Was early Judaism polytheistic?
Contrary to the Bible’s ultra-mega-wild stories of the Israelites arising in Egypt and later conquering and exterminating the Canaanites, the view of many non-apologetic scholars and archaeologists is that the Israelites instead boringly arose out of the Canaanites and hence likely assimilated much of Canaanite culture and religion.
Ugarit
Ugarit was representative of a much larger Bronze Age Levantine cultural complex that influenced the beliefs of the Iron Age cultures that succeeded it, among which was the small district of Judea, … home of the Jewish, land of the brisks and the brave.
In other words the Ugarit culture and gods preceeded the Canaanites and the Israelites.
Ugarit was destroyed at the end of the Bronze age and was forgotten until 1928 when a peasant accidentally opened an old tomb while plowing a field. Excavations revealed an important city that takes its place along side of Ur and Eridu as a cradle of urban culture with a prehistory that goes back to 6000 BCE. They also found hundreds of stone tablets in “libraries” some of which revealed the Ugarit’s religion.
It was learned that some of the gods of the Ugarits sounded familiar…
The Ugarits had “Baals”
Here is a comparison of the Ugarit gods and those mentioned in the Bible:
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Ugarit god: El – Chief god, father of mankind, creator
Bible god: El(ohim/ohym) – One of the names for God in the OT (similar attributes)
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Ugarit god: Yawu – One of El’s sons
Bible god: Yahweh/Yehovah – Another name for God in the OT
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Ugarit god: Shachar – God of dawn
Bible god (Hebrew word): Shachar – father of Lucifer/Satan – Isaiah 14:12 (Strong’s), (Curiously, from the origins, this makes Satan the grandson of Elohim and the nephew of Yahweh).
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Ugarit god: Asherah or Elat – wife of El, mother of Yawu (Yahweh)
Bible god: Asherah is mentioned many times in the Bible as an image of a false goddess. (see 2 Chr 15:16 in either the NRSV or Strong’s for example)
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Ugarit god: Baal – Nature / fertility god
Bible god: Baal – Numerous mentions in the Bible, see Judges 2:13 for example
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Ugarit god: Yam – god of the primordial chaos, tempests, and mass-destruction
Bible god (Hebrew word): Yam – Hebrew word for “sea” mentioned numerous times in the Bible (see Strong’s)
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Ugarit god: Shalem – god of peace and the sunset
Jewish name: Jerusalem (Uru-shalemu, village of Shalem) may have been named for this god
That earlier forms of Judaism may have been polytheistic is indicated by obvious editing of the Pentateuch. Often God is referring to “us” or speaking to someone not revealed in stories (i.e. Let “us” make man in our own image…”). Also the word for God is often in Hebrew plural form. It’s likely that the stories once portrayed a pantheon of gods which were later edited into a single God when Judaism became monotheistic.
Note that Christian apologetics try to explain away the plural nature or God’s schizophrenic self conversations as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit talking amongst themselves.
It appears that various other gods such as Baal and Asherah were railed against by the prophets of the Old Testament because of the tendency for the Jewish people to return to their old polytheistic religion.
So when Judaism went monotheistic El and Yawu were assimilated into a single God and other gods were either demonized as false gods or their names were eventually converted to or at least translated as nontheistic items of nature such as Yam for “sea” and Shachar for “dawn” or “morning”.
Sources:
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugarit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah
Ugarit and the Bible: http://www.theology.edu/ugarbib.htm
Canaanite FAQ: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/mythology/canaanite-faq/
The us of Genesis (see Genesis 3:22) are the sons of god. See Genesis 6.
So yes, the bible was based on polytheisism that was later edited out, imperfectly as we see in Genesis 6. we are missing large parts of the original myths of the early Israelites.
But these little traces have been left behind. The Nuzi tablets also give a good look at early Canaanite mythology.
Here El has 70 sons by his wife Ashtoreth. There are squabbles among his sons and Baal becomes chief among the sons of El. Among the early Israelites it may have been Yahu, later
Yahweh. Thought Yahu remained in Egypt at Elephantine where a colony of Hebrews seperate from Judah kept their old ways. Later, Yahu displaced El, who in the Nuzi tablets was a retiring creator god who pretty much left actions to his wife and Baal and others. Other Canaanite myth cycles include a queen Io who fled to Egypt and who descendents later return to the Levant to found numerous kingdoms, reminiscient of Israel’s exodus and 12 tribes.
Excellent comment!
Sure would be interesting to lay hands on the missing texts?
There is also speculation that many of the early Hebrew patriarchs and matriarchs such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and his wife, Zipporah, etc. were originally pagan gods which were later humanized in order to assure the supremacy of Jahweh.
The end point of polytheism is monotheism: otherwise you merely have another world with more powerful beings. Hindusim reaches this conclusion in a less clear, but arguably more honest way.
Actually, Hinduism, while technically monotheistic, does recognise one supreme God. According to the Hindu scriptures (which are usually not well known by the average believer), all others are merely manifestations of the Supreme God Brahma.
