Religious Interlude
It was explained in the introduction to this book that although the subject is religious; the treatment is historical. The Patriarchs, the heroes of the book, are venerated by the monotheistic religions, as their forerunners and ancestors. So, the subject is eminently religious. It is intimately interwoven with profound theological questions.
However, even religious subjects have historical frames and there are always interrelations between them. One cannot understand the theological contents of the 95 theses nailed by Martin Luther on the door of the Cathedral of Wittenberg without understanding the stresses between the German and the Latin worlds at that time. Similarly, one cannot really understand the theology of St. Francis of Loyola, without putting it within the frame of the Counterreformation of Europe of the 16th 17th century. The same with Abraham and the Patriarchs. They brought a new theological message, which is accepted today by about half of humanity. But Abraham did not emerge from a vacuum. He came from somewhere, he was brought up on certain concepts. Moreover, he has wandered around and he must have been impressed by certain things he saw, and repelled by others. All those impressions might or might not be part of his message, and this is exactly what this chapter intends to find out.
As far as the treatment of religious subjects is concerned, the original warning on that subject should be sounded again. The first book of the Old Testament is the story of the Patriarchs. In the modern world, there are a number of views about that book.
There are some who are believers. They accept that the book contains God's truth and there is no need for explanations, commentaries or additions. One has to accept it, as it is. This book is not for them.
Then there are the unbelievers. Some of them see in the stories of the Old Testament pure mythology and they too have no need to relate the stories to a historical frame. They are the exact counterpart of the believers. One reads the story about the 'burning bush' and sees in it a sign of divine presence. The second reads the same story, and sees in it a physical impossibility, therefore it is pure mythology.
The third type of people are those who read the Bible because of its theological, philosophical, ethical, and historical contents. They might not be religious or agnostic either. They do seek an explanation to the myths of the Bible. This book was written for those people. If there is a need to paste a label, then it is a kind of secular commentary. It does not involve theological excursions and theoforic explanations, but it makes an honest effort to fit the story within a realistic historical framework. The book does not intend to explain the theological message of the Patriarchs; it only looks at the stories from a different angle.
So far as it can be understood, the family of Abraham may have originated north of the line which divided, and still divides, the world of the Semites and that of the non-Semites. The actual ethnic origin is unknown. The family lived east of the river Euphrates, in the valley of the river Balikh, one of the major tributary of the Euphrates. The period when the Patriarchs emerged was sometime between the last quarter of the 3rd millenium BC and the first quarter of the 2nd millenium BC. At that time and in that area, the Patriarchs could have been Indo-Europeans or Hurrians. Those two peoples lived in a curious form of symbiosis; they even expanded in a cooperative way. Although Canaan was a country with a strong Hittite connection, the Hurrian element was equally strong. There were major towns in Canaan, like Jerusalem or Schechem, which were led by Jebusites or Hivites, both tribes of Hurrian origin.
However, there were a number of outward signs that Abraham came from a tribe with Indo-European background. In the history of the Patriarchs there are a number of signs pointing to Indo-European customs. The matter of the veneration of the ancestors that seemed to be an important part of their religion, was certainly better known by the Indo-Europeans than by the Hurrians. The importance of the religious part of the story of the Patriarchs is in the fact that the family left their homeland and the graves of its ancestors, which was the most important point of their religious affiliation. They wandered to a new country, where they had to put down roots, socially, economically, and what is most important, they had to create a new religious framework to replace the old one which could not be carried to a new country.
One can look at the history of the ancient east, or to the history of the ancient world, and see that their whole life was centered on religion. It was a period without answers of any kind, apart from those given by religions. Sometimes, it was difficult to define the main subjects of the religions. The Hurrians had a Pantheon of more than seventy deities, covering every conceivable human activity; the latter classical religions, especially the Latins, had even more. But, if some definition is needed, then the main subject was the mistery; which was gift to humans from the tree of knowledge, the road between birth and death, and beyond. Eventually, the preoccupation with birth and death, was extended to the birth and death of all living things; to fertility and renewal, which was the basis of all fertility rites.
Thus, every people had a certain preoccupation with birth and death. The ancient Egyptians even centered their whole existence on the mystery of Isis, Osiris and Horus, which was really about the mystery of birth and death.. But practically every people in the ancient world had the same deities and rites, under different names. It would be too much to claim that the religions were interchangeable, but someone who worshiped Ishtar in Babylon, could continue to worship the same goddess under the name of Astarte in Canaan, or Aphrodite in Greece, or even Easter in Europe. The same with the male gods; they all were the consorts of the goddess under different names. There was a notable exception to this.
