Many people assume that the Abrahamic faiths were static and that they were always monotheistic. But scholarship has shown that this was not the case. The Israelites of the 12th century BCE and later were polytheistic and Yahweh was just one of many gods that were worshiped during that time. In fact, Yahweh wasnt even the chief deity of the Israelite (Canaanite) pantheon. The chief deity was El and he has a wife by the name of Asherah. Yahweh was one of the Sons of El (along with many others, including Ball and Moab). It wasnt until the Israelite exile in Babylon that the warrior god, Yahweh, started to be worshiped as the national god of Israel and he and El became one of the same. At this time Asherah was worshiped as the wife of Yahweh. The other gods of the pantheon were still believed to exist but unworthy of worship. Eventually, around the dynastic period of Israel starting with Saul, Yahweh was seen as not just the god of Israel but the Creator of the entire cosmos. Asherah worship was prohibited and the other gods in the pantheon, including Asherah were rejected. The point is that in the 3 to 4 thousand years that of the recorded history of the religious beliefs of the Israelites, many changes have been made leading all the way up to the present day. This is true for all faiths that spawned from the cult of Yahweh including Christianity and Islam. The bible is not necessarily recorded history but a record of the winning theology in a long line of theological battles waged throughout the millenia in and around Palestine (with a little bit of pseudo - history mixed in, of course).
Posted on: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 09:41:39 +0000
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