Origins of Judaism

Judaism
יַהֲדוּת‎ Yahadut
Judaica (clockwise from top): Shabbat candlesticks, handwashing cup, Chumash and Tanakh, Torah pointer, shofar and etrog box
Type	Ethnic religion [1]
Classification	Abrahamic
Scripture	Hebrew Bible
Theology	Monotheistic
Leaders	Jewish leadership
Movements	Jewish religious movements
Associations	Jewish religious organizations
Region	Predominant religion in Israel and widespread worldwide as minorities
Language	Biblical Hebrew [2]
Headquarters	Jerusalem (Zion)
Founder	Abraham [3] [4] (traditional)
Origin	1st millennium BCE 20th–18th century BCE [3] (traditional) Judah Mesopotamia [3] (traditional)
Separated from	Yahwism
Congregations	Jewish religious communities
Members	c. 14–15 million [5]
Ministers	Rabbis

The origins of Judaism lie in Bronze Age polytheistic Canaanite religion. Judaism also syncretized elements of other Semitic religions such as Babylonian religion, which is reflected in the early prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible. ^[6]

During the Iron Age I period (12th to 11th centuries BCE ^[7] ), the religion of the Israelites branched out of the Canaanite religion and took the form of Yahwism. Yahwism was the national religion of the Kingdom of Israel and of the Kingdom of Judah. ^{[8] [ need quotation to verify ] [9]} As distinct from other Canaanite religious traditions, Yahwism was monolatristic and focused on the exclusive worship of Yahweh, whom his worshippers conflated with El. ^[10] Yahwists started to deny the existence of other gods, whether Canaanite or foreign, as Yahwism became more strictly monotheistic over time. ^{[11] [12]}

During the Babylonian captivity of the 6th and 5th centuries BCE (Iron Age II), certain circles within exiled Judahites in Babylon refined pre-existing ideas about Yahwism, such as the nature of divine election, law and covenants. Their ideas came to dominate the Jewish community in the following centuries. ^[13]

From the 5th century BCE until 70 CE, Yahwism evolved into the various theological schools of Second Temple Judaism, besides Hellenistic Judaism in the diaspora. Second Temple Jewish eschatology has similarities with Zoroastrianism. ^[14] The text of the Hebrew Bible was redacted into its extant form in this period and possibly also canonized as well. Archaeological and textual evidence pointing to widespread observance of the laws of the Torah among rank-and-file Jews first appears around the middle of the 2nd century BCE, during the Hasmonean period. ^[15]

Rabbinic Judaism developed in Late Antiquity, during the 3rd to 6th centuries CE; the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud were compiled in this period. The oldest manuscripts of the Masoretic tradition come from the 10th and 11th centuries CE, in the form of the Aleppo Codex (of the later portions of the 10th century CE) and of the Leningrad Codex (dated to 1008–1009 CE). Due largely to censoring and the burning of manuscripts in medieval Europe, the oldest existing manuscripts of various rabbinical works are quite late. The oldest surviving complete manuscript copy of the Babylonian Talmud dates from 1342 CE. ^[16]

Iron Age Yahwism

Further information: Yahwism and History of ancient Israel and Judah

Image on a pithos sherd found at Kuntillet Ajrud with the inscription "Yahweh and his Asherah"

Judaism has three essential and related elements: study of the written Torah; the recognition of Israel as the chosen people and the recipients of the law at Mount Sinai; and the requirement that Israel and their descendants live according to the laws outlined in the Torah. ^[17] These three elements have their origins in Iron Age Yahwism and in Second Temple Judaism. ^[18]

Iron Age Yahwism was formalized in the 9th century BCE, around the same time that the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel (or Samaria) and Judah became consolidated in Canaan. ^{[19] [ failed verification ] [20] [ failed verification ] [21]} Yahweh was the national god of both kingdoms. ^{[22] [ failed verification ]}

Other neighbouring Canaanite kingdoms also each had their own national god originating from the Canaanite pantheon of gods: Chemosh was the god of Moab, Milcom the god of the Ammonites, Qaus the god of the Edomites, and so on. In each kingdom, the king was his national god's viceroy on Earth. ^{[8] [23] [24]}

