In the 1980s, inscriptions
came to light from a caravanserai in the southern Negev, Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, that
can be dated to the ninth century BCE and mention “Yhwh of Samaria” and—somewhat
less certain epigraphically—“Yhwh of Teman.” These attestations show that Yhwh
was known in different manifestations. In addition to the Yhwh of Jerusalem,
who was able to assert himself over other expressions in the course of the
Josianic Reform, there was obviously (at least) a Yhwh from Samaria and a Yhwh
from Teman. One can speak in this case of “poly-Yahwism,” but this “poly-Yahwism”
is quite similar to the Yhwh-Asherah problem, which can be interpreted as a
tendency toward differentiation. This manifestations are different from the
divine origins.
The inscriptions
present a picture of the religion of monarchic Israel that is only accessible
in the mediated fashion in the Bible. The act that Yhwh held an Asherah at his side
can only be detected from its negation. When Deut 16:21forbids: לא־תטע לך אשׁרה כל־עץ אצל מזבח יהוה אלהיך (lʾtṭʿ lk
ʾšrh klʿṣ ʾṣl mzbḥ yhwh ʾlhyk), “You shall not plant for yourself any
Asherah from any kind of wood next to the altar of Yhwh your God,” the
implication is that this idea was basically accessible. 2 Kgs 21:7 appears to
show that Manasseh also put this idea into practice.
The “poly-Yahwism” of the inscriptions has
its negative counterpart in the claim of the unity of Yhwh in the Shema (Deut
6:4). There it states, “Hear Israel, Yhweh, your God, is one Yhwh.” The Shema ties all of
Yhweh’s manifestations to the one Yhwh of Jerusalem. Or perhaps formulated more
“poly-Yahwism,” the Shema propagates a “mono-Yahwism,” which like-wise only
appears in the Bible as the end point of an extensive religious-historical
development. (Konrad Schmid, A Historical
Theology of the Hebrew Bible [trans. Peter Altmann; Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Eerdmans, 2019], 293-94)
Refuting Jeff Durbin on "Mormonism"