The Indo-Europeans had a religion that was basically different from those in the ancient East. They also had their fertility rites, after all they were pastoral nomads who had to rely on the favor of the gods for the fertility of their herds, but their real religion was connected with the human mystery of birth and death, and that in an extreme intimate manner.
The original religion of the Indo-Europeans was the worship of the ancestors. Each family had its own religion, with its rites and prayers. The acts of prayers were restricted to the members of the family; even close friends were not allowed to participate in them. The center of the family religion was the 'family hearth' with its fire that had to be alive at all times. The permanent fire had to be taken care as long as the family was alive; It went out when nobody was left to take care of it. It seems that the family of the Patriarchs either belonged to one of the Indo-European tribes, or to some other people, like the Hurrians, who were influenced by the Indo-Europeans. Judging from many signs, not the least by the probable place of the Garden of Eden, which was in historic Armenia, they were probable Armenians; this was at least the opinion of Robert Graves.
The story of the Genesis, especially that part where it tells about Jacob, Rachel and Laban's teraphim, which were taken by Rachel, opens a whole new vista about the religious circumstances the Patriarchs were in. It is not only the story of the 'teraphim' but also the words of Laban, when he was talking about the 'God of Abraham' and the 'God of Nahor'. This sentence definitely points to the religious concept of the Indo-Europeans. Isis was the same goddess in Egypt, as Cybele was in Phrygia. Both were goddesses of vegetation, and both had a consort who was killed by a boar. However, the concept of the Indo-Europeans said that the God of Abraham was only the God of Abraham and his descendants, and the God of Nahor was the God of Nahor and his descendants. This concept was neither used by the Hurrians or by the Semites. Only the Indo-Europeans had the concept of a personal god; the others had concepts of gods of natural forces1 or of human occupations.
It seems that the religions of the ancestors originated in deep prehistoric times, when the family was huddling together in a cave, and were worshiping the same gods, which were the ancestors. That type of religion must have been suitable for times when they had a low fertility rate, or when their number was more or less static. In those conditions every group of hunter-gatherers or even small villages of neolithic farmers or herders, lived together as members of a single extended family, with common ancestors and common religion.
They saw in the ancestors part of the family in a special kind of environment. They were buried in the burial cave of the family, their effigies were displayed around the sacred fire of the family, and they were kept alive by occasional prayers, rites and suitable libations. It should be pointed out that the religion of the ancestor worship, as practiced by most of the Indo-Europeans, was not a religion in the strict sense of the word. Each family had its prayers, rites and sacrifices. The uniqueness of the religion was so deep in their consciousness, that when a girl married into another family, she had to renounce all contact with her previous family, including the ancestors, who were part of the family, and had to learn new prayers, rites and sacrifices, which might not have much similarity to her previous religion. In order to show that all contacts with her original family were cut, a symbolic kidnapping had to be performed and the new bride was carried over the threshold to show that she was forced to relinquish her former gods. The same applied to adoptions too. The act of adoption included a symbolic severing of all previous contacts. The symbolic severing of former family relations in the case of brides and those adopted, was actual severing in practice. Greek and Roman history are full of cases of
adoptions that were having more power than biological relations.
This religion has so much vestigial residues even in modern times, that its origins must have gone back to deep prehistory. The permanent fire of the family hearth is preserved in the permanent fire by some national monuments. The sanctity of the marriage is kept by the Christian Church; the sacred burials are replaced by national monuments to the Unknown Soldiers, together with the eternal light and the there are the variations of the All-Saints day, the Halloweens and other festivals dedicated to the dead.
There was a major problem connected with that type of religion. It was suitable only for a static or near-static population. A cave or a clearing in a forest or a small vale can contain only a certain amount of people. What happens when the family becomes a clan and clans have to split off for independent existence. Who keeps the effigies of the ancestors and who worships them? In that religion, ancestors were not fond memories; they had a semi-real existence around the family hearth.
When Abraham and Lot left the family in the valley of the Balikh, they had the same problem as many of the Indo-European pastoralists had, when they had to wander from their homeland, probably because of the environment or because of demographic pressure. It seems that the very act of splitting the families had caused problems and conflicts. When the Indo-European tribes started to look for new homes, it was a time of crisis.
There were some who succeeded in transporting the original religious and social framework to the new home. Thus, when a Latin family settled somewhere in Italy where it succeeded in carving out an estate, staffed with native serfs, that the family could continue the old social customs and religion, at least for a limited time.