The various national gods were more or less equal, reflecting the fact that the kingdoms in Canaan themselves were more or less equal, and within each kingdom a divine couple, made up of the national god and his consort – in the case of Israel and Judah: Yahweh and the goddess Asherah – headed a pantheon of lesser gods. ^{[20] [25] [26]}

By the late 8th century, both Judah and Israel had become vassals of the Assyrian Empire, bound by treaties of loyalty on one side and protection on the other. Israel rebelled and was destroyed c. 722 BCE, and refugees from the former kingdom fled to Judah, bringing with them the tradition that Yahweh, already known in Judah, was not merely the most important of the gods, but the only god who should be served. ^[27] Various prophets traditionally played significant roles in promoting Yahwism at the expense of its rival religions, both in the North and in the South. ^[28] The Yahwist-centred outlook was taken up by the Judahite landowning élite, who became extremely powerful in court circles in the next century when they placed the eight-year-old Josiah (reigned 641–609 BC) on the throne. During Josiah's reign, Assyrian power suddenly collapsed (after 631 BC), and a pro-independence movement took power in Jerusalem, promoting both the independence of Judah from foreign overlords and loyalty to Yahweh as the sole god of Israel. With Josiah's support, the "Yahweh-alone" movement launched a full-scale reform of worship, including a covenant (i.e., treaty) between Judah and Yahweh, replacing that between Judah and Assyria. ^[29]

By the time this occurred, Yahweh had already been absorbing or superseding the positive characteristics of the other gods and goddesses of the pantheon, a process of appropriation that was an essential step in the subsequent emergence of one of Judaism's most notable features: its uncompromising monotheism. ^[25] The people of ancient Israel and Judah, however, were not followers of Judaism; they were practitioners of a polytheistic culture worshiping multiple gods, concerned with fertility and local shrines and legends. They probably lacked a written Torah, elaborate laws governing ritual purity, and the sense of a covenant with an exclusive national god. ^[30]

Second Temple Judaism

Main article: Second Temple Judaism

Further information: Hellenistic Judaism and YHWH

Model of the Second Temple showing the courtyards and the Sanctuary, as described in Middot

In 586 BCE, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians, and the Judean elite – the royal family, the priests, the scribes, and other members of the elite – were taken to Babylon in captivity. They represented only a minority of the population, and Judah, after recovering from the immediate impact of war, continued to have a life not much different from what had gone before. In 539 BCE, Babylon fell to the Persians; the Babylonian exile ended and a number of the exiles, but by no means all and probably a minority, returned to Jerusalem. They were the descendants of the original exiles, and had never lived in Judah; nevertheless, in the view of the authors of the Biblical literature, they, and not those who had remained in the land, were "Israel". ^[31] Judah, now called Yehud, was a Persian province, and the returnees, with their Persian connections in Babylon, were in control of it. They represented also the descendants of the old "Yahweh-alone" movement, but the religion they instituted was significantly different from both monarchic Yahwism ^[6] and modern Judaism. These differences include new concepts of priesthood, a new focus on written law and thus on scripture, and a concern with preserving purity by prohibiting intermarriage outside the community of this new "Israel". ^[6]

The Yahweh-alone party returned to Jerusalem after the Persian conquest of Babylon and became the ruling elite of Yehud. Much of the Hebrew Bible was assembled, revised and edited by them in the 5th century BCE, including the Torah (the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), the historical works, and much of the prophetic and Wisdom literature. ^{[32] [33]} The Bible narrates the discovery of a legal book in the Temple in the seventh century BCE, which the majority of scholars see as some form of Deuteronomy and regard as pivotal to the development of the scripture. ^[34] The growing collection of scriptures was translated into Greek in the Hellenistic period by the Jews of the Egyptian diaspora, while the Babylonian Jews produced the court tales of the Book of Daniel (chapters 1–6 of Daniel – chapters 7–12 were a later addition), and the books of Tobit and Esther. ^[35]

Afterwards, Yahwism split into Second Temple Judaism and Samaritanism. ^[36] These religions initially had friendly relations but after John Hyrcanus's destruction of the Mount Gerizim temple in 120 BC, they became rival competitors. ^[37] The latter is infamously recorded in the Christian New Testament. ^[38]

Widespread adoption of Torah law

Further information: Torah

In his seminal Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (Prologue to the History of Israel) of 1878, Julius Wellhausen argued that Judaism as a religion based on widespread observance of Torah law first emerged in 444 BCE when, according to the biblical account provided in the Book of Nehemiah (chapter 8), a priestly scribe named Ezra read a copy of the Mosaic Torah before the populace of Judea assembled in a central Jerusalem square. ^[39] Wellhausen believed that this narrative should be accepted as historical because it sounds plausible, noting: "The credibility of the narrative appears on the face of it." ^[40] Following Wellhausen, most scholars throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries have accepted that widespread Torah observance began sometime around the middle of the 5th century BCE.

