⁴⁸ The new synthesis of data and its careful and provisional interpretation have brought numerous valuable contributions to scholarship. It is only possible to note a few of them here. Perhaps of greatest importance is the strong evidence of solar imagery in Israelite glyptic art of the eighth century particularly, first in the northern kingdom and then in Judah, which Keel and Uehlinger take to represent Yahweh’s majesty and universal power.⁴⁹ Its significance will need to be weighed carefully alongside the more debated textual evidence from the Old Testament.⁵⁰ But other inferences about the reason for changing iconographical

46 Zwickel, Religionsgeschichte (above, n. 1).47 O. Keel, Die Welt der altorientalischen Bildsymbolik und das Alte Testament. Am Beispiel der Psalmen, 1972 (ET 1978); O. Keel / C. Uehlinger, Göttinnen, Götter und Gottessymbole. Neue Erkentnisse zur Religionsgeschichte Kanaans und Israels aufgrund bislang unerschlossener iko-nographischer Quellen, 1992 (ET 1998).48 Cf. O. Keel, Corpus der Stempelsiegel-Amulette aus Palästina-Israel. Von den Anfängen bis zur Perserzeit (OBO SA), 1995 ff.; J. Eggler / O. Keel, Corpus der Siegel-Amulette aus Jordanien (OBO SA 25), 2006. See also the wider-ranging volume of inscribed seals by N. Avigad / B. Sass, Corpus of West Semitic Stamp Seals, 1997.49 Keel / Uehlinger, Göttinnen, 282–298.302–321. 50 On which see e. g. Smith, Early History, 115–124; J. G. Taylor, Yahweh and the Sun: Biblical and Archaeological Evidence for Sun Worship in Ancient Israel, JSOTS 111, 1993; B. Janowski, JHWH und der Sonnengott. Aspekte der Solarisierung JHWHs in vorexilischer Zeit (1995), in: id., Die Rettende Gerechtigkeit. Beiträge zur Theologie des Alten Testaments 2, 1999, 192–219; Day, Yahweh (above, n. 7), 151–163; further bibliography and discussion by E. Lipiński in DDD, art. Shemesh (1995), 1445–1452.



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patterns are also of great interest. There is the gradual disappearance of »naked goddess« figures in the early Iron Age, the preference for tree and animal symbol-ism (probably) for Asherah and the later association of its »numinous power« with royal power, which is followed by a revival of anthropomorphic portrayal in the »pillar figurines« of (mainly) the seventh century.⁵¹ More generally symbols of deities gradually come to be preferred to human-like figures, and in the late Judaean monarchy pictorial decorations on seals either tend not to have a reli-gious significance or are absent altogether.⁵² The changing dominance of Baal- and El-imagery in the eighth and seventh centuries, as suggested here, with El associated with lunar symbols of Assyrian and Aramaean provenance, will also benefit from further study.⁵³ The sheer quantity of illustrative material assembled in this volume provide an excellent basis for identifying changing fashions which then demand an explanation. The explanations provided are a fine beginning to such analysis, but inevitably (as the authors recognise) it is here that further evaluation and interpretation will be needed.⁵⁴

A very different approach from any of those described so far was taken by Herbert Niehr in his monograph Der höchste Gott, published in 1990.⁵⁵ As the sub-title makes clear (Alttestamentlicher JHWH-Glaube im Kontext syrisch-kanaanäi-scher Religion des 1. Jahrtausends v. Chr.), this also gives a key role to extra-bibli-cal data, in this case the evidence for Phoenician and Aramaean religions which comes from contemporary inscriptions and iconography as well as from much later sources. Niehr denies that Yahweh’s development into a »high god« can be derived from his equation with El, because El practically disappears from view in Levantine lists of the gods in the first millennium. Even the Israelite »Jeru-salem cult tradition« is a product of the post-exilic period. In texts from Israel’s neighbours in the monarchy period other gods take the leading role, especially Baal-shamem. This god’s attribute suggests a relationship with the title »God of heaven« in the Elephantine texts and some later books of the Old Testament. Con-trary to most earlier scholars, Niehr holds that the post-exilic period was when mythical motifs (which he endeavours to associate with aspects of Baal-shamem)

