A Metallurgical Perspective on the Birth of Ancient Israel

The re-emergence of the copper industry in the Arabah valley between the twelfth and ninth centuries BCE stimulated wealth and economic development across the whole Southern Levant. Combining this reality with the metallurgical background of ancient Yahwism provides a material basis for the spread,...

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Bibliographic Details
Subtitles:"The Desert Origins of God: Yahweh's Emergence and Early History in the Southern Levant and Northern Arabia"
Main Author: Amzallag, Nissim (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Ruhr-Universität Bochum 2021
In: Entangled Religions
Year: 2021, Volume: 12, Issue: 2
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Jahwe / Veneration / Israel (Antiquity) / Midianites / Kenites / Levant (Süd) / Kupferverarbeitung
IxTheo Classification:AF Geography of religion
BC Ancient Orient; religion
HB Old Testament
KBL Near East and North Africa
Further subjects:B copper metallurgy
B pre-Israelite Yahwism
B Qurayyah ware
B Qenite hypothesis
B Biblical mythology
B Early Israelite Yahwism
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Summary:The re-emergence of the copper industry in the Arabah valley between the twelfth and ninth centuries BCE stimulated wealth and economic development across the whole Southern Levant. Combining this reality with the metallurgical background of ancient Yahwism provides a material basis for the spread, from the early Iron Age, of the worship of YHWH in ancient Israel and neighboring nations, especially Edom. These findings strengthen the Qenite hypothesis of the origin of the Israelite religion. They also suggest that an official cult of YHWH, replacing a traditional esoteric dimension, is the main novelty of the Israelite religion. The claim of YHWH's intervention in history, apparently absent from traditional Yahwism, is the other theological novelty advanced by the Israelites. This article suggests that both innovations are rooted in a desert-shaped form of Yahwism especially adapted to the way of life and the environment of Northwestern Arabia, the land of Biblical Midian.
ISSN:2363-6696
Contains:Enthalten in: Entangled Religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.46586/er.12.2021.8742