Because most lay Hindus do not completely understand the philosophy of the doctrine of Brahma and his avatars, they worship the other Gods as if they actually exist.
I apologize if you already knew that and that is what you were referring to.
How in the world did you get such an obscure reference as Shahar and Lucifer “son of the Morning” (Dawn)?
T
I read about it in one of the texts that I referenced. It seems as though the names of some ancient Hebrew gods simply became words that represented the stations they occupied as gods such as Shachar (Dawn), Yam and Tehowm (restless sea).
Don’t get me wrong, in my own world, I’m all for polytheism, EXCEPT for the outcome of monotheism. I don’t even believe in a supreme god, unless the cosmos counts.
Check out The Defender’s Study Bible, with footnotes by the pitiful apologetic Henry M. Morris. Look him up on http://www.wikipedia.com. His footnotes in this bible are SO pathetic it would make one with any rationality left in their noggins laugh until your sides split!
The whole god said “let US make man in OUR image…” Once again is attempted to be justified as “father, son, holy spirit” nonsense. Polytheistic in origin or not, the terrible results of monotheism still abounds. Ugh. “America is a Christian nation.” Why don’t these people read the bible cover to cover? The one’s that still have a brain that haven’t become Stepford religious bigots may have enough reason to at least question.
I personally love Polytheism. What can I say, I’m weak, I need to believe in “something” I suppose, but unlike Christians and the like, all I do is say “I like it” instead of shove it down anyone’s throats, or think that it’s better than anything anyone else believes. In fact Atheists are my current heroes for their sanity and reason. Long live free-thinking!
Sorry for going off the topic. I’ve just got so many thoughts running through my head.
Interesting. I’ve been pondering about this topic without actually reading much.
From the little I know, enlightened Jewish scholars seem to think that Jews turned to monotheism as a kind of psychological response to exile– that it is likely that they were polytheists while the kingdoms of Judah and Israel existed (about 800bc(or so)), but after the fall of the kingdoms, their captivity and later exile in Babylon, the Jews experienced a kind of existential homelessness. As a result, they stopped worhshipping idols and turned to a more abstract conception of the Deity. (That doesn’t explain it all, but seems like a good start– to me, anyway.)
The other thing I can remember is that, according to Higher Criticism, the Redactor or ‘R’ edited the stories of the Torah and removed what we would consider primative elements of cultic Judaism, particularly stories about YHWH as a more typical ne’er-do-well sky deity, one more ‘human’ who did typical God-stuff like strangling a sea monster at the origins of the orign of the world. The reference to Leviathan found at Psalms 74:14 is sometimes cited as something that the redactor overlooked when he was cleaning up Yahweh. From what I remember the Redactor was working in a Hellenized Jewish atmosphere at about 300BC.
One could argue, I think, that the influence was going the other direction– that the Jews were clearly learning from the more effete Greeks.
From France
Dear Capella
Thanks for your interesting and useful text.
I am an ex-JW and have chosen, like you, the atheistic way.
Could i have the permission to translate and use your contribution for my site ?
Of course, i will cite the sources and your site.
Sincerely.
Yes, by all means. Feel free to use anything on this website.
Thanks a lot.
It’s very nice.
And here is the french translation of your article…
Capella,
I always thought polytheism was the belief in a “Great Parrot God”.
Thanks for illuminating me the subject.
Enjoyed this section as with many others. The Polytheism of early Jewish religion still manages to break through occassionally despite the best attempts of the copyist and translaters to hide it. The third world of the Bible in Hebrew is of course Elohim, rendered as ‘In the beginning God’(Bereshit bara Elohim) but actually ‘in the beginning gods.’
It is well known that the term is gradually replaced by Yahweh as the book moves on. The gods turn up from time to time apart from those cases where God talks to himself (personally for years I thought for year he was just Schizophrenic) but perhaps the most obvious place the Gods turn up are as angels – often referred to as ‘Sons of God’. Evidently the Gods had to retrain to keep employed under the new Yahwist regime and suffered a downgrading of their terms and conditions.
SABRE
Hm, makes enough sense.
I mean, the Bible’s writing style suggests that it was just bullsh** that was made up as it went on.
For anyone who wants to read further on the topic, a great book out there is “A History of God” by Karen Armstrong. Its just like it sounds, a historical look at the origins of the 3 related monotheistic religions (judaism, christianity and islam). She goes VERY in depth on the subjects mentioned above and shows that the god of today is a permutation of El.
Thanks for the reference Max. Sounds like a fascinating book.
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me”. God admits that their are other gods.
..and that he is jealous of the attention they were receiving.
I don’t know the chapter and verse but I think the following passages are worth noting. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”. Very interesting. Christians, especially fundamentalists, usually like to say that it means false gods. It doesn’t say false gods. Another damning piece of overwhelming evidence against fundamentalism. “God is a jealous god”. Again the fundamentalist like to explain this as he meant false gods, and once more I must point that this is not what it says. These two passages imply that there are other gods.
