Dr Neil Hamson

Abstract

This study critically investigates the historical, linguistic, and archaeological development of the Old Testament in contrast to the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). It demonstrates that the Old Testament, though derived from the Hebrew canon, is not merely a Greek translation but a Christian redaction shaped through the Septuagint (LXX) and later theological interpretation.

 

Drawing on manuscript evidence, Ugaritic and Northwest Semitic sources, and material archaeology, the research traces the evolution of early Israelite religion from a henotheistic structure, centred on a divine family of El Elyon, Asherah, Yahweh, and Baal, to the strict monotheism that characterises later Judaism and Christianity. Yahweh, originally a regional storm- and war-deity assigned to Israel as his portion under the high god Elyon (Deut 32:8-9, LXX/DSS), gradually absorbed the attributes of El and emerged as the sole deity of Israel. Asherah, once the acknowledged consort of El and later of Yahweh, was systematically excised from canonical tradition, while Baal, a parallel divine son, was recast as a rival and symbol of idolatry.

 

Through comparative textual criticism and the evaluation of epigraphic evidence, the paper reconstructs the theological and editorial processes that transformed a polytheistic heritage into the literary expression of monotheism. The findings illustrate that the Old Testament represents both a preservation and a reinterpretation of earlier Semitic religion, reflecting political centralisation, exilic reform, and post-exilic redaction.

 

Introduction

The Old Testament occupies a unique position in the history of ancient Near Eastern religion. To most modern readers, it appears as a coherent declaration of monotheism, yet the textual and archaeological record reveals a far more complex genesis. The corpus known within Judaism as the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh emerged over many centuries in the Hebrew and Aramaic languages, gradually standardised in the Masoretic Text between the seventh and tenth centuries CE.

 

The Old Testament, by contrast, is the form transmitted through Christian tradition, derived principally from the Greek Septuagint (LXX) translation executed in Alexandria between the third and first centuries BCE. The Septuagint not only rendered Hebrew texts into Greek but re-ordered, expanded, and in places reinterpreted them, introducing theological inflexions that would later shape Christian doctrine. Thus, while both collections share a common ancestry, they represent divergent textual and ideological trajectories.

 

Archaeological and textual research conducted over the past century has profoundly altered the understanding of Israel’s earliest religion. Inscriptions discovered at Kuntillet Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom invoke “Yahweh and his Asherah,” demonstrating that the cultic life of early Israel acknowledged a goddess alongside Yahweh. Comparative evidence from the Ugaritic texts (c. 13th century BCE) situates these deities within the wider Canaanite pantheon, presided over by El Elyon, the high god, and his consort Asherah (Athirat). Within this structure, Yahweh and Baal appear as younger divine sons, each associated with particular regions and functions, Yahweh with warfare and the southern highlands, Baal with fertility and storm. The fragmentary verse preserved in Deuteronomy 32:8-9 in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint affirms that Elyon “divided the nations according to the sons of God,” and that “Yahweh’s portion was Israel,” implying a distribution of peoples among a council of gods. Such evidence firmly situates early Israelite belief within a henotheistic rather than a monotheistic framework.

 

The gradual elevation of Yahweh to sole divinity was neither instantaneous nor uniform. It corresponded with the rise of the Israelite monarchy, the need for political and cultic centralisation, and the theological reflections of the Babylonian Exile. Through successive redactions, the Deuteronomistic history, the Priestly source, and post-exilic editorial activity, texts once acknowledging multiple deities were re-interpreted to express exclusive allegiance to Yahweh.

 

The elimination of Asherah from temple worship, recorded in 2 Kings 23:6, and the denunciation of Baal in prophetic literature (notably Hosea and Jeremiah) exemplify this ideological purification. Over time, Yahweh absorbed the creative and patriarchal functions of El, while Baal and other divine figures were relegated to the category of false gods.

 

The purpose of this study is to trace, through verifiable evidence, the transformation of the Hebrew divine hierarchy into the monotheistic theology embedded in the Old Testament. By employing linguistic comparison, manuscript analysis, and archaeological context, the research aims to reconstruct the original theological landscape of the Israelite world and to identify the editorial processes that reshaped it. In doing so, it challenges the assumption of primordial monotheism and instead situates Israel’s faith within the continuum of ancient Near Eastern religious development.

 

The Old Testament, viewed critically, becomes not a static revelation but a historical record of evolving belief, a text that preserves within its layers the memory of the gods it sought to erase.

