From Claude.ai in response to the prompt: Provide the different positions of critical Bible scholars on Where did the God of Israel Come From?
This is a rich and important topic in critical biblical studies. Here is a comprehensive overview of the major scholarly positions on the origins of the God of Israel.
Where Did the God of Israel Come From? Major Critical Scholarly Positions
Critical biblical scholarship does not offer a single consensus answer to this question, but rather several competing and sometimes overlapping hypotheses. The dominant scholarly approaches can be grouped under five broad positions:
1. The Kenite / Midianite Hypothesis
This is a hypothesis about the origins of the cult of Yahweh that posits Yahweh was originally a Kenite (i.e., Midianite) god whose cult made its way northward to the proto-Israelites. The hypothesis first came into prominence in the late nineteenth century and rests on four key points: an interpretation of the biblical texts dealing with the Midianite connections of Moses; allusions in ancient poetic compositions to the original residence of Yahweh; ancient Egyptian topographical texts of the fourteenth to the twelfth centuries BCE; and the presupposition of Cain as the eponymous progenitor of the Kenite tribe of Midian.
The biblical anchor for this theory is Moses’ time in Midian. In the Exodus story, Jethro, Moses’ Midianite father-in-law, is a priest of Yahweh even though he is not an Israelite. By combining this observation with Moses’ “discovery” of Yahweh in Midian and other passages, many scholars concluded that Yahweh had originally been a Midianite god whom the Israelites learned about from Jethro via Moses.
The strongest piece of archaeological evidence for a southern origin of Yahweh is the Egyptian record. The oldest plausible occurrence of Yahweh’s name is in the Egyptian demonym tꜣ šꜣsw Yhwꜣ (‘YHWA in the Land of the Shasu’) in an inscription at Soleb from the time of Amenhotep III (1390–1352 BCE), the Shasu being nomads from Midian and Edom in northern Arabia. The dominant view is that Yahweh was from the southern region associated with Seir, Edom, Paran, and Teman.
The hypothesis was revived prominently in recent scholarship: Thomas Römer, in his 2015 book The Invention of God, argues that Yahweh originated as a southern deity associated with Midianite-Kenite groups, drawing on Iron Age II inscriptions from sites like Kuntillet Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom.
2. Yahweh as a Canaanite Deity — The “Convergence” Model (Mark S. Smith)
One of the most influential positions in modern scholarship is associated with Mark S. Smith of Princeton Theological Seminary. His major work argues that Israelite religion developed, at least in part, from the religion of Canaan, repudiating the traditional view that Israel was fundamentally different in culture and religion from its Canaanite neighbors. Drawing on epigraphic and archaeological sources, Smith 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.
Smith describes this process in terms of two movements: In the period of the Judges and the early monarchy, “convergence” saw the coalescence of the qualities of other deities, and even the deities themselves, into Yahweh. Thus El became identified as a name of Yahweh, Asherah ceased to be a distinct goddess, and qualities of El, Asherah, and Baal (notably, for Baal, his identification as a storm god) were assimilated into Yahweh. In the period from the 9th century BC through to the Babylonian exile certain features of the Israelite religion were differentiated from the Yahweh cult, identified as Canaanite, and rejected.
The Ugaritic texts have been decisive in driving this view. In the Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions, the symbol of Asherah is treated respectfully as part of the worship of Yahweh. The gods Resheph and Deber appear in Habakkuk 3:5 as part of the military retinue of Yahweh. Scholars have also noted that the god El is identified with Yahweh in the Bible with no criticism.
As one summary of Smith’s reconstruction puts it: like metals thrown into a furnace, YHWH fused into the figure of El while assuming attributes associated with Baal, Asherah, and Anat. The history of monotheism is the story of ancient Israel breaking with its own Canaanite origins.
3. Yahweh Began as a Subordinate Member of El’s Divine Council
A closely related but more specific scholarly position draws on Deuteronomy 32:8–9 — a passage where the critical textual variant is crucial. In the earliest stage, it would appear that Yahweh was one of the seventy divine children, each of whom was the patron deity of the seventy nations. This idea appears behind the Dead Sea Scrolls reading and the Septuagint translation of Deuteronomy 32:8–9. In this passage, El is the head of the divine family, and each member of the divine family receives a nation of his own: Israel is the portion of Yahweh. The Masoretic Text, evidently uncomfortable with the polytheism expressed in the phrase “according to the number of the divine sons,” altered the reading to “according to the number of the children of Israel.”