More recently, Yonatan Adler has argued that in fact there is no surviving evidence to support the notion that the Torah was widely known, regarded as authoritative, and put into practice, any time prior to the middle of the 2nd century BCE. ^[41] Adler explored the likelihood that Judaism, as the widespread practice of Torah law by Jewish society at large, first emerged in Judea during the reign of the Hasmonean dynasty, centuries after the putative time of Ezra. ^[42]

Development of Rabbinic Judaism

Scenes from the Book of Esther decorate the Dura-Europos synagogue dating from 244 CE

Main article: Rabbinic Judaism

Further information: Tannaim, Amoraim, Talmud, and Origins of Christianity

For centuries, the traditional understanding has been that the split of early Christianity and Judaism some time after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE was the first major theological schism in Jewish tradition. Starting in the latter half of the 20th century, some scholars have begun to argue that the historical picture is quite a bit more complicated than that. ^{[43] [44]}

By the 1st century, Second Temple Judaism was divided into competing theological factions, notably the Pharisees and the Sadducees, besides numerous smaller sects such as the Essenes, messianic movements such as Early Christianity, and closely related traditions such as Samaritanism (which gives us the Samaritan Pentateuch, an important witness of the text of the Torah independent of the Masoretic Text). The sect of Israelite worship that eventually became Rabbinic Judaism and the sect which developed into Early Christianity were but two of these separate Israelite religious traditions. Thus, some scholars have begun to propose a model which envisions a twin birth of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism, rather than an evolution and separation of Christianity from Rabbinic Judaism. It is increasingly accepted among scholars that "at the end of the 1st century CE there were not yet two separate religions called 'Judaism' and 'Christianity'". ^[45] Daniel Boyarin (2002) proposes a revised understanding of the interactions between nascent Christianity and nascent Rabbinic Judaism in Late Antiquity which views the two religions as intensely and complexly intertwined throughout this period.

The Amoraim were the Jewish scholars of Late Antiquity who codified and commented upon the law and the biblical texts. The final phase of redaction of the Talmud into its final form took place during the 6th century CE, by the scholars known as the Savoraim. This phase concludes the Chazal era foundational to Rabbinical Judaism.

See also

• Atenism, the two-decade duration ancient Egyptian monotheistic religion of the 14th century BCE
• Hellenistic religion
• Historicity of the Bible
• Jewish history
• Jewish studies
• Maccabees
• Old Testament theology
• Religions of the ancient Near East