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Origins of the Hebrew Texts

The earliest Hebrew writings arose within the broader milieu of the ancient Near East, a region whose literary and religious traditions predate the emergence of Israel by many centuries. The foundations of what would later be called “biblical” thought are rooted in Canaanite, Ugaritic, and Mesopotamian cultures, where mythic narratives, temple economies, and legal codices had already achieved a high degree of sophistication.

 

The Hebrew language itself, a Northwest Semitic tongue, evolved from the linguistic continuum that included Phoenician, Moabite, and Ugaritic. Epigraphic finds such as the Gezer Calendar (c. tenth century BCE) and the Mesha Stele (c. ninth century BCE) attest to the early use of proto-Hebrew and Moabite scripts, demonstrating that written culture was active in the Levant well before the formation of a unified Israelite identity.

 

3.1 Linguistic and Cultural Foundations

The linguistic strata of the Hebrew Bible preserve evidence of successive dialects and editorial layers. Scholars typically distinguish Archaic Biblical Hebrew (found in early poetry such as Exodus 15 and Judges 5), Standard Biblical Hebrew (dominant in the monarchic and exilic periods), and Late Biblical Hebrew (post-exilic writings such as Chronicles and Ecclesiastes). These linguistic variations correlate with historical phases of Israel’s political and cultural development.

The earliest texts show affinity with Ugaritic syntax and lexicon, sharing vocabulary for divine council terminology (ʾilm, “gods”), cultic practices, and poetic parallelism. Such linguistic evidence confirms that the earliest Hebrew literature was not produced in isolation but drew directly from the literary conventions of the Canaanite–Ugaritic corpus.

 

Archaeological data reinforce this continuity. Excavations at Ugarit (Ras Shamra), beginning in 1928, uncovered cuneiform tablets dating from the fourteenth to twelfth centuries BCE that describe a pantheon presided over by El Elyon and his consort Asherah (Athirat), whose divine children include Yam, Mot, Shapash, Baal, and others. The theological and linguistic overlap between these deities and those referenced in early Hebrew poetry (El, Elyon, Baal, Yahweh) reveals that the nascent Israelite religion developed within a shared West Semitic cosmology rather than as a distinct innovation.

 

Yahweh himself does not appear in these Ugaritic lists but emerges later in southern inscriptions, suggesting that his cult originated in the southern Transjordan or Edomite territories, later merging with the northern Canaanite pantheon through cultural assimilation.

 

3.2 The Emergence of Yahweh in the Southern Levant

Epigraphic evidence from Egyptian sources provides the earliest extrabiblical attestations of Yahweh. In the Egyptian topographical lists of Amenhotep III (14th century BCE) and Ramesses II (13th century BCE), scholars identify references to the “Shasu of Yhw” — a nomadic people associated with the region of Seir and Edom.

These inscriptions place the cultic name “Yhw” firmly in the southern Levant before Israel’s national formation. This corresponds to biblical traditions that depict Yahweh as coming “from Seir” or “from the south” (Deuteronomy 33:2; Judges 5:4–5), a memory of his geographic origin as a regional deity later adopted into Israelite worship.

 

The integration of Yahweh into the Canaanite divine family likely occurred as migrating or semi-nomadic groups encountered the urbanised Canaanite city-states. Over time, Yahweh assimilated the creative and patriarchal characteristics of El, eventually displacing him as the supreme deity of Israel. This process is observable in the overlapping divine epithets preserved in the Hebrew Bible: titles such as El Elyon (“God Most High”), El Shaddai, and Yahweh Tsebaoth (“Yahweh of Hosts”) originally referred to distinct deities or attributes but were later conflated.

 

The redactional merging of these divine identities under a single name reflects the theological centralisation that accompanied Israel’s political unification under the monarchy.

 

3.3 Oral Tradition and Early Writing

Before the establishment of written scripture, Israel’s religious memory was transmitted orally through poetic and cultic performance. Early victory hymns, blessings, and theophanies (e.g., Judges 5, Numbers 23–24) exhibit formulaic language typical of oral composition traditions, suggesting that the earliest Yahwistic material functioned as liturgy within regional sanctuaries rather than as written theology. The transition from oral to written form likely began in the early monarchy (tenth–ninth centuries BCE), when literacy expanded under administrative and temple bureaucracies.