It worked for a while in Rome, Greece and India. It might have worked in other places too, but from these three we have detailed information. The families who had the old religion became the aristocracy of the land, lording over the lower classes. In Rome they were the Patricians, in Greece the Eupatridai, and in India the ruling and warrior castes. Although, they were known as a landed aristocracy, in fact they were the remnants of the old Indo-European religion.
One can bring examples from Rome, whose history is from a much later date, but the remnants of the old order were still active and controversial. In early Roman history, there was a Sabine nobleman, Attus Clausus, who immigrated to Rome, together with his retainers, and was accepted as part of the ruling Roman aristocracy. Attus Clausus changed the name of his gens from Sabine Clausus to Latin Claudius, and became one of the leading patrician family in Rome. After the end of the Roman Republic, the first dynasty of Emperors was that of the Julio-Claudii; the descendants of Attus Clausus in alliance with another true-blue Roman aristocratic family, the Julii. The last emperor of that dynasty was Nero. There was another important event, that of a leading patrician family acting alone for of the Republic. That was when members of the gens Fabius waged war on Rome's behalf against Veii, another city-state, exactly as Abraham waged war against the 4 Eastern kings.
If one looks at these examples through modern eyes and modern conceptions of nation, etc., then it is difficult to accept that a powerful foreign family, like that of Attus Clausus, was accepted as a honored member of Roman society and political elite, while others, born and bred in Rome, the plebeians, were rejected. When one looks at it from the viewpoint of the ruling aristocracy, which was identical to the religious point of view too, the picture becomes clearer.
When Attus Clausus appeared at the gates of Rome with his retainers, it was at least a millenium after the original arrival of the Indo-Europeans in Latium. It is doubtful whether there was any difference between those who settled in Rome and those who settled in the hills of Sabinum. After all, there were only a few miles between them. It is possible, even probable, that there was contact between the clans of the original invaders. It is not known what caused Attus Clausus and his retainers to move to Rome, but it is possible that in Sabinum they had the same problem as later came to Rome. The plebeians, who might have been part of the native people, or descendants of clans who died out, became many and demanded political rights. After all, it was a process that happened in all the central-Italian towns. Probably, the aristocratic Clausus preferred joining the patricians in Rome to sharing power in his hometown.
When Abraham has moved to Canaan from the valley of the Balikh, he did not act as did Attus Clausus, nor as the original invaders a millenium before Attus Clausus. Abraham, and his retainers, were not part of an Indo-European invasion and did not move from one conquered territory to another. Their move could be defined as infiltration rather than invasion. He came to Canaan from an area where his family was living since time immemorial. In Canaan were already pockets of Hittites and Hurrians. His aim was to carve out a new territory for himself, and for his descendants. There is no doubt about that; it is the main motive of the Old Testament.
Abraham's behavior was very similar to the examples given about Rome. He arrived with a large number of retainers, like Attus Clausus, and waged a private war against the Eastern Kings like the Gens Fabii who waged a private war against Veii. There was, however, one major difference. The Indo-European conquerors of Italy, Greece, India and other countries, could continue their social and religious life, because they came with their ancestors, which was an integral part of their religion. It seems that in the case of Abraham it was not so. Abraham and Lot split off from the family and from the religion of the family. We know that it happened, as the Old Testament itself reported that Rachel has stolen the 'teraphim' from Laban.The lack of the accustomed religion and social order, which went back untold millennia, must have been a heavy burden on Abraham.
These thoughts do no mean that Abraham and his descendants were consciously thinking and designing a new religion. However, we do know, that wherever the Indo-Europeans went, eventually they caused a religious revolution. As the conquerors eventually combined with the conquered people, their religion soon became the amalgamation of the religions of both. The Greeks created the classical Olympian Pantheon with the gods of the conquerors and the goddesses of the conquered Pelasgians. So did the Latins, the Celts, the Germans and the Slavs. The eastern branch of the family had their share of religious revivals. The Iranians had Zoroaster; the Indians created Hinduism first, with its open form of discrimination of the Brahmins and the castes, and finally Buddhism. The Hittites (or the Armenians) had Abraham, which eventually had proven to be the seed of the religions of the western branch of the family of Indo-European speakers.
One cannot separate cultural and religious matters. It cannot be done for ancient times, when everything was pervaded by religion, also it cannot be done even in the modern world. It might be surprising to many people but the most innocent and least religious acts could turn out to have originated in ancient religions. One would not associate the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, with its eternal flame and visiting dignitaries laying wreaths with religion, but they are indeed relics of the original religion of the Indo-European tribes. Similarly, one would not see a religious act in a family Thanksgiving dinner or in a wake, but they certainly originate in ancient religious acts. The religious reformation, if one can define it so, had two results. One part of them was directly religious, and it remains so even today, and the second part contains a number of customs and habits, which could be called cultural relics of the old religion. Although the separation is artificial, the vestigial cultural elements are analyzed first and the religious changes only after it.