References

Citations

1. Jacobs 2007, p. 511 quote: "Judaism, the religion, philosophy, and way of life of the Jews.".
2. Sotah 7:2 with vowelized commentary (in Hebrew). New York. 1979. Retrieved Jul 26, 2017.
3. Mendes-Flohr 2005.
4. Levenson 2012, p. 3.
5. Dashefsky, Arnold; Della Pergola, Sergio; Sheskin, Ira, eds. (2018). World Jewish Population (PDF) (Report). Berman Jewish DataBank . Retrieved 22 June 2019.
6. Moore & Kelle 2011, p. 402.
7. Hackett 2001 , p. 132: "The period in Israel's history that extends for most of the twelfth and eleventh centuries BCE is the era of the judges, which archaeologists call Iron Age I."
8. Hackett 2001, p. 156.
9. Compare: Ahlström, Gösta Werner (1982). Royal Administration and National Religion in Ancient Palestine. Volume 1 of Studies in the history of the ancient Near East / Studies in the history of the ancient Near East. Leiden: E. J. Brill. p. 83. ISBN   9789004065628 . Retrieved 11 November 2023. [...] the picture drawn for us of the northern kingdom and its religion is not reliable. Furthermore, the so-called conservative Yahwism which is said to have predominated in Judah, seems to have existed only in the biblical writers' reconstruction of history.
10. Smith 2002, pp. 8, 33–34.
11. Betz 2000 , p. 917: "Monotheism in Israel [...] appears to have developed over a long period of time, beginning about the 10th century up until the end of the Babylonian Exile."
12. Albertz 1994, p. 61  The propagation of the sole worship of Yahweh is said to have begun only at a late stage, at the earliest with Elijah in the ninth century, but really only with Hosea in the eighth century, and to have been the concern of only small opposition groups (the 'Yahweh alone['] movement). [...] According to this view, this movement was only able to influence society for a short period under Josiah, but then finally helped monotheism to victory in the exilic and early post-exilic period.
13. Gnuse 1997, p. 225.
14. "Diseases in Jewish Sources". Encyclopaedia of Judaism. doi:10.1163/1872-9029_ej_com_0049.
15. Adler 2022.
16. Golb, Norman (1998). The Jews in Medieval Normandy: A Social and Intellectual History. Cambridge University Press. p. 530. ISBN   978-0521580328. A copy [...] was completed at the end of 1342 [...] by the scribe Solomon b. Simson [...]. [...] This manuscript, now at the Bayerische Staatsbibliotek in Munich (MS Heb. 95), remains the only complete manuscript of the Babylonian Talmud to survive from the Middle Ages.
17. Neusner 1992, p. 3.
18. Neusner 1992, p. 4.
19. Schniedewind 2013, p. 93.
20. Smith 2010, p. 119.
21. Finkelstein, Israel, (2020). "Saul and Highlands of Benjamin Update: The Role of Jerusalem", in Joachim J. Krause, Omer Sergi, and Kristin Weingart (eds.), Saul, Benjamin, and the Emergence of Monarchy in Israel: Biblical and Archaeological Perspectives, SBL Press, Atlanta, GA, p. 48, footnote 57: "...They became territorial kingdoms later, Israel in the first half of the ninth century BCE and Judah in its second half..."
22. Hackett 2001 , p. 156: "[...] some contemporary scholars propose that what distinguished 'Israel' from other emerging Canaanite Iron I societies was religion - the belief in Yahweh as one's god rather than Chemosh (of the Moabites), for example, or Milcom (of the Ammonites). Indeed, the early Iron Age marked the rise of national religion in the Near East, tying belief in the national god to ethnic identity. Thus the Israelites are the people of Yahweh, just as Moabites are the people of Chemosh; Ammonites, worshipers of Milcom; Edomites, of Qaus. [...] (The terms national religion and national god, though commonly used, are admittedly misleading: the particulars of modern nation-states should not be read back into these ancient societies.) "