51 Keel / Uehlinger, Göttinnen, 146.164.173.264–266.370–385.52 Keel / Uehlinger, Göttinnen, 164.406–414.53 Keel / Uehlinger, Göttinnen, 354–361.54 For some corrections to the volume see H. Weippert, Zu einer neuen ikonographischen Reli-gionsgeschichte Kanaans und Israels, BZ N.F. 38 (1994), 1–28. Zwickel has made the valuable point that in their treatment of Iron I the authors pay insufficient attention to regional differen-tiation and the striking fact that in the hill-country, where the early Israelites settled, there is an almost total lack of pictorial material at this time (Zwickel, Religionsgeschichte, 36–39).55 H. Niehr, Der höchste Gott, BZAW 190, 1990.




first entered into surviving Old Testament literature and it was apparently only then that Yahweh began to be viewed as a »high god«, as part of a programme designed to uphold the incipient monotheism of Deuteronomy and Deutero-Isaiah: the »paganism« was, as in other contexts, only literary and was not meant to affect the underlying belief. Before the exile the general character of Israelite religion was consistently polytheistic, apparently as yet without a »high god«, even if for an elite minority Yahweh was revered as the god of land and dynasty.

Responses to Niehr’s proposals have varied from acceptance by a small number of scholars⁵⁶ to a mixture of agreement and disagreement by some others⁵⁷ and outright rejection by yet others.⁵⁸ In more recent works Niehr has separated some-what his general approach to Israelite religion, which he still maintains, from his interest in the deity Baal-shamem: the latter no longer plays such a central role in the former and he has changed some of his views about it. He no longer claims that Baal-shamem was »der höchste Gott« throughout the Levant in the first mil-lennium B.C.⁵⁹ He recognises that the religion of Ugarit and the later religions of Syria, Phoenicia and Palestine are parts of a continuum. Revised interpretations of a number of texts leave the Zakkur inscription as the only definite attestation of Baal-shamem as a supreme god in the first half of the first millennium and he acknowledges that even for the Aramaean world this was exceptional, since by far the majority of the early Aramaic evidence points to Hadad as the leading deity.⁶⁰ Nevertheless it is from an Aramaean source (rather than, as earlier, Phoe-nician »penetration« in exilic times⁶¹) that Niehr now traces the pathway, via the Aramaean immigration into northern Israel attested by II Reg 17,24–25.29–31, by

56 E.g. P. R. Davies, N. P. Lemche and T. L. Thompson, as noted by B.A. Mastin, Yahweh’s Ashe-rah. Inclusive Monotheism and the Question of Dating, in: Day (ed.), Search, 326–351, 340.57 E.g. Keel / Uehlinger, Göttinnen, 296–297; see also 235–237.277 f.354–360. On the Jerusalem cult-tradition and its pre-Israelite roots see Keel, Fern von Jerusalem. Frühe Jerusalemer Kult-traditionen und ihre Träger und Trägerinnen, in: F. Hahn et al. (ed.), Zion, Ort der Begegnung, BBB 90, 1993, 439–502, 440 f.58 K. Engelken, BAʿAL-ŠAMEM. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit der Monographie von H. Niehr, ZAW 108 (1996), I., 233–248, II., 391–407; Day, Yahweh, 14 f., with n. 11; I. Kottsieper, El – ferner oder naher Gott? Zur Bedeutung einer semitischen Gottheit in verschiedenen sozialen Kontexten im 1. Jtsd. v. Chr., in: R. Albertz (ed.), Religion und Gesellschaft. Studien zu ihrer Wechselbeziehung in den Kulturen des Antiken Vorderen Orients, AOAT 248, 1997, 25–74, 41.59 H. Niehr, Baʿal-Šamem. Studien zu Herkunft, Geschichte und Rezeptionsgeschichte eines phönizischen Gottes, StPh 17 (OLA 123), 182.60 Niehr, Baʿal-Šamem, 89. The evidence for this has only been increased by the new finds noted in n. 3 above.61 Niehr, Höchste Gott, 195–197.