Without entering into the question of the type of religious reform initiated by Abraham, the signs of the old religion, those of the Hittites, e.g. the religion of the Indo-Europeans, are clearly visible in Jewish cultural values. Some of them exist even today, others did not survive the expulsion from Palestine. Many of them are directly connected with religious rituals, but they are better defined as cultural vestiges of their Indo-European origin.
The basic principles of the Indo-European religion were that religion is personal, or more accurately they centered on the family hearth. In addition, there was a concept that dead ancestors were not really dead, but were in some halfway existence between life and death, and they had to be worshiped and fed special sacrificial meals and libations. Beyond the family god and special prayers, there was a mountaintop god who oversaw the whole Universe and the gods who were in charge of various subjects. They also believed in a duality between good and bad, between light and darkness.
There were a number of technical details that were present in the religious life of most of the Indo-European speaking tribes and many of those customs can be found in the Jewish religion. As those customs are not found in any other Semitic religion, they must be memories from the Indo-European part of their ancestors.
In ancient Rome, there were a number of special officials, called viatores messengers. Some of those officials had religious duties, like the Levites of the Israelis. One of their duties was to go round the city on the eve of religious holidays and warn the public that the holiday is near and all work must stop. The same custom was practiced by the Jews in Judea and also in the exile.
In addition to these officials, there were priesthood in Rome, Greece and India, whose duties exactly corresponded to the duties of the Levites among the Jews. The same was with the Cohen among the Jews and the Brahmins in India, and some special college of priests in Rome and in Greece, The restrictions on the Cohen, as for special behavior in marriage, entering cemeteries, etc., were the same as the restrictions on the Brahmin. Of course, the Brahmin in India had more rules for keeping their purity, but in India they had to separate the Indo-Europeans from the natives, which was not necessary among the Jews.2
The dietary restrictions of the Jews are well known. It is also known that the dietary restriction on Indians, especially on the Brahmins is stricter still. A great part of the Jewish restrictions is connected to the way of slaughtering and preparing meat. The present Indians are not allowed to eat meat in any form, but it is a relatively new development. Originally, the Indians were allowed to eat meat, but had to follow a similar process as the Jews do today. It was not in India alone. The laws of ancient Greek cities stipulated that all meat offered for sale had to have been prepared by ritual slaughter.3
Part of the religious reforms initiated by Abraham was the circumcision that had to be performed on the seventh day after the birth. The act of the circumcision was a form of family ritual, where the newborn son was accepted into the Covenant. The original Indo-European societies had a similar acceptance ritual, when the newborn son had to be presented to the family and to the family gods, and officially received into the family. It was done without the circumcision, as it was a specific East African custom, which reached Canaan through Egypt. In Rome the ritual of acceptance had to be done on the ninth day after birth, in Greece it was on the tenth day and in India on the tenth or the twelfth.4
In the countries where the Indo-Europeans were the dominant factors, the religion was that of the family hearth and the effigies of the ancestors were objects of worship. Eventually the community had taken over the functions of the families. Instead of family worship of the ancestors, there was a public cult of heroes; an official permanent fire replaced the family hearth, and epic poems and hymns replaced the secret prayers and rituals. Even Christianity did not change much. The heroes were replaced by saints, the flickering candles in the cathedrals the permanent fire maintained by the Vestal Virgins, and the hymns sung by the priests the epic poems. The basic elements of the old religion were carefully kept.
If we wish to see how these elements fared with the descendants of Abraham, then there is not much difference between their practice and what was described above. There is evidence of family worship, according the original Indo-European customs, there is worship of heroes and there is epic poetry. After all, a big part of the Old Testament is epic poetry, and it is full of heroes; starting by the Patriarchs and ending by the heroes of the revolts against the Greeks and Romans. It should be added here, that the cult of heroes is unknown among the other Semitic people in the Near East, and there is also no epic poetry comparable to the Old Testament.
The view of death is much different among the descendants of Abraham from that of the other Semitic people in the Levant. At the funeral the eldest son has to say a prayer for the dead; that prayer has to be repeated at each anniversary of the funeral and a long-burning candle is lit each year to honor the dead. It is a modern version of the perpetual fire of the family hearth5.
