58-614: [REDACTED] Look up jehovist in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Jehovist may refer to: Jehovist or Yahwist, an adherent of Yahwism Jahwist , one of the four sources of the Pentateuch (Torah) Jehovist, a person who maintains that the vowel points of the Hebrew name of Jehovah are its proper vowels Yehowists , a Russian Christian new religious movement Jehovists,
116-539: A "regional god" that was not entwined with the monarchic nation-state. Because of this, small-scale sacred places were built instead of temples. The worship of Yahweh alone began at the earliest with prophet Elijah in the 9th century BCE, and at the latest with prophet Hosea in the 8th; even then it remained the concern of a small party before gaining ascendancy in the exilic and early post-exilic period . The early supporters of this faction are widely regarded as monolatrists rather than monotheists ; believing Yahweh
174-411: A concern with preserving purity by prohibiting intermarriage outside the community of this new "Israel". This new faith later evolved into Second Temple Judaism . The competing religion of Samaritanism also emerged from the "Yahweh-alone" movement. There is a broad consensus among modern scholars that the religion of ancient Israel was polytheistic, involving many gods and goddesses. The supreme god
232-619: A distance from home, but ordinarily offerings were made at the bamah of his own town. Talismans and the mysterious teraphim were also probably used. It is also possible Yahwism employed ecstatic cultic rituals (compare the biblical tale of David dancing naked before the Ark of the Covenant ) at times when they became popular, and possibly child sacrifice . Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) The Kingdom of Israel ( Hebrew : מַמְלֶכֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל Mamleḵeṯ Yīśrāʾēl ), also called
290-619: A fifth (about 40,000) of the population of the Kingdom of Israel were actually resettled out of the area during the two deportation periods under Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon II . Many members of these northern tribes also fled south to the Kingdom of Judah. Jerusalem seems to have expanded in size five-fold during this period, requiring a new wall to be built, and a new source of water Siloam to be provided by King Hezekiah . In their book The Bible Unearthed , Israeli authors Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman estimate that only
348-516: A fifth (about 40,000) of the population of the northern Kingdom of Israel were actually resettled out of the area during the two deportation periods under Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon II . No known non-Biblical record exists of the Assyrians having exiled people from four of the tribes of Israel: Dan , Asher , Issachar , Zebulun . Descriptions of the deportation of people from Reuben , Gad , Manasseh , Ephraim and Naphtali indicate that only
406-524: A god named Yahweh , and for this reason the religion of Israel is often referred to as Yahwism. Yahweh, however, was not the "original" god of Israel. Rather it was El , the head of the Canaanite pantheon whose name forms the basis of the name " Israel " ( Hebrew : יִשְׂרָאֵל ), and none of the Hebrew patriarchs , tribes of Israel , Judges , or early monarchs have a Yahwistic theophoric name (i.e.,
464-551: A name incorporating the name of Yahweh). It is unclear how, where, or why Yahweh appeared in the Levant; even his name is a point of confusion. The exact date of his first appearance is also ambiguous: the term Israel first enters historical records in the 13th century BCE with the Egyptian Merneptah Stele , and, while the worship of Yahweh is circumstantially attested to as early as the 12th century BCE, there
522-535: A portion of these tribes were deported, and the places to which they were deported are known locations given in the accounts. The deported communities are mentioned as still existing at the time of the composition of the Books of Kings and Chronicles and did not disappear by assimilation. 2 Chronicles 30:1–18 explicitly mentions northern Israelites who had been spared by the Assyrians, in particular people of Ephraim, Manasseh, Asher, Issachar and Zebulun, and how members of
580-576: A term pejorative for Jehovah's Witnesses See also [ edit ] Jehovah (disambiguation) Yahwistic (disambiguation) Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Jehovist . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jehovist&oldid=1247304997 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
638-536: Is a 12th-century open-air altar in the hills of Samaria featuring a bronze bull reminiscent of the Canaanite El-bull. Early Israel was a society of rural villages, but in time urban centers grew up and society became more structured and complex. The Hebrew Bible gives the impression that the Jerusalem Temple was always meant to be the central (or even sole) temple of Yahweh, but this was not
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#1732773133164696-515: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Yahwism Yahwism , as it is called by modern scholars, was the religion of ancient Israel and Judah . An ancient Semitic religion of the Iron Age , Yahwism was essentially polytheistic and had a pantheon , with various gods and goddesses being worshipped by the Israelites . At
