Monotheism

Review of the previous post

The previous post, ,was post number 2 of 3 posts discussing the shift to monotheism in the Book of Exodus and viewed this shift as though the Book of Exodus was a fictionalized account.

Preview of this post

This post, post number 19 of 22 is post number 3 of 3 posts discussing the shift to monotheism in the Book of Exodus and views this shift as though the Book of Exodus occurred as written.

The story of Exodus occurred as written

Moses and the Hebrew slaves

As characterized in the Haggadah, the text of Exodus reflects this story of the triumph of monotheism. It is likely that the Hebrew slaves were, at best, monolaters, but may even have been subjects to the Egyptian gods. This may have been the same time period as the Yahwehist cults were active and growing in the land which bordered Egypt^[1].   As theorized in the essay “Thoughts on Exodus,” Moses seems to have been exposed to Yahwism when he was out of Egypt. This seems to be confirmed by the following discussion.   When Moses was living with his father-in-law outside of Egypt, he may have been introduced to this cult and fallen under the influence of Yahweh-only. Moses may have considered himself a prophet of this cult and thought to bring it back to his people living in Egypt under extremely harsh conditions. Moses did so and found converts. Anyone who did not follow Moses, of course, simply stayed where he or she was and ignored Moses as one might do today when confronted with a person advocating for a new religion or at least a changed one from the one you are following. Those that followed him adopted, or at least were receptive to, the Yahweh-only cult. This cult then was taken with them when they left Egypt and settled their new land.

The clan or tribe of Midian may have been a clan or tribe of Cushon. Aaron and Miriam reproach Moses for marrying a Cushite woman (see Numbers 12:1) with Exodus 2:21 stating that Moses married Zipporah, the daughter of a priest of Midian. There is some evidence (from the Bible as well as some Egyptian texts, such as an inscription of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III) that some form of Yahwism was practiced in the geographic area associated with Midian. As is also discussed in that essay, Zipporah is the daughter of a Mediante priest, Jethro. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to conclude that given the geographical and historical contexts , the revelation and mission for Moses is plausible. If the references to “YHW” in Egyptian route lists, then it can be concluded that YHWH is the Midianite “god of their fathers,” with Jethro being the priest of the sanctuary where Moses had his revelation.

Once Moses succeeds in leading the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt and into the desert, it is Jethro who presides over the making of offerings to YHWH in the YHWH sanctuary where he is priest (see Ex 18:1-12).

Further, the Midianites were monolarters so that early Yahwism was not monotheistic. This implies that the Hebrews of Moses were monolarters as well. This seems to be confirmed by the very documents that were used to found the religion: the commandments given to Moses by God at Mt. Sinai: “You shall have no other gods besides Me (Ex 20:1. You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image or likeness of what is in the heavens above.” These commandments clearly show an awareness of other gods.

Thus, YHWH was probably a god worshipped by a Midianite people of North Arabia, and his earliest known sanctuary was in the southern Negev as well as by the people living in the highlands of present-day Israel into which the Moses-led group settled. It was this YHWH cult that was at least contemporaneous with Moses and to which he was exposed when he resided outside Egypt. The adoption of this deity by Moses was the consequence of his marriage with the daughter of a Midianite priest and led to the adoption of this deity by the clan of Moses. Early Yahwism seems not to have been monotheistic, as it recognized the existence of other gods and it worshipped no other god. Like other cults dedicated to the “god of the father,” early Yahwism apparently consisted of worship within the framework of a sanctuary with an altar, a stela and a sacred bush^[2].

In this case, Moses was the first monotheist for a nation^[3].  This Yahweh-only cult then was taken with the Jewish nation when they left Egypt and settled their new land. This cult then grew and morphed into monotheism with Yahweh as the monotheistic God. This story then shows how the present god of Israel, Yahweh, defeated the Egyptian gods and safely brought the slaves to their promised land and hence to where the audience was at the time. This concept would also serve to give the people facing exile hope that ultimately their god would come back for them. This analysis appears to be consistent with Mark Smith’s suggestion that Israelite monotheism can be traced back in part at least to the period of Judges, 1200 – 1000 BCE^[4]  with Sarna suggesting that an exodus from Egypt occurred earlier, somewhere around the thirteenth century BCE,^[5] so that the attribution of the triumph of a monotheist god over the polytheistic Egyptian gods would find some basis in the history as it may have been known at the time of the fall of the Northern Kingdom and the crippling of the Southern Kingdom by the polytheistic invaders.

Preview of the next post

The next post, post number 20 of 22, discusses the spread of Yahwism.

^[1] See The Early History of God by Mark S. Smith.

[2] This could also explain the reasons behind the episode of the Golden Calf. Plus, it might show the uneven path of monotheism developing from monolatry, and the uneven path from a sacramental religion that has physical objects embodying God, to a prophetic religion in which God is beyond human grasp and comprehension and is transcendent.

^[3] Many call Abraham the first monotheist; however, as discussed, Abraham as well as the other patriarchs were monolaters, not monotheists.

^[4] See footnote 1 above.

^[5] Exploring Exodus by Nahum M. Sarna, published by Schocken Books of New York in 1996, “To sum up: several diverse and variegated lines of evidence converge to make a very good case for placing the events of the Exodus within the thirteenth century B.C.E.