The ASV renders the received Hebrew text of Deuteronomy 32:8–9 as: “When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, When he separated the children of men, He set the bounds of the peoples According to the number of the children of Israel. For Jehovah’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.” Critical scholars note the older reading preserved in the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls — “sons of God” rather than “children of Israel” — as evidence that Yahweh was originally assigned Israel within a broader divine hierarchy under El.
Psalm 82 is also frequently cited in this connection, where a deity (Elohim / El) presides in a divine assembly and judges the other gods — with Yahweh eventually absorbing both the role and attributes of El.
4. Israelite Religion Evolved from Polytheism to Monotheism Through Exile
Many critical scholars see monotheism not as Israel’s original religion but as a late development. Early Israelite religion was not immediately monotheistic but likely began as a form of monolatry — a system in which one deity is exclusively worshiped without denying the existence of others. Over time, this monolatrous devotion to YHWH evolved into the monotheism that characterizes later Jewish thought.
The clearest monotheistic affirmations in the Hebrew Bible appear relatively late. Monotheism emerged in the seventh and sixth centuries. It is in this period when the clearest monotheistic statements can be seen in the Bible, for example in the apparently seventh-century Deuteronomy, and the sixth-century portion of Isaiah 43–46.
As Yahwism eventually developed into Judaism and Samaritanism and transitioned from polytheism to monotheism, the existence of other deities was denied outright and Yahweh was proclaimed the creator deity and the sole deity worthy of worship. Most critical scholars tie this decisive shift to the trauma of the Babylonian exile (6th century BCE), which forced a theological reformulation: if Yahweh was truly sovereign, then the Babylonian gods could not really exist.
5. The Egyptian / Atenism Connection
A smaller but persistent scholarly tradition draws possible lines between Israelite monotheism and the brief Egyptian experiment with solar monotheism under Pharaoh Akhenaten. The Amarna period (14th century BCE) under Akhenaten saw a radical shift in Egyptian religion, with Aten being proclaimed as the sole deity. While this experiment was short-lived and largely reversed after Akhenaten’s death, it introduced the concept of a singular divine focus in a polytheistic context. Some scholars propose that memories or remnants of this monotheistic experiment could have influenced the Israelite conception of YHWH as the one true God.
This connection was famously developed by Sigmund Freud in Moses and Monotheism (1939) and has found more cautious academic support in scholars like Jan Assmann, though it remains a minority and heavily contested position.
Where There Is Broad Scholarly Agreement
Across these positions, critical scholars tend to converge on several points:
- The name Yahweh does not appear to have originated in Canaan itself, but came from a southern or desert region (Edom, Midian, Sinai/Seir).
- The early Israelites likely engaged in polytheistic practices common across ancient Semitic religion, because Israelite religion was a derivative of Canaanite religion and included a variety of deities, including El, Asherah, and Baal. Yahweh likely became conflated with El in later centuries, taking his place as the head of the pantheon.
- Strict monotheism — the claim that no other gods exist — was a late arrival, crystallized during and after the Babylonian exile.
- The archaeological record has not been friendly for the foundational story of Israel’s origins — slavery, the Exodus, and conquest. This remains a significant challenge for reconstructing the historical background of Yahwism.
These positions stand in sharp contrast to the biblical narrative itself, which presents Yahweh as the sole creator God who has been known — under various names — from the very beginning of human history.
Here is a comprehensive breakdown of the key books each scholar has written in relation to the positions covered in the previous response:
Scholar Bibliographies: The Origins of the God of Israel
Mark S. Smith — The Canaanite Convergence Model
Smith has written sixteen books on Israelite religion and the origins of YHWH. The most directly relevant are:
- The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (1990; 2nd ed. 2002, Eerdmans) — his landmark work arguing that Israelite religion emerged from Canaanite polytheism through a process of “convergence” and “differentiation.”
- The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts (2001, Oxford University Press) — extends his earlier thesis, using Ugaritic texts to argue that monotheism was a late development emerging from Israel’s polytheistic background.