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which at least the name of Baal-shamem contributed to the title »God of heaven« used of Yahweh, although this view has difficulties of its own.⁶²

Niehr’s newer, more explicit, statements about method in the study of Isra-elite religion are formulated in the context of his own work on a book about the religions of Israel’s neighbours.⁶³ This is where, in his view, the study of Isra-el’s religion needs to begin. An »Außenperspektive« is the only way to secure a neutral, independent, starting-point.⁶⁴ It is especially the religions of the »Levant crescent« that he has in mind, with their context in a similar climatic setting, different from those of the great riverine civilisations of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Israel’s religion is but a part of the religions of Palestine and is to be treated as a »subset of Canaanite religion«.⁶⁵ Its study can only begin with Omri in the ninth century, for all earlier periods in the biblical account are the subject of time-con-ditioned and unhistorical constructs from which nothing useful can be learned: the beginnings of Judah and its religion are »lost in the dark«, and the opposition between Israel and Canaan is unreal, because, as can now be taken as proved, the Israelites were originally Canaanites who were »retribalised«. The censorship of the canon, with its Jerusalem-centred viewpoint, means that the biblical litera-ture presents a distorted picture of reality and only archaeological and epigraphic evidence can be safely relied upon. Niehr does, however, concede that for Israel (and this is also true for its neighbours) such evidence is very meagre and must employ a context provided by, or extracted from, the Old Testament. Nevertheless study of Israelite religion must proceed according to a pattern which is discerned in the neighbouring religions, which Niehr summarises in terms of a storm-god at the head of the pantheon and a mother-goddess as consort, the earthly king as the son of the high god, associated temples, images, rituals and priests, divi-nation, honouring of the dead, cosmology and myth, the latter centred on the gods’ mountain home. It is not to be assumed that the religions of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were identical (the differences between prophets in the two

62 Niehr, Baʿal-Šamem, 98–101.198–199.211–212.63 Niehr, Religionen (above, n. 6), 237–240; id., Auf dem Weg zu einer Religionsgeschichte Is-raels und Judas. Annäherungen an einen Problemkreis, in: Janowski / Köckert (ed.), Religions-geschichte, 57–78. The same general approach can already be seen in Niehr, Höchste Gott, 181–192.64 Niehr, Auf dem Weg, 74.65 Niehr, Auf dem Weg, 70. The phrase is cited from M. D. Coogan, Canaanite Origins and Li-neage: Reflections on the Religion of Ancient Israel, in: Miller / Hanson / McBride, Ancient Isra-elite Religion (above, n. 15), 115–124, 115.




kingdoms make this unlikely), even though they both share the worship of »the south Palestinian storm-god Yahweh«.⁶⁶

This certainly has at first sight the appearance of a scientifically rigorous method for the study of Israelite religion and the final point, the need to recog-nise the major differences between the northern and southern kingdoms in the pre-exilic period, deserves much more attention than it has received. Despite the »Jerusalem bias« of the canon, not a little evidence is preserved in it of features of north Israelite religion which evidently found favour with later collectors and editors. One theme that recurs again and again is the worship of Yahweh as the God of the Exodus. Northern Israelite psalms such as 77, 80 and 81, evidence of prophecy in the northern kingdom (Amos, Hosea) and, with due attention to criti-cal issues, features of Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History all contrib-ute to this picture, as some scholars have noted in the past.⁶⁷