754-650: Is no attestation of even the name "Yahweh" in the Levant until some four hundred years later with the Mesha Stele (9th century BCE). Because of this, Christian Frevel argues that Yahweh worship was rooted in the Kingdom of Israel and preserved by the Omride clan. Nevertheless, many scholars believe that the shared worship of Yahweh played a role in the emergence of Israel in the Late Bronze Age (circa 1200 BCE). The earliest known Israelite place of worship
812-592: The Baal cycle discovered at Ugarit ). The reference in Hosea 10 to Israel's "divided heart" may refer to these two cultic observances, although alternatively it may refer to hesitation between looking to Assyria and Egypt for support. The Jewish Bible also states that Ahab allowed the cult worship of Baal to become acceptable of the kingdom. His wife Jezebel was the daughter of the Phoenician king of Tyre and
870-551: The Hebrew Bible and from existing remains a good idea may be formed of the appearance of such a place of worship. It was often on the hill above the town, as at Ramah ( 1 Samuel 9:12–14 ); there was a stele ( matzevah ), the seat of the deity, and a Asherah pole (named after the goddess Asherah ), which marked the place as sacred and was itself an object of worship; there was a stone altar ( מִזְבֵּחַ mīzbēaḥ "slaughter place"), often of considerable size and hewn out of
928-592: The House of Saul and then by the House of David . However, upon the death of Solomon , who was the son and successor of David , there was discontent over his son and successor Rehoboam , whose reign was only accepted by the Tribe of Judah and the Tribe of Benjamin . The unpopularity of Rehoboam's reign among the rest of the Israelites , who sought Jeroboam as their monarch, resulted in Jeroboam's Revolt , which led to
986-782: The Judahites themselves would be conquered by the Neo-Babylonian Empire nearly two centuries later. Those who stayed behind in Samaria following the Assyrian conquest mainly concentrated themselves around Mount Gerizim and eventually came to be known as the Samaritans . The Assyrians, as part of their historic deportation policy , also settled other conquered foreign populations in the territory of Israel. According to Israel Finkelstein , Shoshenq I 's campaign in
1044-584: The Northern Kingdom or the Kingdom of Samaria , was an Israelite kingdom that existed in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age . Its beginnings date back to the first half of the 10th century BCE. It controlled the areas of Samaria , Galilee and parts of Transjordan ; the former two regions underwent a period in which a large number of new settlements were established shortly after
1102-468: The " Queen of Heaven " was also worshiped: she was probably a fusion of Astarte and the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar , although the phrase is possibly a title of Asherah. A third tier may also have existed, made up of specialist deities such as the god of snakebite-cures – his name is unknown, as the biblical text identifies him only as Nehushtan , a pun based on the shape of his representation and
1160-509: The 9th century BCE, following the efforts of King Ahab and his queen Jezebel to elevate Baal to the status of national god, although the cult of Baal did continue for some time. The practices of Yahwism were largely characteristic of other Semitic religions of the time, including festivals, sacrifices, vow-making, private rituals, and the adjudication of legal disputes. The center of Yahweh-worship lay in three great annual festivals coinciding with major events in rural life: Passover with
1218-556: The Babylonian exile and the Yahwism/Judaism transition. In reality, any head of a family could offer sacrifice as occasion demanded. Prayer itself did not have a statutory role in temple ritual, but was employed on other occasions. Places of worship referred to as high places ( Hebrew : במה bamah and plural במות bamot or bamoth ) were found in many towns and villages in ancient Israel as places of sacrifice . From
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#17327731331641276-686: The Israelite captives were resettled in the Khabur region, and the rest in the land of the Medes , thus establishing Hebrew communities in Ecbatana and Rages . The Book of Tobit additionally records that Sargon had taken other captives from the northern kingdom to the Assyrian capital of Nineveh , in particular Tobit from the town of Thisbe in Naphtali. The Hebrew Bible relates that the population of
1334-602: The Israelite people to consider the Canaanite god El as the same as Yahweh. El was soon thought to have always been the same deity as Yahweh, as evidenced by Exodus 6:2–3 . Additionally, onomastic evidence indicates that some ancient Israelite families in the pre-exilic period seem to have syncretized the other Canaanite deities with Yahweh, a phenomenon which some scholars have described as "an inclusive sort of monolatry". According to Theodore J. Lewis, different Israelite locales held different beliefs about El but viewed him as