23. Davies 2010, p. 112.
24. Miller 2000, p. 90.
25. Anderson 2015, p. 3.
26. Betz 2000, p. 917.
27. Staples, Jason A. (20 May 2021). "The Other Israelites: Samaritans, Hebrews, and non-Jewish Israel". The Idea of 'Israel' in Second Temple Judaism: A New Theory of People, Exile, and Israelite Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 61, 62. ISBN   9781108842860 . Retrieved 4 February 2024. [Note 23:] The settlement of Israelite groups in Judah in the wake of the northern kingdom's destruction may have brought much of the northern biblical material with it, engendering a pan-Israelite sentiment in Judah (Finkelstein, Forgotten Kingdom, 155).
28. Rogerson, John (27 August 2009) [2007]. "Ancient Israel to the fall of the Second Temple". In Hinnells, John R. (ed.). The Penguin Handbook of Ancient Religions. London: Penguin UK. ISBN   9780141956664 . Retrieved 4 February 2024. 'Pure' Yahwism was upheld by ecstatic prophetic groups led by men such as Samuel, Elijah and Elisha who involved themselves actively in political matters. Later, this role was taken on by the so-called writing prophets: Hosea, Amos, Micah and Isaiah [...] in the eighth century. These prophets were the creators of the ethical monotheism of ancient Israel.
29. Rogerson 2003, p. 153-154.
30. Davies, Philip R. (1 April 2016) [2011]. "Early Judaism(s)". On the Origins of Judaism. Abingdon: Routledge. p. 15. ISBN   9781134945023 . Retrieved 4 February 2024. The culture of the Israelite or Judean farmer seems to have been polytheistic, concerned with fertility and based on local and domestic shrines. Its folklore would probably have comprised such things as local legal practices, local stories about ancestors and places, and a collection of proverbial sayings and myths and legends associated with local shrines, not with a written torah, purity laws or belief in a corporate 'covenant' with an exclusive national deity.
31. Moore & Kelle 2011, p. 397.
32. Coogan et al. 2007, p. xxiii.
33. Berquist 2007, p. 3-4.
34. Frederick J. Murphy (15 April 2008). "Second Temple Judaism". In Alan Avery-Peck (ed.). The Blackwell Companion to Judaism. Jacob Neusner. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 61–. ISBN   978-0-470-75800-7.
35. Coogan et al. 2007, p. xxvi.
36. Pummer 2016, p. 25.
37. Knoppers 2013, pp. 173–174.
38. "Samaritan | Definition, Religion, & Bible | Britannica". britannica.com. Retrieved 2022-05-25.
39. Wellhausen 1885, p. 405–410.
40. Wellhausen 1885, p. 408 n. 1.
41. Adler 2022 , p. 223: "[...] the literary sources that are firmly dated to the early Hellenistic peiod provide no compelling evidence regarding the degree to which the Torah might have been known or regarded as authoritative among the Judean masses of the time."
42. Adler 2022, p. 223–234.
43. Becker & Reed 2007.
44. Dunn, James D. G., ed. (1999). Jews and Christians: the parting of the ways A.D. 70 to 135. William B Eerdmans Publishing Company. ISBN   9780802844989.
45. Goldenberg, Robert (2002). "Reviewed Work: Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism by Daniel Boyarin". The Jewish Quarterly Review. 92 (3/4): 586–588. doi:10.2307/1455460. JSTOR   1455460.