The existence of this evidence raises important questions about the adequacy of some of Niehr’s methodological principles. There is clearly a need to add to his schema the category of divine action in a people’s (not just a dynasty’s) histo-ry.⁶⁸ But this shows up a fundamental weakness of his approach: its inability to cope with differences between the religions of Palestine in the first millennium B.C. There is a serious danger that it would become a »bed of Procrustes«, with divergent features being »cut off« and ignored or without good reason attributed to a later stage of history. The insistence on beginning with Omri also skews the method from the start: it is curious to privilege a period in which the evidence of outside intervention is so clear. The neglect of the premonarchic period of Israel’s life removes the possibility of getting behind the monarchic period and its official religion to the people’s older roots which may well provide additional perspec-tives from which to understand later developments. Niehr’s scheme is perhaps more valuable in what it includes than in what it excludes: it does serve as a reminder of features of Israel’s religion which were shared with the neighbouring peoples, including some (such as divination and the treatment of the dead) which are often underplayed.

66 Niehr, Auf dem Weg, 68; cf. id., Religionen, 237. 67 The classic account is H. L. Ginsberg, The Israelian Heritage of Judaism, 1982.68 The case of the Mesha inscription would in any case favour the inclusion of such a category.



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Other gods and goddesses worshipped in Israel

In the period under review it is undoubtedly the goddess Asherah and her symbol (a sacred pole or tree) which have dominated discussion. The main reasons for this will be the publication from the 1970s on of texts which mention the goddess and/or her symbol and no doubt also the more general growth of interest in feminine aspects of religion in the same period.⁶⁹ Especially the discoveries at Kuntillet ʿAjrud quickly led to claims that Yahweh had a wife or consort in the goddess Asherah.⁷⁰ In particular the occurrence of the words brkt ʾtkm lyhwh šmrn wlʾšrth, »I bless you by Yahweh of Samaria and by his Asherah/asherah«, above drawings of three figures, two standing and one seated playing a lyre, on Pithos A was taken to imply that one of the figures represented Yahweh and another the goddess Asherah as his consort. Despite W. G. Dever’s detailed argument that the lyre-player is Asherah, his interpretation was convincingly challenged by equally detailed observations by P. Beck and Hadley, who cast doubt on what were supposed to be indications of a divine female figure.⁷¹ The two standing figures both represent the Egyptian god Bes and there is no reason to see either of them as Yahweh. The inscription is therefore not to be seen as related to the drawings: indeed, since it crosses over the headdress of one of the standing figures, it is most likely of separate origin. A much better case can be made for seeing Asherah represented by the scene of a stylised tree with caprids on the other side of Pithos A.⁷²

The interpretation of the inscription as referring explicitly to the goddess Asherah was also challenged in a much cited article by J. A. Emerton, who pointed out that in Biblical Hebrew there were no examples of a possessive suffix (re presented here as often in Hebrew inscriptions by –h for the 3rd person m.sing.) being attached to a proper name. lʾšrth should therefore refer to the cultic symbol of Asherah, most likely a stylised tree, as it does in most of the occurrences of

69 On the history of research see C. Frevel, Aschera und der Ausschließlichkeitsanspruch YHWHs, BBB 94, 1995, 10–22; J. M. Hadley, The Cult of Asherah in Ancient Israel and Judah: Evidence for a Hebrew Goddess, UCOP 57, 2000, 4–37 and passim; also the careful study of S. M. Olyan, Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel, SBLMS 34, 1988.70 Z. Meshel, Did Yahweh have a Consort?, BAR 5/2, 1979, 24–35; W. G. Dever, Asherah, Consort of Yahweh? New Evidence from Kuntillet ʿAjrûd, BASOR 255, 1984, 21–37. 71 P. Beck, The Drawings from Ḥorvat Teiman (Kuntillet ʿAjrud), TA 9 (1982), 3–68; Hadley, Some Drawings and Inscriptions on Two Pithoi from Kuntillet ʿAjrud, VT 37 (1987), 180–213; id., Cult of Asherah, 136–155.72 Hadley, Cult of Asherah, 153–154.




