Bible Books: It’s Not What You Learned in School

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This is how Ziony Zevit characterizes Israelite religions: They (not it) were polytheistic; the Israelite deity Yahweh, the Lord, was only the head of the pantheon. They were replete with divine couples (Yahweh and his consort Asherah were the most important pair, but there were also Baal and Anat or Anatot and perhaps others). They were not based exclusively at the Temple in Jerusalem; kings and Temple priests had only limited jurisdiction over religious matters. Israelite religions arose out of the needs and beliefs of the familial, kin and tribal groups, which formed the basic component of Israelite and Judean society. Israelite religions were tolerant of diversity, and were celebrated through varied cultic ceremonies at multiple locations by people who shared a sense of Israel’s common past. The Israelites as a people were defined by their common territorial boundaries, rather than their shared belief in a single god or their participation in a single cult.

If this doesn’t sound quite like the Israelite religion you’re accustomed to, that’s because it isn’t. The much better known, traditional, biblical view of Israelite religion was forcefully presented by people now known as Deuteronomists, the brilliant authors and editors of the quasi-historical sequence of the biblical books Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings. These ancient chroniclers of Israel’s past, who worked between the late eighth and early sixth centuries B.C.E., created a vision of Israel in which Yahweh was the only legitimate god, the Jerusalem Temple his only legitimate place of worship, the Temple priesthood and supportive prophets Israel’s only legitimate religious practitioners, and the Davidic monarchy its only legitimate representative. They developed a theology in which all Israel was judged according to its faithfulness to these essential principles, and in which divine retribution was the price paid for breaking them. For centuries, the Deuteronomists’ view of history was accepted as a complete and correct portrait of Israelite religion as a whole. But in more recent years, scholars have questioned its accuracy. They have marshaled the testimony of biblical research and archaeological discoveries to document a diversity of religious beliefs and practices among ancient Israelites and Judeans. Zevit’s massive book is the most recent—and arguably the most comprehensive—of these works.

While typical investigations of Israelite religion rely primarily, if not exclusively, on either textual or archaeological data, Zevit incorporates both. A professor of biblical literature and languages at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, Zevit is thoroughly versed in archaeological theory and data. While not a professional archaeologist, he has worked on excavations, visited many of the sites he discusses, read site reports and talked with excavators.

With this background, he brings together the Hebrew Bible, archaeological sites and artifacts, and extrabiblical inscriptions. His book is distinguished by the thoroughness and evenhandedness of his investigation and by the intellectual creativity he displays as he develops new ways of assessing the evidence.

Zevit begins by defining Israelite religions, claiming that in ancient Israel, “there was no commonly accepted cultic norm and praxis.” He analyzes the history of the study of Israelite religion, and points to the pitfalls encountered when Israelite religion is mistaken for Israelite and Judean history. He also considers the ways in which literary theories (especially deconstructionism and postmodernism) affect scholarly understandings of the religions of Israel and its neighbors. Readers will find his 047thorough overview of previous scholarship, and his discussion of Israelite historiography, particularly useful.

He then turns to the problem of defining religion as the inhabitants of Iron Age Israel and Judah would have understood it, arguing that Israelites were a new ethnic group in the region. Other scholars have suggested that Israelites originated from the Late Bronze Age population of the local Canaanite city-states.^a But, if Zevit is correct and Israel’s origins were not Canaanite, then, as he suggests, Israelite religion cannot be seen as a first millennium elaboration of second millennium traditions.

In building his case for the Israelites’ worship of multiple deities, Zevit suggests that the numerous and varied altars and standing stones (massebot) found at cultic sites such as Tel Dan and Arad were used to worship Israel’s many gods and goddesses. Additional support for this idea is derived from his study of inscriptions from caves and tombs, on store jars and elsewhere, that mention Yahweh of Teiman or Shomron and Asheratah (as Zevit calls the goddess often referred to as Asherah). He also examines theophoric names (people and place names that incorporate the name of a deity), from seals and bullae (seal impressions), and from other inscriptions, as well. Zevit demonstrates that many divine names were used by Iron Age Israelites and concludes that they chose these particular names for their children and their settlements in order to honor the deities who mattered most.

