The Social Roots of Biblical Yahwism‪.‬

The Social Roots of Biblical Yahwism, by Stephen L. Cook. SBL Studies in Biblical Literature 8. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature; Leiden: Brill, 2004. Pp. xii + 310. $39.95/$133.00. ISBN 1589830989/9004130551. While the Hebrew Bible is not easily construed as a univocal theological voice, its canonical shape reflects a strong dose of what E. P. Sanders has described as "monotheistic, covenantal, nomism." Indeed, the Bible presents this brand of Judaism--let us call it "biblical Yahwism"--as both normative and very ancient, going back even to the Hebrew patriarchs themselves. Modern biblical scholars are predictably and understandably reluctant to comment about whether biblical Yahwism should be construed as Jewish orthodoxy in any metaphysical sense, but they have expressed serious questions about the historical accuracy of this canonical portrait of Israelite religious history. Over the course of the last century, biblical scholars have assigned the emergence of biblical Yahwism to increasingly later periods. What the Bible ascribes to the patriarchs and Moses, modern scholars would date to the late monarchy, or, more often, to the exilic and postexilic periods. The resulting history of Israel's religion tends to look like this: Israel and its Yahwism emerged from the religious and social matrix of second-millennium Palestine. Early on, Israel's devotion to Yahweh was henotheistic in character, but this henotheism was gradually supplanted by, or developed into, a more exclusive variety of mono-Yahwism. According to scholars, this three-stage evolutionary process--from polytheism to henotheism to monotheism--was mirrored in the development of Israel's theological ideas (e.g., "covenant") and also in the development of its religious institutions (e.g., the sacrificial cult). In nuce, while the Bible assumes that Jewish orthodoxy was a constant presence throughout the otherwise checkered history of Israel, historical criticism depicts biblical Yahwism as a late development in Jewish religion.