ʾašerāh in the Old Testament.⁷³ This view has been widely followed (e. g. by Olyan, Smith, Day and Hadley), but some scholars believe that it can be countered either with evidence from Ugarit or by regarding the -h not as a possessive suffix but as part of a »double feminine ending«. Others have suggested a completely different interpretation based on the occurrence of ʾšrt in the sense of »shrine« in Phoeni-cian and Aramaic.⁷⁴

The broader religious significance of »Yahweh’s asherah« has been variously evaluated. It is a combination of which no trace remains in the Old Testament, where the asherah is regarded as incompatible with obedience to Yahweh. Olyan, Smith and Day accept that the symbol of the goddess, who had been worshipped in her own right in Israel, was a part of the cult of Yahweh in the monarchy period (and possibly even before: cf. Jud 6,25–32), but do not enquire into what this might mean for the cult of Yahweh himself. Further evidence of the worship of the goddess has been found in cultic stands from Taanach and Pella and in the »pillar figurines« of Iron Age II, as well as in some Old Testament passages.⁷⁵ But others deny that Asherah was ever worshipped in Israel.⁷⁶ Recently a develop-ment from the separate worship of Asherah to a kind of »inclusive monotheism« has been proposed to account for the expression »Yahweh’s asherah«: in Hadley’s words, »Perhaps the asherah pole had come to be recognised as the hypostasisa-tion of Yahweh’s nurturing concern for his people«.⁷⁷ The value of this is that it relates this phenomenon to what seem to be other cases of the same process (cf. Smith’s concept of »convergence« and Keel and Uehlinger on the use of solar imagery for Yahweh).

The study of the god Molech in the past generation illustrates how an appar-ently plausible explanation based on comparative evidence can be undermined, largely by the availability of closer and more apt comparisons. In 1935 Eißfeldt had proclaimed »Das Ende des Gottes Moloch« in a study which drew on the use of molk in Punic to mean »sacrifice«, sometimes when accompanied by adam, »human sacrifice«. If this analogy is followed, lammōlek in biblical texts such

73 J. A. Emerton, New Light on Israelite Religion: The Implications of the Inscriptions from Kun-tillet ʿAjrud, ZAW 94 (1982), 2–20.74 For references and Emerton’s replies see Emerton, »Yahweh and his Asherah«: The Goddess or her Symbol?, VT 49 (1999), 315–337.75 Hadley, Cult of Asherah, 77–83.165–179.196–205.76 P. D. Miller, The Absence of the Goddess in Israelite Religion, HAR 10 (1986), 239–248; P. K. McCarter, Aspects of the Religion of the Israelite Monarchy: Biblical and Epigraphic Data, in: Miller / Hanson / McBride, Ancient Israelite Religion (above, n. 15), 137–155, 149. 77 Hadley, Cult of Asherah, 105; cf. Keel / Uehlinger, Göttinnen, 263–268; B. A. Mastin, Yahweh’s Asherah, in: Day (ed.), Search, 326–351, 339.345 f.



194 Graham Davies

as II Reg 23,10 (perhaps repointed to lemolek) would then mean not »to (the god) Molech« but »as a sacrifice«.⁷⁸ This theory was accepted by many schol-ars, including Albright and Cross.⁷⁹ But then in the 1980s G.C. Heider and J. Day independently wrote monographs which convincingly showed that Molech was indeed to be regarded as a deity, associated with the underworld and the cult of the dead, perhaps one whose worship was inherited from the Jebusites.⁸⁰ Their arguments were based largely on a variety of non-biblical texts, such as personal names from Ebla and Mari, occurrences of the name of the god at Ugarit, and Akkadian god-lists which equated a deity Malik with Nergal. But Isa 57,9 and according to Day Isa 28,15.18 pointed in the same direction. One of their criticisms of Eißfeldt (though not their overall conclusion) may, however, have lost some of its weight with the recent publication of the Phoenician text of the Incirli stela, as mlk occurs there (possibly twice) in a context where the meaning »sacrifice« is quite plausible.⁸¹ If so, this would be the first case of a secure occurrence of it in a Phoenician text.

