Publication Preview | Writing a History of Israelite Religion

Karel van der Toorn, Israelite Religion: From Tribal Beginnings to Scribal Legacy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025

If everything before the Middle Ages belongs to the realm of Antiquity, Israelite religion is like a relic from a very distant past. The first evidence for its existence is from the early Iron Age (ca. 1200-1000 BCE). During the millennium that followed, it went through several phases until, about two thousand years ago, it branched out into Judaism, Samaritanism, and what was then the sect of the Christians. Ancient history, as they say. Yet despite the distance in time, the religion of the ancient Israelites has rarely suffered from lack of interest. Owing to centuries of Christian culture, many Western historians look at the history of Israelite religion as a kind of prelude to their own history. So do Jewish historians; and, at some remove, Muslim scholars too. Echoes of the Bible in contemporary culture—names, phrases, narratives—reinforce a sense of familiary with the ancient Israelites. Somehow they feel close; much closer than other peoples of those faraway times such as the Assyrians, the Phoenicians, or the Egyptians.

In the course of the years I spent studying ancient religion, I have come to discover that this sense of familiarity is deceptive and potentially misleading. In investigating Israelite religion, I have learned to be prepared for an encounter with the unknown and unfamiliar. The Israelites lived in another world. They shared that world with the other peoples of the early Middle East. The area was one cultural zone. Even if the various peoples and polities of the period were each in their own way unique, the differences were embedded in a shared set of cultural patterns and assumptions. Religion was part of those cultural patterns. Gods would have different names and stories from the one region to the other, but they did have a family resemblance. Scholars of the time drew up catalogs in which they identified gods of different areas with one another on the basis of similarities in profile. Such translations point to a common understanding of the nature of superhuman beings. Seen against this background, Israelite religion was a particular variant of ancient Near Eastern religion. The claim that it was unique and totally different, and somehow more advanced, as I had been told in by some of my teachers in seminary, turned out to be a theological assertion rather than an observation of fact. Would we be able to go back in time and meet them, the religion of the Israelites might strike us as being just as foreign and distant as the religion of the Babylonians.

In his classic study Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization (rev. ed. 1977), A. Leo Oppenheim gave the section on religion the provocative title “Why a Mesopotamian Religion Should Not Be Written.” The reasons he adduced were of two orders. First, “the nature of the available evidence,” and second, “the problem of comprehension across the barriers of conceptual conditioning.” The same problems beset the study of Israelite religion. The nature of these difficulties is not such, however, as to render the entire venture completely impossible. On the contrary, the challenges of problematic and fragmentary evidence, on the one hand, and of the culture gap between them and us, on the other, are a stimulus to try and overcome them. The very effort to come to terms with the evidence and to bridge the cultural divide is a useful and rewarding exercise in its own right. When successfully performed, it yields a new appreciation of an important chapter of human history. But first, let us take a closer look at the issues of evidence and cultural difference.

The sources for the study of Israelite religion fall into three categories: the Bible; the archaeological record; and the evidence on other ancient Near Eastern religions. Each of these sources requires a few words of caution. Because the Bible is Israel’s legacy to the world, it is tempting to think that Israelite religion was the religion of the Bible. Such was indeed the dominant view among Jewish and Christian scholars until early modern times. The nineteenth century brought about a paradigm change. Masterfully synthesized and presented in the work of Jullius Wellhausen, the new insights of critical biblical scholarship showed there was considerable discrepancy between the biblical narrative and the historical reality. The Hebrew Bible as we know it did not see the day before the second century BCE. Though it contains older texts, the collection as a whole was brought together and edited by Judean scribes from the Hellenistic period (sometime between 300-150 BCE). It was their selection, their edition, and often reflected their ideas about the past. According to some scholars, the editorial bias of the Hebrew Bible disqualifies it as a historical source. Others acknowledge the bias but nevertheless use the Bible as the main narrative thread to tell the story of Israel’s religion. While the skepticism of the former chooses to ignore—at least in theory—an essential source of information, the approach of the latter is in danger of mixing religion (a historical phenomenon) with theology (an ideological stance). In spite of such risks, the Bible still ranks as the main source on the religion of Israel. It would be impossible to write a history of Israelite religion without it. On condition we rigorously apply the tools of critical analysis, be suspicious of its theological framing, and have a sharp eye for detail and unintentional snippets of information, the witness of the Bible is invaluable.

If it is impossible to reconstruct the religion of Israel without the Bible, it would be equally impossible if the Bible was all we had. The archaeological record is a crucial second source. It may be divided into three sets of data: architecture and utensils (remains of houses, city walls, sanctuaries, altars, cult stands); iconography (figurines, images on seals and other objects); and epigraphy (written texts). The order corresponds to one of increasing clarity. Ruins are silent and images are mute, but texts still speak their message. Due to the inclemency of the Palestinian climate, in combination with the use of perishable writing materials, the epigraphical remains, especially for the early period (before 500 BCE), are scant by comparison with Mesopotamia (where they wrote on clay and baked the tablets) and Egypt (where arid sands protected the papyri).

