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2nd ed. (2002)

The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (1990) is a book by Mark S. Smith.

Abstract

"In line with many scholars who began to challenge the traditional models of how monotheism emerged in Israel as put forth by Albright and other scholars from his generation, Smith argues that Israelite monotheism arose slowly through the dual processes of convergence and differentiation from other deities and culminated only in the post-exilic period. In order to demonstrate this point, he first identifies four primary reasons why scholars have radically re-conceived this process. First, he show how recent archeological finds have demonstrated that "Israelite culture largely overlapped with, and derived from, Canaanite culture" (xxii). Second, he demonstrates that the gradual development of Israelite monolatry was a process of both absorbing aspects of other deities as characteristic of their God, YHWH, and differentiating YHWH from these deities as well. Third, by putting together the evidence in a new and innovative way, Smith suggests that the monarchy was more pivotal in the process of the rise of monotheism than had been previously acknowledged. Though he maintains that pure monotheism did not exist in Israel until the post-exilic period, he demonstrates how 'so-called' good kings like Josiah and Hezekiah and 'so-called' evil kings like Ahab both played instrumental roles in moving Israel in the direction of monotheism. Finally, he illuminates the recent trend in scholarship to pay more attention to the presence of goddesses in ancient Israelite religion and reflects on the importance of this new found interest for the general scholarly perceptive. As might be suspected from a specialist of Ugaritic texts, Smith devotes most of his attention to the period of the Judges and the monarchy, while he only briefly touches upon the post-exilic period. Yet with that observation aside, with his careful research and cogent presentations, the book provides an immensely helpful snap-shot of the emerging scholarly trends regarding the rise of monotheism in Israel in the late 1980's and early 1990's."~Deborah Forger

"In this remarkable, acclaimed history of the development of monotheism, Mark S. Smith explains how Israel's religion evolved from a cult of Yahweh as a primary deity among many to a fully defined monotheistic faith with Yahweh as sole god. Repudiating the traditional view that Israel was fundamentally different in culture and religion from its Canaanite neighbors, this provocative book argues that Israelite religion developed, at least in part, from the religion of Canaan. Drawing on epigraphic and archaeological sources, Smith cogently demonstrates that Israelite religion was not an outright rejection of foreign, pagan gods but, rather, was the result of the progressive establishment of a distinctly separate Israelite identity. The thoroughly revised second edition ofThe Early History of God includes a substantial new preface by the author and a foreword by Patrick D. Miller."--

Editions and translations

Published in San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 2001.

• The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel, 2nd ed. (2002 Smith), book

Contents

• Introduction
• 1 - Deities in Israel in the period of the Judges
• 2 - Yahweh and Baal
• 3 - Yahweh and Asherah
• 4 - Yahweh and the sun
• 5 - Yahwistic cultic practices
• 6 - The origins and development of Israelite monotheism
• 7 - Postscript: portraits of Yahweh

External links

• [ Google Books]