 

The Deuteronomistic corpus (Deuteronomy–Kings) later compiled and reinterpreted these earlier sources to produce a continuous national history.

 

3.4 Theological Reorientation through Textual Production

The act of writing itself became an instrument of theological reform. As Yahweh’s cult gained supremacy, scribes retrospectively edited or recontextualised older polytheistic narratives to fit the emerging exclusive Yahwism. This process did not erase all traces of the earlier divine family; vestiges persist in poetic fragments such as Psalm 82, which describes Yahweh standing “in the council of the gods” (baʿadat el), and Deuteronomy 32:8 9, which implies Elyon’s distribution of nations among divine sons. These residual passages provide invaluable evidence of the older cosmology that underlies the canonical text.

 

The evolution from oral tradition to written scripture thus marks both a linguistic shift and a theological transformation, culminating in the creation of a textual corpus designed to legitimise a singular national deity.

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The Canaanite Pantheon and Early Israelite Religion

The theological framework of early Israelite religion cannot be understood apart from its Canaanite origins. Archaeological, epigraphic, and comparative textual evidence confirms that Israel’s earliest conceptions of deity emerged within the Northwest Semitic pantheon, whose principal figures were El Elyon, Asherah (Athirat), Baal (Hadad), and later Yahweh.

 

Far from being unique or sui generis, the Israelite god Yahweh developed as one member of this broader divine family. Over time, his role expanded through processes of conflation, redaction, and theological exclusivism, producing the monotheistic structure later codified in the Old Testament.

 

4.1 El Elyon: The High God

In the Ugaritic texts discovered at Ras Shamra, dating from the fourteenth to twelfth centuries BCE, El appears as the head of the pantheon, titled ʾil ʿlywn (“El Elyon,” or “Most High God”). He is depicted as a patriarchal figure, creator, judge, and father of the gods, residing upon the cosmic mountain and presiding over the divine council (pḫr ʾilm). Linguistic continuity between Ugaritic and early Hebrew confirms that this title was directly inherited into the Israelite religion.

Passages in the Hebrew Bible, when examined in their earliest textual forms, preserve this cosmological framework. Deuteronomy 32:8 9, in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint, records: “When Elyon apportioned the nations, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God; Yahweh’s portion was his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance.” This verse explicitly distinguishes Elyon as the high god and Yahweh as one of his divine sons, given Israel as his domain. Later Masoretic redaction, however, replaced “sons of God” (bene elohim) with “sons of Israel” to obscure the polytheistic implication, reflecting the theological shift toward monotheism.

 

Thus, El Elyon in the earliest strata represents the transcendent father-deity, from whom Yahweh derives both lineage and authority. Over the course of Israelite history, these two figures, El and Yahweh, were progressively merged. By the monarchic period, Yahweh had fully absorbed the titles and attributes of El, and the composite deity was retrospectively projected into Israel’s earliest traditions as the sole divine being.

 

4.2 Asherah: The Consort of the High God

Complementing El in Ugaritic mythology is Asherah (Athirat), the mother of the gods and consort of the high deity. Her role as divine mother and intercessor between gods and humans is well attested in Ugaritic hymns and ritual texts. Archaeological findings from Kuntillet Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom in Judah (eighth century BCE) reveal that her worship persisted in early Israelite religion. Inscriptions invoking “Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah” and “Yahweh of Teman and his Asherah” provide direct evidence of her cultic association with Yahweh.

These inscriptions demonstrate that, before the centralisation of worship in Jerusalem, Yahweh was venerated alongside a female counterpart who embodied fertility, protection, and divine wisdom. Iconographic finds, clay figurines identified as “pillar-base” female figures, often interpreted as representations of Asherah, support the prevalence of her domestic worship in Judah and Israel.

The biblical texts themselves preserve faint echoes of her former status. The term Asherah appears forty times in the Hebrew Bible, most often in reference to wooden cultic symbols or “Asherah poles” condemned by the Deuteronomistic editors (2 Kings 23:6; Judges 3:7). These polemic references suggest not ignorance but deliberate suppression: Asherah was not forgotten but systematically erased from the official cult as Yahwism moved toward exclusivity.

The Deuteronomistic reformers under King Josiah (late seventh century BCE) enacted the destruction of Asherah’s cult objects in the Temple itself, marking the final stage of her removal from official worship.