The Deir Alla inscription via Wiki Commons

The significance of the rare texts we do have is often tremendous. The Balaam inscription from Deir Alla (Jordan, ca. 800 BCE), for instance, has some literal correspondences with the Balaam stories in Numbers 22-24, illustrates the renown of the legendary figure, and gives precious information on a number of deities. The texts from Kuntillet Ajrud (Sinai peninsula, ca. 800 BCE) provide another example. They show that Yhwh, the god of Israel, had the goddess Asherah as his consort. Such instances could be multiplied. They do not contradict the data from the Bible but reveal that much of what the biblical authors described as deviant religion was not marginal but mainstream. The presence of a temple at Elephantine in southern Egypt in the fifth century BCE, where local Jews venerated Yaho, his consort Anat (Anat-Bethel or Anat-Yaho), and a god named Eshem-Bethel, is another case in point. The temptation is to assume that such data reflect exceptional situations. There is no good reason to do so. It is preferable to take them as a means to counterbalance the ideological perspective of the Hebrew Bible.

The significance of archaeology for the reconstruction of Israelite religion is such that a number of scholars feel that the order of sources should be reversed. Instead of the Bible, the archaeological evidence should come first. Sometimes the advocates of this approach are archaeologists by profession, but text people too can be found to make a case for the priority of the archaeological evidence. Over the years archaeology has revolutionized some of the traditional tenets about Israelite religion. Whether this is enough to merit priority as a historical source is debatable, however. Nearly all archaeological contributions on the history of Israelite religion presuppose knowledge of a paradigm that goes back to the Hebrew Bible. The counter evidence they marshal challenges several aspects of that paradigm but has not replaced it. It would be very difficult to do so. If the Bible is a deforming mirror of Israelite religion, the archaeological record consists of shards of a mirror. Instead of a distorted image, they reflect merely fragments. The particular value of those fragments is the fact that they are random and unedited. They must seamlessly fit in with our reconstruction of Israel’s religious past. If they do not, the reconstruction stands in need of revision.

The third source on Israelite religion is perhaps the hardest to handle. It is also the most contested one. If Israelite religion is a variant of ancient Near Eastern religion, as I argued above, the patterns of religious belief and practice in the surrounding cultures should be recognizable in Israelite religion as well. Whether we refer to this shared heritage as the “common theology of the ancient Near East” (a classic phrase by Morton Smith) or as its common cosmology or other terms to that effect, the basic assumption is that Israelite religion conforms to patterns of thought and practice that are characteristic of its cultural environment.

It is easy to see why this postulate has caused concern and critique. The concern, especially among some of the more conservative scholars, is that this angle of inquiry fails to do justice to the unique qualities of Israelite religion, such as its monotheism, aniconism, and morality—“unique” being code for “superior.” The critique holds that this “patternism” is too facile as it ignores all the variety between the cultures of the time. From on high we may discern common patterns, but on the ground people experienced difference. Both objections are real. Even though we must lay aside all preconceived ideas about the superiority of Israelite religion, its distinct developments (such as its eventual monotheism and aniconism) must find their rightful place in our historical reconstruction. Whether those developments were as unique as is often claimed is a separate matter. The distinction between the perspective from on high and on the ground is perhaps less problematic from an ideological point of view. “Map is not territory,” to quote a phrase by Jonathan Z. Smith. The view from outside is not the view from inside. While it is impossible to really step inside their world, we must be mindful of our position as outsiders. A position for better or worse, perhaps. The one advantage we have is, precisely, the distance that allows us to see things that would be invisible from nearby. All this is not to imply, of course, that common patterns do not allow for differences. On the contrary, one might say. The postulated similarity is what makes the methodical comparison of difference truly interesting.

The second reason why A. Leo Oppenheim believed it was not really possible to write a “Mesopotamian Religion” consisted of “the barriers of conceptual conditioning.” The world the Mesopotamians lived in was so different from ours—most of all in terms of apperception—that they are bound to remain a mystery to us. Oppenheim’s conviction did not prevent him from using the next fifty pages to give an excellent introduction to Mesopotamian religion. Apparently, the principle of transcultural incommunicability was more rhetorical than real. If the latter were the case, the entire field of cultural anthropology would be doomed. Cultural difference does not condemn us to incomprehension. It forces us to go beyond our own cultural horizons in an effort to make sense of what is going on in the world of others. Ancient historians must use the mindset of a cultural anthropologist, in addition to the traditional tools of their discipline.