1392-418: The Kingdom experienced a period of decline as a result of sectional rivalries and struggles for the throne. In c. 732 BCE, king Pekah of Israel, while allied with Rezin , king of Aram , threatened Jerusalem . Ahaz , king of Judah , appealed to Tiglath-Pileser III , the king of Assyria , for help. After Ahaz paid tribute to Tiglath-Pileser, Tiglath-Pileser sacked Damascus and Israel, annexing Aram and
1450-480: The Kingdom of Israel was exiled, becoming known as the Ten Lost Tribes . To the south, the Tribe of Judah , the Tribe of Simeon (that was "absorbed" into Judah), the Tribe of Benjamin and the people of the Tribe of Levi , who lived among them of the original Israelite nation, remained in the southern Kingdom of Judah. The Kingdom of Judah continued to exist as an independent state until 586 BCE, when it
1508-526: The Levant around 803 BCE mentioned in the Nimrud slab, which comments he went to "the Hatti and Amurru lands, Tyre, Sidon, the mat of Hu-um-ri "land of ʻOmri", Edom , Philistia , and Aram (not Judah)." The Tell al-Rimah stela of the same king introduces a third way of talking about the kingdom, as Samaria, in the phrase " Joash of Samaria ". The use of Omri's name to refer to the kingdom still survived, and
1566-526: The alliance. However, the sons of Ahab were slaughtered by Jehu following his coup d'état around 840 BCE. After being defeated by Hazael , Israel began a period of progressive recovery following the campaigns against Aram-Damascus of Adad-nirari III . This ultimately led to a period of major territorial expansion under Jeroboam II , who extended the kingdom's possessions throughout the Northern Transjordan. Following Jeroboam II's death,
1624-653: The biblical record testify that in the time of the Omrides , Israel ruled in the mountainous Galilee , at Hazor in the upper Jordan Valley , in large parts of Transjordan between the Wadi Mujib and the Yarmuk , and in the coastal Sharon plain . In Assyrian inscriptions, the Kingdom of Israel is referred to as the "House of ʻOmri ". The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III mentions Jehu , son of ʻOmri. The Neo-Assyrian emperor Adad-nirari III did an expedition into
1682-422: The birthing of lambs, Shavuot with the cereal harvest, and Sukkot with the fruit harvest. They became linked to events in the national mythos of Israel: Passover with the exodus from Egypt, Shavuot with the law-giving at Sinai, and Sukkot with the wilderness wanderings. The festivals thus celebrated Yahweh's salvation of Israel and Israel's status as his holy people, although the earlier agricultural meaning
1740-415: The case; archaeological remains of other temples have been found at Dan on Israel's northern border; Arad ; Beersheba ; and Motza in the southern region of Judah. Shiloh , Bethel , Gilgal , Mizpah , Ramah , and Dan were also major sites for festivals, sacrifices, vow-making, private rituals, and the adjudication of legal disputes. During an era of religious syncretism , it became accepted among
1798-446: The establishment of the Kingdom of Israel in the north (Samaria), whereas the loyalists of Judah and Benjamin kept Rehoboam as their monarch and established the Kingdom of Judah in the south ( Judea ), ending Israelite political unity. While the existence of Israel and Judah as two independent kingdoms is not disputed, some historians and archaeologists reject the historicity of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah . Around 720 BCE, Israel
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1856-548: The head of this pantheon was Yahweh , held in an especially high regard as the two Israelite kingdoms' national god . Some scholars hold that the goddess Asherah was worshipped as Yahweh's consort, though other scholars disagree. Following this duo were second-tier gods and goddesses, such as Baal , Shamash , Yarikh , Mot , and Astarte , each of whom had their own priests and prophets and numbered royalty among their devotees. The practices of Yahwism included festivals, ritual sacrifices, vow-making, private rituals, and
1914-569: The history of the Kingdom of Israel has been the Hebrew Bible, especially the Books of Kings and Chronicles . These books were written by authors in Jerusalem , the capital of the Kingdom of Judah. Being written in a rival kingdom, they were inspired by ideological and theological viewpoints that influence the narrative. Anachronisms, legends and literary forms also affect the story. Some of
1972-467: The kingdom came into existence. It had four capital cities in succession: Shiloh , Shechem , Tirzah , and the city of Samaria . In the 9th century BCE, it was ruled by the Omride dynasty , whose political centre was the city of Samaria. According to the Hebrew Bible , the territory of the Twelve Tribes of Israel was once amalgamated under a Kingdom of Israel and Judah , which was ruled by
2030-548: The kingdom, possessed a royal and state cult with large urban temples, and had scribes, mercenaries, and an administrative apparatus. In all this, it was similar to other recently-founded kingdoms of the time, such as Ammon and Moab . Samaria is one of the most universally accepted archaeological sites from the biblical period. In around 840 BCE, the Mesha Stele records the victory of Moab (in today's Jordan ), under King Mesha , over Israel, King Omri and his son Ahab . Archaeological finds, ancient Near Eastern texts, and
