Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Bill Rea <bsr15 AT exchange.canterbury.ac.nz>]

Ian wrote:-


>Now as to when, I think there is enough of a case that the pre-exilic
>religion was polytheistic. Not just because of sites such as Kuntillat
>Ajrud, but because of the temple at Arad with its double altar, because
>of the high place at Malhah just outside Jerusalem and because of the
>numerous "Asherah" figurines found in the city, all around the time of
>the "Josian reforms".

The Hebrew texts present a complicated picture. They tell us at
numerous places that the monotheists were (often) a small minority
which struggled against an (often) dominant polytheistic majority.
Recall in the time of Elijah there were supposedly only 7,000 pure YHWH
worshippers around. What was the population at the time? While we can't
calculate exact percentages the point is clear, the monotheists were a
persecuted minority.  The "Josiah Reforms" are idealised in Kings, but
Jeremiah shows us just how little they affected the practices of the
common people.  I seems to me that trying to use the presence of
polytheistic practices in the monarchy period to argue for a late date
of composition of the sources because there wasn't any monotheism in
that period is based on a misunderstanding of what the texts tell us
about the religion of that time. With such a small minority how would
you distinquish between them and their neighbours?

I'll put my acid and flame proof suit on now.

Bill Rea, Information Technology Dept., Canterbury  University  \_ 
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