- God in Translation: Deities in Cross-Cultural Discourse in the Biblical World (2008) — examines how divine names and identities were translated across ancient Near Eastern cultures.
- Where the Gods Are: Spatial Dimensions of Anthropomorphism in the Biblical World — explores divine embodiment and presence in the biblical world.
Thomas Römer — The Kenite/Midianite Hypothesis
Römer is Professor of the Hebrew Bible at the Collège de France. His principal work on YHWH’s origins is:
- The Invention of God (2015, Harvard University Press) — traces YHWH’s origins to the early Iron Age, when he emerged somewhere in Edom or the northwest Arabian peninsula as a god of the wilderness, storms, and war, and charts his eventual rise to sole deity of Judaism.
Frank Moore Cross — The El-Yahweh Identification and Canaanite Origins
Cross was Hancock Professor of Hebrew at Harvard University, and is one of the towering figures of 20th-century biblical scholarship. His foundational work is:
- Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (1973, Harvard University Press) — traces the continuities between early Israelite religion and the Canaanite culture from which it emerged, exploring the tension between the mythic and the historical in Israel’s religious expression. This is the work that most influenced subsequent scholars on the relationship between El and Yahweh, and on the identification of YHWH as originally a warrior-deity from the south.
William G. Dever — Folk Religion, Asherah, and Polytheism
Dever is Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of Arizona and one of the leading American voices on archaeology and Israelite religion. His most relevant works are:
- Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel (2005, Eerdmans) — the first book by an archaeologist on ancient Israelite religion, reconstructing the practice of religion from the bottom up using archaeological evidence, including the strong evidence for the goddess Asherah as a consort of Yahweh in popular religion.
- Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? (2003, Eerdmans) — presents the archaeological evidence for assessing the accuracy of biblical accounts of Israel’s origins, confronting the range of current scholarly interpretations.
- What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It? What Archaeology Can Tell Us About the Reality of Ancient Israel (2001, Eerdmans) — a major methodological critique of revisionist and fundamentalist readings alike.
- Beyond the Texts: An Archaeological Portrait of Ancient Israel and Judah (2020) and Has Archaeology Buried the Bible? (2020) — his most recent works synthesizing decades of fieldwork.
Jan Assmann — The Egyptian/Atenism Connection
Assmann (1938–2024) was Professor Emeritus of Egyptology at the University of Heidelberg and one of the most influential historians of ancient religion. His key works on the Egyptian roots of monotheism are:
- Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (1997, Harvard University Press) — traces the monotheism of Moses back to the short-lived monotheistic revolution of the Egyptian king Akhenaten (1360–1340 BCE), examining how this memory was stored, suppressed, and transformed in Western religious history.
- The Price of Monotheism (2003 in German; 2009 in English, Stanford University Press) — a follow-up in which Assmann answers critics of Moses the Egyptian, arguing that it was the Moses of the Hebrew Bible who introduced the “true-false” religious distinction that has driven religious conflict ever since.
- From Akhenaten to Moses: Ancient Egypt and Religious Change (2016, American University in Cairo Press) — a more focused treatment of the direct line between Egyptian solar monotheism and Israelite religion.
- The Invention of Religion: Faith and Covenant in the Book of Exodus (2018, Princeton University Press) — examines how the Book of Exodus shaped the foundational concepts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Israel Finkelstein & Neil Asher Silberman — Monotheism as a Late, Politically Driven Development
Finkelstein is Professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University. Together with science historian Silberman, their most accessible and influential work is:
- The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (2001, Free Press) — argues that the key early books of the Bible were first codified in the seventh century BCE, and that monotheism emerged as a late, politically driven religious reform under King Josiah, rather than being an original Israelite belief.
Additional Key Works Worth Noting
Several other scholars appear repeatedly in this literature as important voices:
- John Day — Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan (2000, Sheffield Academic Press) — a key treatment of the relationship between YHWH and other Canaanite deities.
- Sigmund Freud — Moses and Monotheism (1939) — the literary forerunner of Assmann’s Egyptian hypothesis, though written as psychoanalytic cultural history rather than academic biblical scholarship.
- Ziony Zevit — The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches (2001) — a monumental synthesis of archaeological sources on ancient Israelite religion that Smith himself recommends for follow-up reading.
Together these works form the essential library of the critical scholarly conversation about the origins of the God of Israel.