2088-495: The land, were "Israel". Judah, now called Yehud , was a Persian province, and the returnees, with their Persian connections in Babylon, secured positions of authority. Though they represented the descendants of the old "Yahweh-alone" movement, the religion they came to institute was significantly different from monarchic Yahwism. Differences included new concepts of priesthood; a new focus on written law and thus on scripture; and
2146-547: The latter three returned to worship at the Temple in Jerusalem during the reign of Hezekiah . The religious climate of the Kingdom of Israel appears to have followed two major trends. The first was the worship of Yahweh ; the religion of ancient Israel is sometimes referred to by modern scholars as Yahwism . The Hebrew Bible , however, states that some of the northern Israelites also adored Baal (see 1 Kings 16:31 and
2204-412: The metal of which it was made – and below these again was a fourth and final group of minor divine beings such as the mal'ak , the messengers of the higher gods, who in later times became the angels of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and other heavenly beings such as cherubim . Worship of Baal and Yahweh coexisted in the early period of Israel's history, but they were considered irreconcilable after
2262-473: The name Israel is from an Egyptian inscription, the Merneptah Stele , dating from the Late Bronze Age (c. 1208 BCE); this gives little solid information, but indicates that the name of the later kingdom was borrowed rather than originating with the kingdom itself. According to the Hebrew Bible, for the first sixty years after the split, the kings of Judah tried to re-establish their authority over
2320-691: The north is documented in 9th century BCE inscriptions. The earliest mention is from the Kurkh stela of c. 853 BCE, when Shalmaneser III mentions "Ahab the Israelite", plus the denominative for "land", and his ten thousand troops. This kingdom would have included parts of the lowlands (the Shephelah ), the Jezreel plain, lower Galilee and parts of the Transjordan. Ahab's forces were part of an anti-Assyrian coalition, implying that an urban elite ruled
2378-537: The northern kingdom, and there was perpetual war between them. For the following eighty years, there was no open war between them, as, for the most part, Judah had engaged in a military alliance with Aram-Damascus , opening a northern front against Israel. The conflict between Israel and Judah was temporarily settled when Jehoshaphat , King of Judah, allied himself with the reigning house of Israel, Ahab , through marriage. Later, Jehosophat's son and successor, Jehoram of Judah , married Ahab's daughter Athaliah , cementing
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2436-470: The notion of divinities aside from or comparable to Yahweh was gradually degraded by new religious currents and ideas . Possibly beginning with the hypothesized United Kingdom of Israel , the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah had a joint religious tradition comprising cultic worship of Yahweh. Later theological changes concerning the evolution of Yahweh's status initially remained largely confined to small groups, only spreading to
2494-471: The population at large during the general political turbulence of the 7th and 6th centuries BCE. By the end of the Babylonian captivity , Yahwism began turning away from polytheism (or, by some accounts, Yahweh-centric monolatry ) and transitioned towards monotheism , where Yahweh was proclaimed as the creator deity and the only entity worthy of worship. Following the end of the Babylonian captivity and
2552-499: The recorded events are believed to have occurred long after the destruction of the kingdom of Israel. Biblical archaeology has both confirmed and challenged parts of the biblical account. According to the Hebrew Bible, there existed a United Kingdom of Israel (the United Monarchy ), ruled from Jerusalem by David and his son Solomon , after whose death Israel and Judah separated into two kingdoms. The first mention of
2610-496: The religious adjudication of legal disputes. For most of its history, the Temple in Jerusalem was not the sole or central place of worship dedicated to Yahweh, with many locations throughout Israel, Judah, and Samaria. However, it was still significant to the Israelite king , who effectively led the national religion as the national god's worldly viceroy . Yahwism underwent several redevelopments and recontextualizations as
2668-474: The second half of the 10th century BCE collapsed the early polity of Gibeon in central highlands, and made possible the beginning of the Northern Kingdom, with its capital at Shechem , around 931 BCE. Israel consolidated as a kingdom in the first half of 9th century BCE, with its capital at Tirzah first, and next at the city of Samaria since 880 BCE. The existence of this Israelite state in
2726-405: The solid rock or built of unhewn stones ( Exodus 20:21 ), on which offerings were burnt; a cistern for water, and perhaps low stone tables for dressing the sacrifices; sometimes also a hall ( לִשְׁכָּה līškā ) for the sacrificial feasts. Ancient Israelite religion was centered on these sites; at festival seasons, or to make or fulfil a vow, an Israelite might journey to more famous sanctuaries at