 

By the post-exilic period, Asherah had disappeared from the theological record, surviving only in vestigial literary traces.

 

4.3 Baal: The Rival and the Redefined

The god Baal (Hadad) occupied a central role in the Canaanite pantheon as the storm and fertility deity, responsible for seasonal renewal and agricultural prosperity. In Ugaritic mythology, Baal was the son of El and Asherah, and a rival of Mot (death) and Yam (the sea). His combat with these forces of chaos symbolised the cyclical victory of life over death and order over disorder.

In early Israel, Baal worship coexisted with Yahweh worship, often indistinguishably. Many theophoric personal names (e.g., Ishbaal, Meribbaal) attest to his veneration among the Israelites.

Biblical narratives such as 1 Kings 18 (Elijah and the prophets of Baal) and prophetic denunciations in Hosea and Jeremiah illustrate the tension between competing Yahwistic and Baalistic cults. However, Baal was not initially regarded as a demonic entity but as a rival god within the shared religious ecosystem of the Levant.

 

As the Yahwistic cult sought exclusive legitimacy, Baal’s worship became the principal target of reform. The conflation of Baal with idolatry, and later with malevolence, served a polemical function: it redefined Yahweh’s divine competitors as threats to covenantal purity.

 

While later Christian interpretation would align Baal with demonic imagery, the Hebrew texts portray him not as a cosmic evil but as a theological adversary, a divine other whose cult was recast as apostasy.

 

4.4 Yahweh: From Regional Deity to Supreme God

The evolution of Yahweh from a regional deity to the universal God of Israel represents one of the most significant transformations in the ancient Near East. As noted previously, Yahweh likely originated among the Shasu tribes of Edom or Midian. His earliest epithets, such as Yahweh Tsebaoth (“Yahweh of Hosts”) and Ish Milchamah (“man of war”), reflect his character as a warrior god, a divine patron of conquest rather than creation.

During the monarchic period, particularly under David and Solomon, Yahweh’s cult was politically elevated to serve as the unifying deity of the kingdom. Royal theology reinterpreted him as both national protector and cosmic sovereign, combining his earlier martial identity with the creative authority of El. This convergence is evident in texts such as Psalm 29, which scholars identify as a reworked Canaanite hymn originally dedicated to Baal. The psalm’s storm imagery, thunder, lightning, and waters, has been transferred to Yahweh, demonstrating literary assimilation of Baal’s attributes into Yahwistic worship.

 

Through successive editorial layers, the Deuteronomistic, Priestly, and post-exilic redactions, Yahweh’s supremacy became absolute. Competing deities were recast as false gods or metaphors for foreign apostasy. By the late Persian and Hellenistic periods, the process of theological consolidation was complete: Yahweh had absorbed the functions of El, displaced the divine consort, and redefined all other gods as nonentities.

 

The Old Testament, as a literary construct, thus enshrines the culmination of a centuries-long monotheising process grounded in political centralisation and cultural self-definition.

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Transition from Henotheism to Monotheism

The transformation of Israelite belief from a henotheistic veneration of Yahweh among other deities to an uncompromising monotheism represents one of the most profound ideological revolutions of the ancient world. The shift was not the product of a single event but the cumulative outcome of several centuries of theological reflection, political reform, and textual redaction.

Archaeological and linguistic data, alongside stratified textual analysis, indicate that this process advanced through three principal phases: the monarchic centralisation of worship, the exilic crisis and re-theologisation, and the post-exilic codification of scripture.

 

5.1 Monarchic Centralisation and the Rise of Exclusive Yahwism

During the united and divided monarchies (tenth–seventh centuries BCE), Yahweh worship was one among several cults practised in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Local shrines such as Bethel, Dan, Beersheba, and Samaria maintained regional variations of Yahweh’s cult, often incorporating older symbols associated with El or Asherah. The biblical record itself preserves traces of this plurality: household teraphim, sacred trees, and bamot (“high places”) were commonplace until their suppression under reforming kings.

The pivotal reform under King Josiah (c. 640–609 BCE), described in 2 Kings 22–23, marks the first state-sponsored attempt to enforce exclusive Yahwism. The discovery of a “Book of the Law” in the Temple—widely identified by scholars as an early form of Deuteronomy—provided ideological justification for the centralisation of worship in Jerusalem and the eradication of competing cults. This “Deuteronomistic reform” advanced a theology of covenantal exclusivity: “You shall have no other gods before me.” While the text still presupposed the existence of other gods (Deut 32:17; 4:19), it demanded sole allegiance to Yahweh. Such language defines a henotheistic phase: the acknowledgement of multiple deities but the worship of only one.