Bibliography

• Ackerman, Susan (2003). "Goddesses". In Richard, Suzanne (ed.). Near Eastern Archaeology: A Reader. Eisenbrauns. ISBN   978-1-57506-083-5.
• Adler, Yonatan (2022). The Origins of Judaism: An Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal. Yale University Press. ISBN   9780300254907.
• Ahlstrom, Gosta W. (1991). "The Role of Archaeological and Literary Remains in Reconstructing Israel's History". In Edelman, Diana Vikander (ed.). The Fabric of History: Text, Artifact and Israel's Past. A&C Black. ISBN   9780567491107.
• Albertz, Rainer (2003). "Problems and Possibilities: Perspectives on Postexilic Yahwism". In Albertz, Rainer; Becking, Bob (eds.). Yahwism After the Exile: Perspectives on Israelite Religion in the Persian Era. Uitgeverij Van Gorcum. ISBN   9789023238805.
• Albertz, Rainer (1994). A History of Israelite Religion, Volume I: From the Beginnings to the End of the Monarchy. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN   9780664227197.
• Allen, Spencer L. (2015). The Splintered Divine: A Study of Istar, Baal, and Yahweh Divine Names and Divine Multiplicity in the Ancient Near East. De Gruyter. ISBN   9781501500220.
• Anderson, James S. (2015). Monotheism and Yahweh's Appropriation of Baal. Bloomsbury. ISBN   9780567663962.
• Becker, A. H.; Reed, A. Y. (2007). The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Fortress Press. ISBN   978-1-4514-0343-5.
• Becking, Bob (2001). "The Gods in Whom They Trusted". In Becking, Bob (ed.). Only One God?: Monotheism in Ancient Israel and the Veneration of the Goddess Asherah. A&C Black. ISBN   9781841271996.
• Bennett, Harold V. (2002). Injustice Made Legal: Deuteronomic Law and the Plight of Widows, Strangers, and Orphans in Ancient Israel. Eerdmans. ISBN   9780802825742.
• Berquist, Jon L. (2007). Approaching Yehud: New Approaches to the Study of the Persian Period. SBL Press. ISBN   9781589831452.
• Betz, Arnold Gottfried (2000). "Monotheism". In Freedman, David Noel; Myer, Allen C. (eds.). Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Eerdmans. ISBN   9053565035.
• Chalmers, Aaron (2012). Exploring the Religion of Ancient Israel: Prophet, Priest, Sage and People. SPCK. ISBN   9780281069002.
• Cohen, Shaye J. D. (1999). "The Temple and the Synagogue". In Finkelstein, Louis; Davies, W. D.; Horbury, William (eds.). The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 3, The Early Roman Period. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   9780521243773.
• Cohn, Norman (2001). Cosmos, Chaos, and the World to Come: The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith. Yale University Press. ISBN   0300090889.
• Collins, John J. (2005). The Bible After Babel: Historical Criticism in a Postmodern Age. Eerdmans. ISBN   9780802828927.
• Coogan, Michael D.; Smith, Mark S. (2012). Stories from Ancient Canaan (2nd ed.). Presbyterian Publishing Corp. ISBN   978-9053565032.
• Cook, Stephen L. (2004). The Social Roots of Biblical Yahwism. Society of Biblical Literature. ISBN   9781589830981.
• Coogan, Michael D.; Brettler, M. Z.; Newsom, C. A.; Perkins, P. (2007). The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books: New Revised Standard Version. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-528880-3.
• Darby, Erin (2014). Interpreting Judean Pillar Figurines: Gender and Empire in Judean Apotropaic Ritual. Mohr Siebeck. ISBN   9783161524929.
• Davies, Philip R.; Rogerson, John (2005). The Old Testament World. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN   9780567084880.
• Davies, Philip R. (2016). The Origins of Judaism. Routledge. ISBN   9781134945023.
• Davies, Philip R. (2010). "Urban Religion and Rural Religion". In Stavrakopoulou, Francesca; Barton, John (eds.). Religious Diversity in Ancient Israel and Judah. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN   9780567032164.
• Day, John (2002). Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series. Vol. 265. Sheffield Academic Press. ISBN   9780826468307.