I am interested in what was edited out of the Bible. For instance, there has to be more to the story of the Nephilim. And then there’s the curious mention of Shamgar, Judges 3:31 & 5:6. He’s refered to as “son of Anath.” Is that Anat, the Canaanite goddess? He saves Israel yet he only gets two verses? It seems most of his story is missing.
Interesting topic :D.I shall look more into this.
Ancient people were truly polytheistic, since they worshiped different gods and goddesses. However, most of them believed that there is a supreme god which guides them.
I have heard this story but that was a very long time ago. Reading this post encourages us to be remember the culture we had in the old times. Our folks believe in so many God before.
Thank you, that explains a lot about the “schizophrenic” personality of God in the OT. And thanks to Max for reminding me about “A History of God” that was recommended to me as another insightful read!
You’re right Jesse Jinkins that there are other Gods beside our Creator. Polytheism symbolizes the beliefs of Hinduism, Mahayana Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and Shintoism in the East, and also contemporary tribal religions in Africa and the Americas. But, if you’ll ask me, as a Catholic it’s better to have only one god, our Creator as it is stated in the 10 Commandments, however, we all have our freedom to choose what we want.
The existence of high places and other forms of ancestral and household god worship was not — as the book of Kings imply — apostasy from an earlier, purer faith. A variety of gods and goddesses known or adapted from the cults of neighboring peoples.
I don’t have any ideas why people engaged this kind of practices. I have friend that his dad was the inheritance of his dad’s practices. It’s a scary because his dad should marry her daughter and have a child for her so that his dad will inherit the power of his father. That’s partly stupid things. I guessed they were living in the old generation practices. But you can stop over it. That was a horrible things I ever known. Now his dad was imprisoned because he had a hidden desire to her daughter to rape her and bear a child.
There are several Gods that are mentioned in the Bible but its crystal clear that it was stated too that there is only One God. It’s just that, its up to us to whom to believe and whom to call our God.
Actually from the New Testament on there’s three gods. Father, Son and Holy Ghost. I know all about the concept of the Trinity which was the early Catholic’s attempt to say they are the “same god” to avoid the contradiction with the parts of the Bible that say there is only one god.
There’s nothing anywhere in the original Bible however that says anything about the concept of the Trinity (except for a verse that didn’t exist in the times of Jesus that was tacked on hundreds of years later in the New Testament King James version only).
Then if you are a Catholic, there’s a whole host of saints to which one prays. These are not considered gods, but they walk and quack just like gods. They are prayed to, worshipped and they are supposed to guide fates and perform miracles. There was a recent movement in the Catholic church to try to get Mary into the godship. Apparently reality is subject to Church leadership there like it is in all religions.
Anyway, the point of this article has nothing to do with what current Judeo-Christians believe. It’s that the Old Testament early on is obviously heavily edited and it’s very likely the early Jewish people worshipped some of the multiple gods of the Canaanites out of which they arose. Even in the version of the Old Testament we have today the Jewish people are still worshipping Canaanite gods, it’s just mentioned as being wrong.
One has to ask oneself why would a people who have supposedly just conquered another completely different culture, start worshipping their gods as the Jewish people supposedly did with the Canaanites? It would be like the United States or some European country vanquishing India, killing all their people and occupying their land and then many of the Americans or Europeans that had just moved there start worshipping Hindu gods. The idea is crazy. In ancient times when one culture conquered another culture it was thought that is was because the conquering culture had superior god(s). That’s why the ancient Jewish people conquering the Canaanites fairy tale was created by the Bible authors. It never happened. There’s zero credible archaeological evidence. The Jewish people arose out of the Canaanites and continued to worship many of their gods for hundreds of years afterwards until the practice was finally stamped out.
I was born and raised atheist, so my knowledge of most religions is next to nil – much to my chagrin. So I’m always trying to soak up as much information as I can. This piece in particular is fascinating – especially polytheism – …the word for God is often in Hebrew plural form. It’s likely that the stories once portrayed a pantheon of gods which were later edited into a single God when Judaism became monotheistic.
I’ll definitely be reading through more of your blog in the future!
Wow. This is such an interesting post. I am very intrigued to learn more. Thanks for sharing the additional links.
Great post, I wasn’t aware of these polytheistic origins. Makes a very interesting position for modern Jews.
There’s been a ton of argument over poly/monotheism when it comes to some older religions. I was watching the History Channel the other day and it was discovered that near the base of Olympus, there was a temple dedicated solely to Zeus (monotheism). So much has been covered up over the years due to the overall lack of mass-education (read/writing). I don’t want to start rambling, but I can’t believe so many people are still religious to this day with the amount of information out there!
I’ve always wondered if “thou shalt have no other gods before me” means before as in “in front of” or “in my sight”? Like how people say “the criminal was brought before the judge”
In ancient times the Hebrews, who likely arose out of the Canaanites, were still worshipping Canaanite/Ugarit gods. I think this “before” just meant, ok, if you’re going to still worship in that other religion, at least put our god “before” or above these other gods.
Article 1 on other gods Biblical Hebrews were worshipping
Article 2 on other gods Biblical Hebrews were worshipping