Criticism of Yahweh

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Main article: Yahweh

Characteristics

See also: Yahweh's Characteristics

Although he is slow to anger, he will harshly punish those who betray him, including the whole people of Israel, in order to bring about their eventual repentance and reconciliation. The classical expression of this theology is found in Exodus 34, in the scene in which God appears to Moses just after Moses ascends Mount Sinai to received the Ten Commandments a second time:^[1]

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Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation." (Exod. 34:6-7)

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Sections of the Bible thought to be among the earliest, however, also portray Yahweh in a more primitive way. One such example is Psalm 18, in which Yahweh, far from being a transcendent being abounding in love, could easily be confused with a pagan storm deity or warrior god:

The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because he was angry. Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it. He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet. He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind. He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him—the dark rain clouds of the sky. Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced, with hailstones and bolts of lightning. YHWH thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded. He shot his arrows and scattered the enemies, [sent] great bolts of lightning and routed them. (Psalm 18:7-14)

The association of Yahweh with storm and fire is frequent in the Hebrew Bible. The thunder is the voice of Yahweh, the lightning his arrows, the rainbow his bow. The revelation at Sinai is amid the awe-inspiring phenomena of tempests. Scholars have also noted that many of these primitive characteristics of Yahweh are seen in hymns and inscriptions devoted to Baal of the Canaanites. This may have been due to the acculturation of Israelite religion into a region dominated by Canaanite culture, where Yahweh had to compete with Baal on his own terms (note the contest between Yahweh and Baal on Mount Carmel in 1 Kings 18).

Relationship to Other Deities

In the "Song of Moses," the great prophet asks:

"Who among the gods is like you, O LORD? Who is like you—majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?" (Exod. 15:11)

A great deal of discussion has been devoted to the relationship of Yahweh to the other deities of the region. The Hebrews used many names to worship their God, such as El Shaddai, El Elyon, Elohim, etc. Outside the Bible, El is known as the chief deity of the Canaanite religion. He was the father of the Canaanite god Baal and the husband of the mother goddess Ashera. Interestingly, the word "Baal" also means "lord" or "master." An indication that Baal and Yahweh were sometimes identified is evidenced in the words of the prophet Hosea, who says:

"In that day," declares the LORD, [YHWH] "you will call me 'my husband'; you will no longer call me 'my master [baal].'" (Hosea 2:16)

In fact, archaeologists and language experts indicate that it is difficult to distinguish Israelite and Canaanite culture until the early Early Iron Age, around the time of King David. We can imagine a situation in which some of the proto-Israelites worshiped a variety of gods, or worshiped God in a variety of forms using many names. Thus, Jeru-baal (Gideon)—was named for both Yahweh and Baal; while the Judge Shamgar ben Anath was named after the war goddess Anat. Solomon, anointed by the Yahwist prophet Samuel as Israel's first king, nevertheless named his sons Ish-baal and Meri-baal. Many modern scholars believe that eventually, some of the characteristics of Yahweh, El, and Baal merged into Yahweh/Elohim. Baal, on the other hand, was denigrated and excluded, just as the bronze serpent icon associated with Moses (Num. 21: 9) was eventually destroyed as an idol (2 Kings 18:4). So too was the goddess Ashera disowned, while the chief deities of other ethnic groups were treated as having nothing in common with Yahweh.

The issue is complicated by the question of whether the Israelites were truly one distinct people descended from Abraham who migrated en masse from Egypt to Canaan, rather than a confederation of previously unrelated people who came to accept a common national identity, religious mythology, and origin story. In any case, there is much evidence that the Yahweh-only ideology did not come to the fore among the Israelites until well into the period of Kings, and it was not until after the Babylonian exile that monotheism took firm root among the Jews.

Yahweh himself was sometimes worshiped in a way that later generations would consider idolatrous. For example, presence of golden cherubim and cast bronze bull statues at the Temple of Jerusalem leads many scholars to question whether the Second Commandment against graven images could have been in effect at this time, rather than being the creation of a later age written back into history by the biblical authors. Describing an earlier period, Judges 17-18 tells the story of a wealthy Ephraimite woman who consecrates 1,100 pieces of silver to Yahweh to be cast into an image and put into the family shrine along with other idols. Her son then hires a Levite who serves as priest at the family's altar, successfully inquiring there of Yahweh on behalf of passing travelers from the tribe of Dan. The Danites later steal the idols and take them along with the priest to settle in the north. A grandson of Moses named Jonathan becomes their chief priest.

The tale serves as a precursor the later story of the northern king Jeroboam I erecting idolatrous bull-calf altars at Dan and Bethel in competition with the Temple of Jerusalem. English translations portray Jeroboam as saying "Here are your gods, O Israel" at the unveiling. The Hebrew, however, is "here is elohim," the same word normally translated at "God." Bull calves were associated with the worship of El, and bulls were routinely offered to Yahweh on horned altars. Here we see the process by which certain aspects of El worship—such as horned altars and the sacrifice of cattle—were accepted into the worship of Yahweh, while others—such as the veneration of the bull-calf icon and the recognition of Baal as one of El's sons—were disowned.

William Dever discusses another intriguing question in his book Did God Have a Wife? He presents archaeological evidence suggesting that the goddess Ashera was seen as Yahweh's consort in certain times and places. An echo of language associated with Ashera worship may be found in Genesis 49:25, which sates: "The Almighty (Shaddai)… blesses you with blessings… of the breast and womb." The Bible is clear that the Queen of Heaven was worshiped by families who also honored Yahweh in Jeremiah's day (Jer. 7:17–18). Dever suggests that Ashera worship remained widespread among the common folk, while the elites, centering on the male priesthood, fought to exclude any feminine portrayals of God. Eventually, many of the characteristics of Ashera were included in the rabbinic concept of the Shekhina.

The Bible seems to indicate that even though the Israelites were forbidden to worship other deities, Yahweh was not considered as the only god who actually existed. The prophet Micah declared: "All the nations may walk in the name of their gods; we will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever" (Mic. 4:5). Yahweh is often referred to in the Bible as "the god of the hebrews" (there being no capitalization in the Hebrew text), thus portrayed as one of several tribal deities rather than as the only God in existence.

Psalm 82, on the other hand, seems to mark a transition point, in which God will no longer accept coexistence with other deities:

God [elohim] standeth in the congregation of God [or the gods: "elohim"]; He judgeth among the gods [elohim]…. They know not, neither do they understand; They walk to and fro in darkness: All the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said, Ye are gods, And all of you sons of the Most High. Nevertheless ye shall die like men, And fall like one of the princes. (Ps. 82:1-7)

The portrait of God acting as judge in the assembly of the gods has obvious parallels in other religious traditions: El is the chief of the divine assembly in Canaanite religion, just as Zeus is the head of the court at Olympus. Here, however, God has pronounced a sentence of capital punishment on the other gods. This parallels the viewpoint of Jeremiah 10.11: "The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens." In this way the concept of Yahweh as the chief god begins to shift into that of Yahweh/Elohim as the only true deity, with other gods in the position of either demons or creatures of man's imagination.

References

• Adapted from the New World Encyclopedia article, "Yahweh" http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Yahweh, used under the GNU Free Documentation License 1.2.

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