• Dever, William G. (2003a). "Religion and Cult in the Levant". In Richard, Suzanne (ed.). Near Eastern Archaeology: A Reader. Eisenbrauns. ISBN   978-1-57506-083-5.
• Dever, William G. (2003b). Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From. Eerdmans. ISBN   9780802844163.
• Dever, William G. (2005). Did God Have A Wife?: Archaeology And Folk Religion in Ancient Israel. Eerdmans. ISBN   978-0-8028-2852-1.
• Dicou, Bert (1994). Edom, Israel's Brother and Antagonist: The Role of Edom in Biblical Prophecy and Story. A&C Black. ISBN   9781850754589.
• Dijkstra, Meindert (2001). "El the God of Israel-Israel the People of YHWH: On the Origins of Ancient Israelite Yahwism". In Becking, Bob; Dijkstra, Meindert; Korpel, Marjo C.A.; et al. (eds.). Only One God?: Monotheism in Ancient Israel and the Veneration of the Goddess Asherah. A&C Black. ISBN   9781841271996.
• Edelman, Diana Vikander (1995). "Tracking Observance of the Aniconic Tradition". In Edelman, Diana Vikander (ed.). The Triumph of Elohim: From Yahwisms to Judaisms. Peeters Publishers. ISBN   9053565035.
• Elior, Rachel (2006). "Early Forms of Jewish Mysticism". In Katz, Steven T. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Judaism: The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   9780521772488.
• Finkelstein, Israel; Silberman, Neil Asher (2002). The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Sacred Texts. Simon and Schuster. ISBN   9780743223386.
• Freedman, D. N.; O'Connor, M. P.; Ringgren, H. (1986). "YHWH". In Botterweck, G. J.; Ringgren, H. (eds.). Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Vol. 5. Eerdmans. ISBN   9780802823298.
• Frerichs, Ernest S. (1998). The Bible and Bibles in America. Scholars Press. ISBN   9781555400965.
• Gnuse, Robert Karl (1997). No Other Gods: Emergent Monotheism in Israel. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series. Vol. 241. Sheffield Academic Press. ISBN   9780567374158.
• Gnuse, Robert Karl (1999). "The Emergence of Monotheism in Ancient Israel: A Survey of Recent Scholarship". Religion. 29 (4): 315–336. doi:10.1006/reli.1999.0198.
• Gorman, Frank H. Jr. (2000). "Feasts, Festivals". In Freedman, David Noel; Myers, Allen C. (eds.). Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Amsterdam University Press. ISBN   978-1-57506-083-5.
• Grabbe, Lester (2010). An Introduction to Second Temple Judaism. Bloomsbury. ISBN   9780567455017.
• Grabbe, Lester (2010). "'Many nations will be joined to YHWH in that day': The question of YHWH outside Judah". In Stavrakopoulou, Francesca; Barton, John (eds.). Religious diversity in Ancient Israel and Judah. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN   978-0-567-03216-4.
• Grabbe, Lester (2007). Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It?. A&C Black. ISBN   9780567032546.
• Hackett, Jo Ann (2001). "'There Was No King in Israel': The Era of the Judges". In Coogan, Michael David (ed.). The Oxford History of the Biblical World. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-513937-2.
• Halpern, Baruch; Adams, Matthew J. (2009). From Gods to God: The Dynamics of Iron Age Cosmologies. Mohr Siebeck. ISBN   9783161499029.
• Handy, Lowell K. (1995). Among the Host of Heaven: The Syro-Palestinian Pantheon as Bureaucracy. Eisenbrauns. ISBN   9780931464843.
• Hess, Richard S. (2007). Israelite Religions: An Archaeological and Biblical Survey. Baker Academic. ISBN   9780801027178.
• Hess, Richard S. (2020). "Israelite Religion". In Barton, John (ed.). Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.156. ISBN   978-0-19-934037-8.
• Humphries, W. Lee (1990). "God, Names of". In Mills, Watson E.; Bullard, Roger Aubrey (eds.). Mercer Dictionary of the Bible. Mercer University Press. ISBN   9780865543737.
• Jacobs, Louis (2007). "Judaism". In Berenbaum, Michael; Skolnik, Fred (eds.). Encyclopaedia Judaica . Vol. 11 (2nd ed.). Detroit: Macmillan Reference. ISBN   978-0-02-866097-4 – via Encyclopedia.com.