2784-613: The start of widespread monotheism to the 8th century BCE, and view it as a response to Neo-Assyrian aggression. In 539 BCE, Babylon fell to the Persians , ending the Babylonian exile. According to Ezra 2 , 42,360 of the exiled Israelites returned to Jerusalem. As descendants of the original exiles, they had never lived in Judah; nevertheless, in the view of the authors of the Biblical literature, they, and not those who had remained in
2842-464: The subsequent establishment of Yehud Medinata in the 4th century BCE, Yahwism coalesced into what is known as Second Temple Judaism , from which the modern ethnic religions of Judaism and Samaritanism , as well as the Abrahamic religions of Christianity and Islam , would later emerge. The central element of ancient Israel's religion through most of the monarchic period was the worship of
2900-729: The territories of the tribes of Reuben , Gad and Manasseh in Gilead including the desert outposts of Jetur , Naphish and Nodab . People from these tribes, including the Reubenite leader, were taken captive and resettled in the region of the Khabur River system, in Halah , Habor, Hara and Gozan ( 1 Chronicles 5:26 ). Tiglath-Pilesar also captured the territory of Naphtali and the city of Janoah in Ephraim , and an Assyrian governor
2958-730: Was Yahweh, whose name appears as an element on personal seals from the late 9th to the 6th centuries BCE. Alongside Yahweh was his consort Asherah, (replaced by the goddess "Anat-Yahu" in the temple of the 5th century Jewish settlement Elephantine in Egypt), and various biblical passages indicate that statues of the goddess were kept in Yahweh's temples in Jerusalem, Bethel, and Samaria. Below Yahweh and Asherah were second tier gods and goddesses such as Baal , Shamash , Yarikh , Mot , and Astarte , all of whom had their priests and prophets and numbered royalty among their devotees. A goddess called
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#17327731331643016-546: Was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire . The records of Assyrian king Sargon II indicate that he deported 27,290 Israelites to Mesopotamia . This deportation resulted in the loss of one-fifth of the kingdom's population and is known as the Assyrian captivity , which gave rise to the notion of the Ten Lost Tribes . Some of these Israelites, however, managed to migrate to safety in neighbouring Judah, though
3074-540: Was conquered by the Neo-Babylonian Empire . The tradition of the Samaritan people states that much of the population of the Kingdom of Israel remained in place after the Assyrian captivity , including the Tribes of Naphtali, Manasseh, Benjamin and Levi – being the progenitors of the modern Samaritans. In their book The Bible Unearthed , Israeli authors Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman estimate that only
3132-402: Was deported by the Assyrians. During the three-year siege of Samaria in the territory of Ephraim by the Assyrians, Shalmaneser V died and was succeeded by Sargon II , who himself records the capture of that city thus: "Samaria I looked at, I captured; 27,280 men who dwelt in it I carried away" into Assyria. Thus, around 720 BCE, after two centuries, the northern kingdom came to an end. Some of
3190-652: Was not entirely lost. Animal sacrifices played a big role in Yahwism, with the subsequent burning and the sprinkling of their blood, a practice described in the Bible as a daily Temple ritual for the Jewish people. Sacrifice was presumably complemented by the singing or recital of psalms , but the details are scant. The rituals detailed in Leviticus 1–16, with their stress on purity and atonement, were followed only after
3248-421: Was placed over the region of Naphtali. According to 2 Kings 16:9 and 2 Kings 15:29 , the population of Aram and the annexed part of Israel was deported to Assyria. The remainder of the northern kingdom of Israel continued to exist within the reduced territory as an independent kingdom until around 720 BCE, when it was again invaded by Assyria and more of the population was deported. Not all of Israel's populace
3306-589: Was the only god worthy of Israelite worship, not that Yahweh was the only god in existence—a noticeable departure from the traditional beliefs of the Israelites nonetheless. It was during the national crisis of the Babylonian Exile that the followers of Yahweh went a step further and denied that any deities aside from Yahweh existed at all—marking the transition from monolatrism to monotheism, and, by extension, from Yahwism to Judaism. Some scholars date
3364-480: Was used by Sargon II in the phrase "the whole house of Omri" in describing his conquest of the city of Samaria in 722 BCE. It is significant that the Assyrians never mention the Kingdom of Judah until the end of the 8th century, when it was an Assyrian vassal state : possibly they never had contact with it, or possibly they regarded it as a vassal of Israel/Samaria or Aram, or possibly the southern kingdom did not exist during this period. One traditional source for
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