Much of the cultural divide between them (the early Israelites) and us (inhabitants of the modern world) is already contained in the word “religion.” The way in which we use this term to refer to a complex of beliefs, values, and practices makes it easy to forget that we are introducing a concept that was foreign to the Israelites. Their language did not have a word for religion. Instead they spoke of “fear of God” or “calling upon God’s name.” This is not merely a different way of saying the same thing, for the Hebrew expressions are referring to morality and worship. Religion as a separate province of human culture—distinct from law, ethics, arts and sciences—did not exist for them. It was so much woven into the fabric of their lives that they would have been unable to recognize it as religion. That is no reason for us to abandon the term altogether, provided we realize we are using a modern category. Before the Enlightenment, people did not think of their religion as religion. One of the presuppositions of the modern use of the term religion is that it is possible not to have religion. For the ancient Israelites, this was not an option. They might be devout or less devout, live by the rules or ignore them, but a world without gods was inconceivable.

From an anthropological perspective, religion is to be approached as a cultural phenomenon. It did not come down from heaven but originated in human societies. Up to a point the ancients had a similar view. A Sumerian myth, dubbed “The Marriage of Martu” by modern scholars, opposes nomads to civilized people. The former are “tent-dwellers” who eat uncooked meat, say no prayers, and do not visit the places of the gods. Civilized people, on the other hand, have religion. Also the book of Genesis implies that cultic worship is a social institution and a hallmark of civilization. Next to a passage that describes the invention of music and metallurgy (Genesis 4:21-22), the author notes that “[a]t that time people began to invoke the name of the Lord” (Genesis 4:26). In other words, at some point in the course of human history, people began to worship the gods. The social roots of religion have important consequences for its study because they imply that religion cannot be understood in isolation from its social environment. In Israel, societal changes profoundly affected the religious imagination.

During the long millennium in which Israelite religion flourished, the metaphors for God went through several changes. When the Israelites were a coalition of tribes, their god was their Chief Warrior; in the time of the monarchy, he was their King; when they became part of the Persian empire, God assumed traits of a world Emperor with a host of intermediaries between himself and his subjects. Surrounded by an innner circle of seven archangels, similar to the seven counselors that had immediate acces to the Persian emperor, God ruled the world. Thousands and thousands of angels were ever ready to to relay prayers and petitions from below to his heavenly abode, and to execute his orders in the lower realm. A similar morphing of metaphors is evident in the way people thought about sin: first as a stain or burden, but when barter gave way to a money economy, as debt and guilt. New metaphors did not displace earlier ones, but added another layer that, for a time, dominated the landscape. Religion being a cultural construct, it mirrors the evolution of the society that produced it. This is true as much of Israelite as of any other religion.

From a distance—the advantage of our vantage point—it is possible to discern slow yet unmistakable shifts in the contours and orientation of Israelite religion. In Israelite Religion: From Tribal Beginnings to Scribal Legacy, I try to describe them by focusing on the different faces of Israelite religion: tribal religion, royal religion, local religion, diaspora religion, ethnic religion, scriptural religion. Their succession tells a story. From the tribal religion in which blood ties, by birth or by covenant, determined the community to which you belonged, the god you would call upon, and the ancestors you kept in touch with; to the royal religion in which God was king and the king his son and deputy, chief of the army and chief judge; where religion at a local level was about honor and shame, and the continuity of the family was a major concern. From the end of the monarchy, first in the north (Samaria) then in the south (Judah), and the ensuing diaspora, to the use of religion as hallmark of ethnicity in the Persian period. And finally, in the Hellenistic and the early Roman periods, the turn to scripture as locus of revelation, while the religious focus shifted from the present to the future (day of judgment, afterlife), and from the world down here to a higher one up there, situated in the realm of stars and constellations, of angels and God’s heavenly presence.

Israelite religion has a prologue and an epilogue. The prologue is the tapestry of ancient Near Eastern religion that Israelite religion was linked to by a thousand threads. It is a prologue that did not end when the story of Israelite religion began, because religion continued alive and well throughout the Near East for the entire first millennium BCE. The epilogue is its aftermath, most tangible in Judaism, Samaritan religion and early Christianity. Every ending is also a new beginning. There is no date for the demise of Israelite religion, nor an exact birthdate for Judaism, Samaritanism, and the Jewish sect that would become Christianity. To the naked eye there is no transition. Looking back, we see a strong historical connection between the one and the three others. What they inherited from Israelite religion was a text, a sacred scripture that they read as divine law for eternity (Judaism, Samaritanism) or as prophecy of Jesus the Messiah (Christianity). One need not share the belief in the sanctity of the text to recognize the latter as the lasting contribution of Israelite religion to the heritage of humankind. Israelite religion is now a dead language, but it left a scribal legacy that still resonates.

Karel van der Toorn is professor and chair of Religion and Society at the University of Amsterdam. He is the author of Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible and Becoming Diaspora Jews: Behind the Story of Elephantine, among other publications.