Even the original Indo-European concept which sees the dead in a sort of halfway existence between life and oblivion has examples in the Old Testament, which means that it was accepted as valid by those who wrote it and by those who read or heard it. When King Saul wanted to know what would be the outcome of the battle on the Mount Gilboa with the Philistines, he went to the village of Endor where a witch made a seance and called up the ghost of the Prophet Samuel. (I. Sam, 28:14). The Old Testament reported on the meeting with the witch and the calling up of the ghost of Samuel, without comment, only remarking that it was against the law.
Probably the best witness to the signs of Indo-European customs among the descendants of Abraham is recorded in I. Sam. 19 20 and it involves David, the hero of Israel. The chapters above tell the story how Saul became envious of David and decided to eliminate him. He sent people to bring David to him. Michal, David's wife and Saul's daughter, understood the danger and put one of the teraphim (idol) on the bed and covered it with a blanket. When the messengers came to fetch David, she said that David is sick and he is sleeping on the bed.
In the meantime, David had escaped and met his friend Jonathan. When he told his story to Jonathan, he was asked what he could do for him? David told him that if Saul asks Jonathan about David, he should say that he had to go to Beit-Lechem, his hometown:
"
for there is a yearly sacrifice there for all the family." (I Sam. 20:6)
In this chapter there are all the signs of the Indo-European religion of ancestors and the family hearth. David had 'teraphim' which is an effigy of an ancestor and there was a yearly sacrifice for the family, so it is a ritual of the family. It should be mentioned here, that Beit-Lechem is between Jerusalem and Hebron. The first was Jebusite, which is Hurrian, and the second Hittite.
It seems that Beit-Lechem was also Hittite. When Abraham first came to Canaan he visited Hebron and bought a burial cave there. Hebron was then Hittite. If one collects the fact that the family had a private burial cave, that they had 'teraphim' as the case of Rachel with Laban, and Michal and David show, and that a family had a yearly sacrifice for members of the family, then one has all the signs of the Indo-European religion of the family.
A few of the vestigial cultural factors were shown here. There are many more but these are sufficient to prove the point. Now, the second part of the chapter, that of the religion, is evaluated.
What exactly was the religious reform, or revolution, initiated by Abraham? First, it involved a direct connection, which eventually brought on a covenant between the Lord and Abraham. As a covenant was a form of contract at the time of the Patriarchs, so there are a number of questions to be asked.
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What is a covenant?
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Who were the two sides of the contract?
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What were the subjects of the covenant; what was given and what was taken?
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Covenant is an agreement, like a compact or a league. It is not only a covenant with God. Gen.21:27-32 tells about a covenant between Abraham and Abimelech, and the main subject of the covenant was a well, which was taken violently by Abimelech's servants. A covenant at the time of the Patriarchs was a type of contract that involved a sacrifice of an ass. It also involved a complex ritual including swearing of oaths and promising retributions if the stipulations of the covenant were not kept.
Many covenants were found in Near Eastern archives from the period of the Patriarchs. They are religious or secular; there were covenants between equals and covenants between suzerains and vassals. The formats of the covenants are always similar. They contain:
Preamble
Historical prologue
Fundamental stipulations as for future relations
Specific stipulations
Curses and blessings
Of course, a proper covenant required a sacrifice of an ass to give it a religious dimension. In one of the documents, found at the excavations of Mari, the following expression was used:
"The slaying of an ass between X and Y."6
The connection between covenants and the sacrifice of an ass, was preserved in the name of the people of Shechem, with whom Jacob and his sons had such an unpleasant meeting. The name of their ruler was Hamor (Ass) and their tribal deity was Baal-Brith (Lord of the Covenant).7
The expression of covenant appears many times in the Book of Genesis, and not always in connection with the Patriarchs. The first covenant was with Adam and Eve, promising divine favor for total obedience. (Gen. 2:16-17). That covenant was broken, and the details of its breach are known. The second covenant was with Noah, when Noah was promised that the world will never again be destroyed by flood. Finally, there were many covenants between the Lord and Abraham. Not all of them were according to the legal formula.
At the beginning of the connections, the Lord has instructed Abraham to leave his country and his father's house and go to a land, which will be shown him by the Lord. That land will belong to him and to his descendants. (Gen.12:1-3). The second connection is described in Gen.13:14-17 when the Lord has repeated the first promise. It continued in Gen. 15 when the Lord has not only promised Abraham the rule over Canaan but also described the borders of the country; from the river of Egypt to the river of Euphrates. It followed in Gen. 17 18, when the Lord again promised Abraham many descendants and finally in Gen.22, when Abraham was willing to sacrifice his firstborn son and only a timely divine intervention stopped the sacrifice.