• Keel, Othmar (1997). The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms. Eisenbrauns. ISBN   9781575060149.
• Killebrew, Ann E. (2005). Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, and Early Israel, 1300–1100 B.C.E. Society of Biblical Literature. ISBN   978-1-58983-097-4.
• Knoppers, Gary N. (2013). Jews and Samaritans: The Origins and History of Their Early Relations. Oxford University Press. ISBN   9781575060835. (ISBN is for Google Books version. Paper version ISBN   9780195329544)
• Lemche, Niels Peter (1998). The Israelites in History and Tradition. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN   9780664227272.
• Levenson, Jon Douglas (2012). Inheriting Abraham: the legacy of the patriarch in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN   978-0-691-16355-0.
• Levin, Christoph (2013). Re-Reading the Scriptures: Essays on the Literary History of the Old Testament. Mohr Siebeck. ISBN   9783161522079.
• Liverani, Mario (2014). Israel's History and the History of Israel. Routledge. ISBN   978-1317488934.
• Mafico, Temba L. J. (1992). "The Divine Name Yahweh Alohim from an African Perspective". In Segovia, Fernando F.; Tolbert, Mary Ann (eds.). Reading from this Place: Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in Global Perspective. Vol. 2. Fortress Press. ISBN   9781451407884.
• Mastin, B. A. (2005). "Yahweh's Asherah, Inclusive Monotheism and the Question of Dating". In Day, John (ed.). In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel. Bloomsbury. ISBN   9780567245540.
• Mendes-Flohr, Paul (2005). "Judaism". In Thomas Riggs (ed.). Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices. Vol. 1. Farmington Hills, Mi: Thomson Gale. ISBN   978-0787666118 – via Encyclopedia.com.
• Mettinger, Tryggve N. D. (2006). "A Conversation with My Critics: Cultic Image or Aniconism in the First Temple?". In Amit, Yaira; Naʼaman, Nadav (eds.). Essays on Ancient Israel in Its Near Eastern Context. Eisenbrauns. ISBN   9781575061283.
• Meyers, Carol (2001). "Kinship and Kingship: The early Monarchy". In Coogan, Michael David (ed.). The Oxford History of the Biblical World. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-513937-2.
• MacDonald, Nathan (2007). "Aniconism in the Old Testament". In Gordon, R. P. (ed.). The God of Israel. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   9780521873659.
• Miller, Patrick D. (2000). The Religion of Ancient Israel. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN   978-0-664-22145-4.
• Miller, James M.; Hayes, John H. (1986). A History of Ancient Israel and Judah. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN   9780664212629.
• Moore, Megan Bishop; Kelle, Brad E. (2011). Biblical History and Israel's Past. Eerdmans. ISBN   9780802862600.
• Neusner, Jacob (1992). A Short History of Judaism. Fortress Press. ISBN   9781451410181.
• Niehr, Herbert (1995). "The Rise of YHWH in Judahite and Israelite Religion". In Edelman, Diana Vikander (ed.). The Triumph of Elohim: From Yahwisms to Judaisms. Peeters Publishers. ISBN   9053565035.
• Noll, K. L. (2001). Canaan and Israel in Antiquity: An Introduction. A&C Black. ISBN   9781841272580.
• Petersen, Allan Rosengren (1998). The Royal God: Enthronement Festivals in Ancient Israel and Ugarit?. A&C Black. ISBN   9781850758648.
• Pummer, Reinhard (2016). The Samaritans: A Profile. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN   978-0-8028-6768-1.
• Rogerson, John W. (2003). "Deuteronomy". In Dunn, James D. G.; Rogerson, John W. (eds.). Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible. Eerdmans. ISBN   9780802837110.
• Schniedewind, William M. (2013). A Social History of Hebrew: Its Origins Through the Rabbinic Period. Yale University Press. ISBN   9780300176681.
• Smith, Mark S. (2000). "El". In Freedman, David Noel; Myer, Allen C. (eds.). Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Eerdmans. ISBN   9789053565032.
• Smith, Mark S. (2001). The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts. Oxford University Press. ISBN   9780195167689.
• Smith, Mark S. (2002). The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel. Eerdmans. ISBN   9780802839725.
• Smith, Mark S. (2003). "Astral Religion and the Divinity". In Noegel, Scott; Walker, Joel (eds.). Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World. Penn State Press. ISBN   0271046007.
• Smith, Mark S. (2010). God in Translation: Deities in Cross-Cultural Discourse in the Biblical World. Eerdmans. ISBN   9780802864338.
• Smith, Mark S. (2017). "YHWH's Original Character: Questions about an Unknown God". In Van Oorschot, Jürgen; Witte, Markus (eds.). The Origins of Yahwism. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft. Vol. 484. De Gruyter. ISBN   978-3-11-042538-3.
• Smith, Morton (1984). "Jewish Religious Life in the Persian Period". In Finkelstein, Louis (ed.). The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 1, Introduction: The Persian Period. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   9780521218801.
• Sommer, Benjamin D. (2011). "God, Names of". In Berlin, Adele; Grossman, Maxine L. (eds.). The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion. Oxford University Press. ISBN   9780199730049.
• Vanderkam, James C. (2022). An Introduction to Early Judaism (2nd ed.). Eerdmans. ISBN   978-1-4674-6405-5.
• Van der Toorn, Karel (1995). "Ritual Resistance and Self-Assertion". In Platvoet, Jan. G.; Van der Toorn, Karel (eds.). Pluralism and Identity: Studies in Ritual Behaviour. Brill Publishers. ISBN   9004103732.
• Van der Toorn, Karel (1999). "Yahweh". In Van der Toorn, Karel; Becking, Bob; Van der Horst, Pieter Willem (eds.). Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. Eerdmans. ISBN   9780802824912.
• Van der Toorn, Karel (1996). Family Religion in Babylonia, Ugarit and Israel: Continuity and Changes in the Forms of Religious Life. Brill Publishers. ISBN   9004104100.
• Vriezen, T. C.; van der Woude, Simon Adam (2005), Ancient Israelite And Early Jewish Literature, translated by Doyle, Brian, Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, ISBN   978-90-04-12427-1
• Wellhausen, Julius (1885). Prolegomena to the History of Israel. Black. ISBN   9781606202050.
• Wyatt, Nicolas (2010). "Royal Religion in Ancient Judah". In Stavrakopoulou, Francesca; Barton, John (eds.). Religious Diversity in Ancient Israel and Judah. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN   978-0-567-03216-4.

External links

• Adler, Yonatan (16 February 2023). "When Did Jews Start Observing Torah? – TheTorah.com". thetorah.com. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
• Amzallag, Nissim (August 2018). "Metallurgy, the Forgotten Dimension of Ancient Yahwism". The Bible and Interpretation. University of Arizona. Archived from the original on 26 July 2020. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
• Brown, William, ed. (October 2017). "Early Judaism". World History Encyclopedia . Retrieved 28 July 2021.
• Gaster, Theodor H. (26 November 2020). "Biblical Judaism (20th–4th century BCE)". Encyclopædia Britannica . Edinburgh: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 28 July 2021.