 

The Deuteronomistic historians (Deuteronomy through Kings) retrojected this ideology onto Israel’s entire past, portraying polytheism as disobedience and reform as restoration. This narrative reframing served political as well as theological ends, legitimising the Davidic dynasty and Jerusalem’s temple as the sole locus of divine presence.

 

The textual emphasis on covenant, law, and national identity replaced the older cosmological myths of divine kinship with a moral and historical theology centred on Yahweh’s relationship to Israel alone.

 

5.2 Exile, Catastrophe, and the Birth of Monotheism

The Babylonian Exile (586–539 BCE) constituted the crucible in which Israel’s henotheism was transformed into monotheism. The destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, followed by deportation to Babylon, shattered the traditional nexus between deity, land, and sanctuary. The theological crisis this produced required a radical redefinition of Yahweh’s nature: if he were confined to Israel, how could he have allowed his own people to be conquered?

The exilic prophets, particularly Deutero-Isaiah (Isa 40–55), articulated the first unambiguous monotheistic declarations in world literature. Verses such as “I am YHWH, and there is no other; besides me there is no god” (Isa 45:5) represent a decisive break from earlier henotheism. Yahweh was reconceived not as Israel’s tribal god but as the universal creator and ruler of all nations.

 

The gods of other peoples were no longer subordinate beings but mere idols, powerless fabrications of human hands (Isa 44:9–20).

 

This ideological leap coincided with exposure to Babylonian cosmology, Persian dualism, and Mesopotamian theology. Elements of these traditions, such as cosmic sovereignty, creation by word, and moral duality, were assimilated into exilic and post-exilic Hebrew thought. The Genesis creation account, for instance, reflects both Mesopotamian structure and polemic, transforming a polytheistic epic (Enuma Elish) into a monotheistic cosmogony in which a single deity orders the universe without struggle.

 

Thus, exile catalysed a universalisation of Yahweh, redefining him as both creator and redeemer, and reinterpreting Israel’s defeat as divine punishment rather than divine impotence.

 

5.3 Priestly Redaction and Post-Exilic Codification

Following the Persian conquest of Babylon (539 BCE) and the subsequent restoration of Judean autonomy, returning scribes and priests undertook the task of consolidating Israel’s sacred traditions. The Priestly redactors (P-source), responsible for large portions of the Pentateuch, systematised ritual, genealogy, and law to establish a coherent theological order under monotheism. Their work transformed diverse regional traditions into a single, normative narrative that emphasised Yahweh’s transcendence, holiness, and creative authority.

 

Key features of this redaction include:

• The elevation of creation theology (Genesis 1) over older mythological theophanies.

• The restriction of divine presence to the written covenant and the temple cult, rather than physical manifestations or divine intermediaries.

• The replacement of polytheistic or anthropomorphic motifs with abstract theological language (e.g., Elohim as a singular noun).

 

The Ezra–Nehemiah reforms (fifth century BCE) institutionalised these theological changes through liturgical reading of the Torah and legal codification. By this period, the plural elohim had become grammatically singular, and divine titles such as El Shaddai or Elyon were interpreted as epithets of Yahweh alone. The process of canon formation, though not yet complete, had effectively sealed Israel’s transformation from a polytheistic society into a textually defined monotheistic community.

 

5.4 Literary Reinterpretation and the Erasure of the Pantheon

As monotheism solidified, earlier myths and divine figures were retrospectively reinterpreted within the new theological paradigm. The Divine Council became a poetic metaphor for angelic subservience (Psalm 82 was re-read through a monotheistic lens); Asherah was reduced to an idolatrous object; Baal was recast as the embodiment of apostasy; and El Elyon became synonymous with Yahweh. This redactional activity produced a seamless theological narrative that concealed its polytheistic past yet preserved, in linguistic fossils and textual seams, the evidence of its origins.

 

Modern textual criticism, through the identification of multiple sources (J, E, D, P) and comparison with extrabiblical literature, allows the reconstruction of these transformations. The result is a layered corpus in which earlier polytheistic expressions were not deleted but overwritten, producing what can be described as monotheism through palimpsest, a singular theology inscribed atop a pluralistic foundation.