So, the covenant between God and Abraham did not exactly follow the prescribed structure, but it continued many years and in many installments. There were a number of important points that were repeated time and time again:
Abraham will have many descendants
Canaan will belong to Abraham's descendants
The Lord, the first part of the Covenant, will be the God of Abraham and his descendants.
As a sign of the Covenant, the descendants of Abraham, who will be part of the Covenant, should be circumcised. Whoever from the people remains uncircumcised, shall be cut off from the people; he has broken the Covenant.
What have the Israelites given for all the gifts. In the Covenant, Yahweh has adopted Israel as his people and, as a jealous God, demanded total allegiance from them. They were to worship no other god but Yahweh.
That was indeed the beginning of monotheism. It has received an explicit statement much later at the time of the exile in Babylon:
"I am Yahweh, and there is none else, there is no God beside me." (Isaiah, 45:5)
These are the details of the Covenant. There are a number of subjects that are unexplained and should be explored. What was the name of the God who was part of the Covenant and what are the historical sources for the circumcision?
The name of gods had special meaning in ancient times. In many cases, they were unknown, except to those who worshiped them, and were jealously kept so that no unauthorized person could access it. Sir James Frazer wrote about the taboo of revealing gods' name:
"My father devised my name; my father and my mother gave me my name, and it remained hidden in my body since my birth, that no magician might have magic power over me."8
According to Jewish tradition, the real name of God was not revealed to the Patriarchs. In Exodus 15:2, it is explicitly written that when the Lord appeared to Moses, He said that:
"I am the Lord: and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name El-Shaddai, but by my name Yahweh was I not known to them."
This is what is written in the Bible. However, it is known from many non-Biblical source that the name Yahweh, or names very similar to it, were very well known in the Middle East, and even beyond, at the time of the Patriarchs.
It is easy to follow religious affiliations because of the habit of using theophoric names. The word theophoric means that within the names of individuals the name of a god or goddess is included. It was important for rulers, but it was a near common practice for individuals to bear the names of gods whose favor they or their parents sought.
In the Semitic world, the name of God was El, so a common attachment was '-el' or '-il' or '-ilu', depending on the dialect. Thus we can look at the name Michael, and we know that in the original it was 'Mi-ka-il' meaning 'Who is like El?' or Gabriel, originally 'Gavri-el' meaning 'My hero is El'.
There was another common theophoric attachment in the forms of '-ya' or '-yaw' or '-yahu'. It did not appear much in the solidly Semitic areas, but it appeared much in the border areas, between the Semitic and the non-Semitic world. It was a common theophoric element, much before the period of the Patriarchs.
There was a proto-Indo European god in the Indus valley at about 2900 BC. The name of the god was Yayash, Yaw or Yave. It was a protective god whose symbol was a tree. The name was also known and used by the Sumerians, much before the time of the Patriarchs. One of the names of the Sumerian moon-goddess was Iahu. 'Ia' in Sumerian means 'exalted' and 'Hu' means 'dove', so 'Iahu' meant 'exalted dove'. It should be mentioned here that the Sumerian moon-goddess had two main temples. One temple was in the south, in Ur on the Euphrates, where some scholars put Abraham's origin and the second in Harran in the valley of the Balikh. Whether Abraham came from the south or from the north, he certainly had close contact with the name of the goddess.
The Egyptians also knew the name Iahu. It was one of the names of Set and also of Horus. It is interesting to note, that those who unified Egypt were called 'the sons of Horus' and the road between Gaza in Canaan and Egypt was 'the road of Horus'. Set was the enemy of Osiris who killed him in the guise of a boar. In the Egyptian mythology Set was associated with Asia, so both uses point to the same direction.9
The name was also known in Syria , as Yahveh meaning 'a sacred animal or organization, and in Hebron where the consort of Baalith was Elath-Iahu. It appears also on the tablets of Mari, showing that the name was well known by the Amorites.10 The most prominent use of the name Yahweh, or Yaw, was in the north-Syrian town of Ebla, which was on the border between the Semitic and non-Semitic world. In the 24th 23rd centuries BC there was a religious reform in Ebla, initiated by the king of Ebla, named Ebrum or Ibrium, where the theophoric parts of the names were changed from 'el' or '-il' to that of '-ya'. Thus the name Mi-ka-il was changed to Mi-ka-ya, meaning exactly the same.