Readers of BR and its sister journal Biblical Archaeology Review will be intrigued by Zevit’s discussion of Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, a site in the Negev that excavator Zeev Meshel identified as a way station for desert travelers. Meshel uncovered numerous inscriptions here, including one that reads: “I have blessed you by Yahweh of Samaria and his 048Asheratah”—the latter an apparent reference to the goddess who is mentioned with contempt in the Bible. Zevit disagrees with Meshel (and most subsequent analysts) when he concludes that ‘Ajrud was not a desert way station, but a destination site for pilgrimage and worship. He suggests that the cult complex was constructed for the worship of Baal, El, Yahweh and Asheratah—all of whom are mentioned in inscriptions found here.

In writing about the Deuteronomists, Zevit attempts to read the Book of Kings through the lens of these southern (Judean) authors. Like other biblical scholars, Zevit concludes that the Deuteronomists relied upon multiple resources, including court records and collections of prophetic stories that were originally composed in both Israel and Judah. He suggests that in Judah, kings exercised control over the Jerusalem Temple, but many biblical passages indicate that the worship of Yahweh there did not preclude the worship of other gods. In addition, there were religious institutions in Israel and Judah such as bamot (high places), which functioned independently of royal religion.^b

Zevit demonstrates how the Deuteronomists and, much later, the Chronicler (the author of 1-2 Chronicles) used prophetic statements to construct their narrative about Israelite and Judean disobedience and punishment. His analysis of the Latter Prophets (Isaiah-Malachi) focuses on how they used images of Israelite and Judean cultic practice to condemn those types of religious behaviors that neither they nor other Yahwistic cult professionals controlled or sanctioned. He suggests that overall, Israel’s prophets were less concerned with social issues than they were with breaches of cultic propriety.

According to Zevit, Yahweh worship began as a minority cult. Yahweh was worshiped in some parts of Israel by the beginning of the tenth century, early in the monarchy, and throughout the land within the next hundred years. (Earlier, in Iron I [1200–1000 B.C.E.], Baal had been the most popular god, but other gods such as Dagan, Mot and Shamash had also been worshiped.) The major proponents of Yahweh worship were groups of mantics or prophets and clans of Levites. There were other “Yahweh-alone devotees” in the land, but not many. For them, and for those people who worshiped Yahweh in conjunction with other deities, religion was expressed locally, together with family, clan and tribe. That is, people worshiped in village or domestic settings, in ceremonies presided over by local religious leaders. Religion was varied, expressive and creative rather than uniform and hierarchically superimposed.

All this began to change in the eighth century B.C.E., when the prophets and proto-Deuteronomists began to interpret Israel’s history—and to predict Israel’s future—by reference to its relationship with the single god Yahweh. Eventually, in the Exilic and Persian periods, this religious understanding prevailed, and became the point of view adopted both by those who returned to Judah after the Exile and by those who lived in the various cities of the diaspora.

The comprehensiveness of The Religions of Ancient Israel extends to its tremendous bibliography, which is of great value to those interested in further pursuing any of its fascinating subjects. In addition, Zevit’s use of 049copious footnotes printed within the body of the text allows the main argument to flow easily, while keeping the reader informed about scholarly disputes and relevant documentation.

Zevit’s extensive use of transliteration, while appropriate in academic circles, will make the book difficult for the lay reader, since he does not supply English equivalents for transliterated words and passages. This makes the chapters on inscriptions and theophoric names particularly challenging for general readers. Furthermore, Zevit’s analogies, which run the gamut from hamburgers, chess, rock music and ashrams to Jews and Christians in Europe over the course of 1,600 years and more, are sometimes more confusing than helpful.

Although readers may not always agree with Zevit’s conclusions, they will find his arguments stimulating and worthy of consideration. The Religions of Ancient Israel is the product of decades of study and research. It brings together an extraordinary amount of data, both textual and archaeological, much of which is not otherwise easily accessible. Zevit’s firsthand knowledge of the archaeological data combined with his mastery of the textual material, both biblical and extrabiblical, make The Religions of Ancient Israel well worth a read—or two!

This is how Ziony Zevit characterizes Israelite religions: They (not it) were polytheistic; the Israelite deity Yahweh, the Lord, was only the head of the pantheon. They were replete with divine couples (Yahweh and his consort Asherah were the most important pair, but there were also Baal and Anat or Anatot and perhaps others). They were not based exclusively at the Temple in Jerusalem; kings and Temple priests had only limited jurisdiction over religious matters. Israelite religions arose out of the needs and beliefs of the familial, kin and tribal groups, which formed the basic component of Israelite and […]