Finally in this section, a brief note on attempts to determine the exact iden-tity of the Baal whose worship was introduced, or at least promoted, in Samaria under the Omrides, evidently under the influence of the Phoenician-born queen Jezebel (I Reg 16,31–32: cf. 18,19). Prior to Eißfeldt’s famous essay of 1939⁸², and often afterwards, this Baal was identified with Baal Melqart, the city god of Tyre. Eißfeldt, after tracing the evidence known then for the worship of Baal-shamem, argued that »das muß Baʿalšamēm sein«.⁸³ His main reasons were the individual devotion to this Baal shown in the personal fanaticism of Jezebel and Athaliah, the role of prophets in his cult (both as in the Zakkur inscription), the equation with the Baal of Carmel and the link to other heavenly deities in later passages such as II Reg 21,3–4; 23,5; Zeph 1,4–5: for Eißfeldt the worship of Baal to the end of the monarchy was the continuation of what had been given such a powerful impulse in the ninth century. Eißfeldt’s proposal found a mixed reception: for example in 1967 Albright, while appreciative of much of Eißfeldt’s essay, still pre-ferred to see the Omride Baal as Melqart, as part of his theory about a battle for supremacy at Tyre between this god and Baal-shamem; Cross seems simply to

78 O. Eißfeldt, Molk als Opferbegriff im Punischen und Hebräischen und das Ende des Gottes Moloch, 1935.79 Albright, Yahweh, 205–206; Cross, Canaanite Myth, 26.80 G. C. Heider, The Cult of Molek: A Reassessment, JSOTS 43, 1985; J. Day, Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament, UCOP 41, 1989.81 Front, ll. 12–13: see Kaufman, Phoenician Inscription (above, n. 3), 12, 15, 23.82 O. Eißfeldt, Baʿalšamēm und Jahwe, ZAW 57 (1939), 1–31 = KS 2, 171–198.83 Eißfeldt, Baʿalšamēm und Jahwe, 19.




speak of »(Canaanite) Baal«.⁸⁴ More recent reviews of the evidence have, however, generally come out in support of Eißfeldt’s thesis, with some new arguments.⁸⁵ A further objection to the identification with Melqart has been its dependence on the assumption that Jezebel’s father Ethbaal was the king of Tyre, based on the equation of his name with the Ittobal king of Tyre in the list of Menander of Ephesus which is cited by Josephus (Contra Apionem I, 123). According to S. Timm the data provided by Menander are unreliable and the biblical descrip-tion of Ethbaal as »king of the Sidonians« should be taken at face value.⁸⁶ As well as excluding Melqart, this would undermine some of the arguments in favour of Baal-shamem: and nothing specific is yet known of the male deities of Sidon until much later.

Conclusion

Within the limits of this brief review it is not possible to deal with every topic that has been intensively discussed in the past thirty years. But two are of such impor-tance that they should at least be mentioned. The meaning and development of monotheism in Israel has regained a central position in the subject, especially in Europe, precisely because of the increase in modern knowledge of polytheism in Israel and among its neighbours.⁸⁷ The use and non-use of images in worship and elsewhere has also become a subject of justifiably wide interest, with a more serious concern to understand, with the help of comparative evidence, the sig-nificance of such symbols to those who valued them.⁸⁸

Over ten years ago W. Zwickel observed that the scholarly world was still some way from having a history of Israelite religion that covered all aspects of the

84 Albright, Yahweh, 211, cf. 202–203; Cross, Canaanite Myth, 190–194.85 Niehr, however, regards the lack of »primary evidence« as an obstacle to any definite conclu-sion: Niehr, Baʿal-Šamem, 211.86 S. Timm, Die Dynastie Omri. Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte Israels im 9. Jahr-hundert v. Chr., FRLANT 124, 1982, 200–231.87 See e. g. the papers in W. Dietrich / M. A. Klopfenstein (ed.), Ein Gott allein? JHWH-Verehrung und biblischer Monotheismus im Kontext der israelitischen und altorientalischen Religions-geschichte, OBO 139, 1994; F. Stolz, Einführung in den biblischen Monotheismus, 1996.88 E.g. T. N. D. Mettinger, No Graven Image? Israelite Aniconism in its Ancient Near Eas-tern Context, CBOT 42, 1995; K. van der Toorn (ed.), The Image and the Book: Iconic Cults, Aniconism and the Rise of Book Religion in Israel and the Ancient Near East, CBET 21, 1997; M. B. Dick / C. B. F. Walker, The Induction of the Cult Image in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Meso-potamian mīs pî Ritual, in: Dick (ed.), Born in Heaven, Made on Earth: The Making of the Cult Image in the Ancient Near East, 1999, 55–121.