It was an important religious reform, and it obviously had some hidden political agenda. It must have been perfectly clear to the people in Ebla, but for us it is so far back in time that we can only guess the meaning of the change. It is , however, a fact that the name of Yahweh, Yaw or Iahu were in common use in the Middle East and beyond.11
There is one more and important reference to the use of the name Yahweh, although the reference is from a date after the period of the Patriarchs. In the mountainous area of Seir, east of the valley that connects the Dead Sea with the Red Sea, in the present Kingdom of Jordan, there was a tribe of Bedouins, called the Shashu. In Egyptian lists there are references to 'Yhw in the land of the Shashu'. It is difficult to jump to conclusions, but already in the period of the Judges and early Monarchy (Judges 5:4-5, I Kings 19) there are references of 'Yahweh coming forth from Seir' and 'originating in Edom'. There is one logical explanation to these references. It is possible that when the historical Israel was created by the amalgamation of various elements, among them the tribe of the Shashu of Seir12 , who worshiped Yahweh and eventually it was accepted by all of Israel. As the Shashu came from the south, they joined the tribes of Judah, which ultimately became the dominant religious element in Israel. How the Shashu came to worship Yahweh remains a secret, but it should be remembered that the first ruler of Edom was Esau, the grandson of Abraham.
Whenever and wherever the name Yahweh had reached the Shashu, and through them the Israelites, by about 1000 BC it had an absolute dominance. This fact should be seen not only as a theological fact, but as an important political statement. The god of the Semitic word is El (or Allah as it is known today).The name appears in the Old Testament too, indeed it is the theophoric part of the name Israel 'God will fight'. The dominant position of Yahweh in Jewish religious consciousness had a political cause and political results.
When the united Monarchy has split into two after the death of Solomon, the northern part was called Israel and the southern part Yudah. In the north there were many religious upheavals; Syria and Phoenicia were to the north of Israel and they influenced her. South of Yudah there was the desert, so there was less influence. The famous competition of the Prophet Eliyahu with the fifty prophets of Baal, was on the Carmel, which was in Israelite territory. Even the name of Eliyahu was provocative it means 'My god is Yahu'. It is entirely possible that the descendants of the Shashu dominated the ruling elite of the southern kingdom, and they kept their loyalty to Yahweh, better than their northern kindred, who constantly wobbled between Yahweh, El and Baal.
By the end of the first millennium BC, the victory of Yahweh was complete, at least as far as the united monarchy was concerned, but even beyond. Jewish religion was centered on the temple in Jerusalem and it was Yahwist. At that time, the competition must have been meaningful, and at times probably violent too. In our time there is a dualism in personal Hebrew names, which are the residual effects of that competition. Of course, the bearers of those names hardly know what the names mean and what are the alternatives to them.
'Azar-ya' means 'God helped' and 'El-azar' means exactly the same. 'Uri-el' means 'God is my light' and 'Uri-yah' means exactly the same. However, when today someone names his son Uriel or Uriyah, he does not see any religious meaning. When in King David's time there was a high-ranking officer, named Uriyah the Hittite, it was obvious that a Hittite could not have been named Uriel, so it must have been Uriyah.
If the Israelites received the name Yahweh from the Shashu of Seit, from where did the Shashu receive it? It is entirely possible that it reached them at the time of the Patriarchs, and it reached the Patriarchs from non-Semitic, probably Hittite sources. It could not have reached them from the Semitic tribes in Canaan, as the Semitic world was, and still is, loyal to El as the name of God. It did not have to be the Patriarchs. In the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, about 40 % of the names of the rulers in Canaan had either Indo-European or Horrite names so the Shashu, if the name of Yahweh had indeed originated from them, had plenty of opportunity to be in contact with non-Semitic religions.
The physical expression of the Covenant was the circumcision. It was so commanded in Gen. 17:11-14. It is explicitly written there, that whoever is not circumcised, has no part in the Covenant. The style of the chapter is very clear. The injunction applies only to those who will be born in Abraham's house or in his descendants', or will be bought by them. That means that even slaves of the members of the covenant are required to belong to it.
Where did the custom originate, when and why? The answer to all these questions is not entirely clear. It is known that the custom originated somewhere in East Africa and from there has reached Egypt. According to Herodotus II.104, the custom was very old already in his time, and was common practice in Egypt and in Ethiopia. Based on Egyptian sources, it was in practice in Egypt already at about 3000 BC. However, it was not general and not compulsory. Mummies of the priestly caste show that for the priests it was general, but not for the other castes.
There were many who attempted to solve the problem of the origin of the circumcision. Voltaire wrote that the custom went back at least 5 7000 years. It certainly started before the existence of metal tools, as ritual and religious circumcisions are performed with obsidian knives.
At the time of the Patriarchs, it was already an accepted practice in Egypt, Canaan and the neighboring countries. Jeremiah 9:25 wrote that Egypt, Judah, Edom, Amon ,Moab and the Arabs practiced circumcision, the Assyrians, the Elamites and the Indo-European tribes did not. The prophet Ezekiel later added the Zidonians too, and claimed that the Edomites have stopped the practice. He was correct, as the later Hasmonaean king, Johanan Hyrcanus compelled the Edomites to renew the custom.
In earlier times, the Canaanites were probably circumcised, although the Bible keeps quiet on this subject. The Philistines were definitely not circumcised, which led King Saul to demand a bride price of 100 Philistine foreskins when David wanted to marry Michal, Saul's daughter. The Hivites of Shechem were also not circumcised, which brought them to a gory end by the hands of Jacob's sons. The Hivites were a Hurrian tribe, living in Canaan, like the Jebusites in Jerusalem.
It seems that in many cases, the custom went into abeyance, as with the Edomites, and only the Jews, and probably the Arabs, kept it all the time.The origin of the custom is still a matter of speculation. In East Africa it was probably a puberty rite, where the circumcision was a visible sign of reaching manhood. But there were other uses too. When David asked Saul for his daughter's hand, Saul has demanded a bride price of 100 Philistine foreskins.13 It does seem to be a barbaric custom, but then one can find in Egyptian archives that the practice was widespread and certainly was not invented by King Saul.
The Egyptian practice was to cut off the penis of slain enemies as a trophy. If the enemy was circumcised then his right arm was cut off.14 It was not only a question of trophies; the mercenary soldiers employed by the Egyptians received their bonus according the tally of the body parts.
It seems that the acceptance of the circumcision as an outward sign of belonging should be assigned to the change of ethnicity of the tribe. They lived among Semites, who all practiced circumcision; they accepted it as they accepted most, if not all, of their habits. Whenever the question of religious customs and laws are concerned, one should always keep in mind the words of the Prophet Ezekiel, he was much nearer in time to the events, than we are now. He wrote these lines about Jerusalem, but it applies to the whole of Israel: "Your mother was a Hittite, and your father an Amorite." (Ezekiel 16:45)
It is clear enough.
Notes
| 1. |
Fustel de Coulanges, op.cit., p.24; Ignatius Hunt, op.cit.,p.84; Cyrus H. Gordon, op.cit.,p.127; Samuel Noah Kramer, The Sumerians, op.cit.,p.294 claims that the Sumerians also had a concept of a personal god. They probably originated from somewhere in central Asia, and might have had the same concepts as the Indo Europeans.
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| 2. |
Riane Eisler, op.cit., p.7/24
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| 3. |
Barbara Ehrenreich, Blood Rites, Metropolitan Books, New York, 1992, p.37, quotes from Heesterman:The Broken World of Sacrifice: An Essay in Ancient Indian Ritual, University of Chicago, Chicago, 1993, p.7
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| 4. |
Fustel de Coulanges, op.cit. p.53
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| 5. |
Mark W. Hamilton, Aspects of family Religion in Israel and in the Ancient Near East, Christian Scholars Conference, Abilene Christian University, 1997,pp. 5-7/9
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| 6. |
Archives Royales de Mari, Paris, 1950, Vol. II. Par.,37,11.6.11
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| 7. |
Merrill F. Unger, op.cit.,p.126
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| 8. |
Sir James Frazer, The Golden Bough (Abr. Edition), MacMillan and Co.,London, 1963,p.343
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| 9. |
Robert Graves, The White Goddess, op.cit. ,pp. 369-370
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| 10. |
R.de Vaux, The Revelation of the Divine Name, YHWH, in Proclamation and Presence,pp.52-56; Frank More Cross, Yahweh and the God of the Patriarchs, Harvard Theological Review, 55 (1962), p.262
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| 11. |
Thomas L. Thompson, The Mythical Past, op.cit., pp.175-176; Cyrus H. Gordon, The Bible and the Ancient Near East, W. W. Norton, New York, 1997,p.250; Riane Eisler, op.cit., p.19/24
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| 12. |
Donald B. Redford, Egypt, Canaan and Israel in Ancient Times, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1992, pp. 272 273 Sigmund Freud, op.cit. PP.56-57: The name appears also in Iupiter, Iovis, Iacchus, and in modern names as John,Jean, Johann,etc
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| 13. |
I Samuel 18:25
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| 14. |
Robert Drews, The End of the Bronze Age, op.cit., pp. 49 - 51
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