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subject.⁸⁹ This is still the case. There is clearly an agenda to be worked through in further study of the material presented by Keel and Uehlinger and its closer integration with the kinds of account provided by Albertz, Niehr and scholars in the Cross tradition.⁹⁰ It is hardly likely that a single scholar will be able to do this. Most likely a series of volumes will be needed, with a team of writers working to an agreed methodology – and chronology.

Abstract: The study of Israelite religion in its wider cultural and religious context has come once again to occupy a central place in the disciplines of Old Testa-ment study. In Germany in particular this represents a partial shift in scholarly priorities: elsewhere, for example in the United States under the leadership of F. M. Cross, the comparative perspective has been more pervasive, as it was earlier in Scandinavia. Among the many aspects of this approach which could be exam-ined, the article gives special attention to new publications of texts and refer-ence works, the contribution of the Ugaritic texts, other West Semitic inscriptions and iconographical evidence to the history of Yahwism, and research into deities other than Yahweh who were worshipped in Israel.

Résumé: L’étude de la religion d’Israël dans son contexte culturel et religieux élargi a acquis une place centrale dans les études vétéro-testamentaires. En Allemagne notamment, il s’agit d’une modification partielle des enjeux de la recherche; ail-leurs, par ex. aux Etats-Unis sous l’influence de F. M. Cross, la perspective compa-rative était bien plus étendue, comme déjà précédemment en Scandinavie. Parmi les nombreuses questions qui pourraient être abordées, cette étude se concentre sur de récentes éditions de textes et ouvrages de référence, sur l’apport des textes ougaritiques et d’autres textes ouest-sémitiques, enfin sur l’apport des données iconographiques pour l’histoire de la religion de YHWH, ainsi que pour la carac-térisation de divinités qui ont été adorées en Israël à côté de Yahwèh.

Zusammenfassung: Das Studium der israelitischen Religion in ihrem weite-ren kulturellen und religiösen Kontext hat wieder einen zentralen Platz in den

89 Zwickel, Religionsgeschichte Israels, 39–40.90 P. D. Miller’s The Religion of Ancient Israel, 2000, has grappled with many of these issues and the wide range of evidence that is available and represents a fine model of one way, which one might a little unfairly term »cross-sectional«, of presenting the subject. It does also venture some way into the origins of Yahwism and some other historical issues. Where it still falls short, and Miller is aware of this, is in its lack of a thoroughgoing examination of the developments and changes that took place through time: »This volume does not pose as a history of Israelite religion« (xx).




Disziplinen der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft gefunden. Gerade in Deutsch-land stellt dies eine teilweise Veränderung hinsichtlich der wissenschaftlichen Schwerpunkte dar. Anderswo, zum Beispiel in den Vereinigten Staaten unter der Führung von F. M. Cross, hatte sich die vergleichende Perspektive, ähnlich wie früher in Skandinavien, sehr viel weiter verbreitet. Unter den vielen Aspek-ten dieses Ansatzes, die untersucht werden könnten, legt der Artikel besonde-res Augenmerk auf neu veröffentlichte Quellenausgaben und Überblickswerke, auf den Beitrag der ugaritischen Texte, anderer westsemitischer Inschriften und ikonographischer Belege zur Geschichte der Jhwh-Religion, sowie auf die Erfor-schung von Gottheiten, die neben Jahwe in Israel verehrt wurden.



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