This development would have taken place by the eighth century,...
Smith, Mark S. The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. pg. 48-49
My objection is that the position of YHWH in the Canaanite pantheon is far from clear before the eighth century, the difference between the 14th and 8th centuries is many of your earth years.
Like I mentioned above, some kind of natural continuum between Canaanite and Israelite worship is reasonable, maybe even probable - it just seems that some caution is warranted.
semiopen wrote:Like I mentioned above, some kind of natural continuum between Canaanite and Israelite worship is reasonable, maybe even probable - it just seems that some caution is warranted.
Its more then probable. Its close to fact as a direct tie . The only thing debatable is how much in minority was added from other displaced Semitic people.
Where we really loose track is how late Yahweh was introduced into Canaanite mythology in the divine council. The OT text elude to exactly that so its not even a stretch here.
We have displaced Canaanites after the bronze age collapse, we have Canaanite alphabet, pottery, and mythology with their deity as the major deity of Israel.
We also see northern traditions reflecting El as primary early on 1000BC ish and we see southern traditions that placed Yahweh above during war times.
We know little from 1200 to 1000 other then displaced Semitic people mostly Canaanite in origin that had began settling the highlands. Within 200 years we see traditions of J and E develop by our best understanding. 200 years later we see Els attributes in some cultures not all that were given to Yahweh.
Regardless of origin Yahweh evolved heavily in early Israelite cultures, before being redefined by the monotheistic redaction instituted by government control of King Josiah 622 BC. Even then monotheism to one god did not take full hold until Hellenism took hold.
Nehemia Gordon has an argument about the pronunciation of YHWH that I'm still investigating, that the vowels in YHWH are not the vowels of Adonai.
But what of the vowels? Are they really the vowels of Adonai?
To understand this problem we must consider an ancient Hebrew scribal practice called Kere-Qetiv, “the read (Qere) and the written (Ketiv)” ... Qere-Ketiv occurs when a certain word is written in Scripture one way (Ketiv), but a note in the margin of the biblical text indicates that it is to be read as if it were written another way (Qere). Apparently, many of the Qere-Ketivs were formed when the Temple scribes compared two or three ancient manuscripts of Scripture. The scribes found slight differences between the manuscripts and left one form of the word in the body of Scripture while the other they recorded in the margin. The significance of Qere-Ketiv for the question of the divine name is that the Ketiv, the form written in the body of Scripture, is always written with the vowels of the Qere, the way the word is read. The argument concerning the name is that YHVH has the consonants of the name but the vowels of Adonai and this is presented as fact in every introduction to Biblical Hebrew and every scholarly discussion of the name. There are two problems with this scholarly consensus. The first is that in all the other instances of Qere-Ketiv, the word which is read differently than the way it is written is marked by a circle in the biblical manuscripts. The circle refers the reader to a marginal note that says “read it such and such”. So in the instance of the name we would expect there to be a circle over the word YHVH with a marginal note instructing us “read it Adonai” But no such note exists! YHVH appears 6828 times in the Hebrew text of Scripture but it is never identified as a Qere-Ketiv by either a scribal circle or a marginal note. The second problem with the claim that YHVH has the vowels of Adonai is quite simply that it does not! The vowels of Adonai are A-O-A (hataf patach – cholam – kamats). In contrast, the name YHVH is written with the vowels e—A (sheva – no vowel -kamats). The vowels of YHVH are clearly different from the vowels of Adonai! YHVH is written YeHVaH but with the vowels of Adonai it should have been Yahovah! How is it that the scholarly consensus missed this factual evidence? Up until recently printers of the text of Scripture have freely modified the name YHVH. In many printings of the Hebrew Scriptures YHVH is written with no vowels at all while in other printings it is in fact written as Yahovah with the vowels of Adonai. However, when we check the earliest complete manuscripts of Scripture we find that YHVH is written YeHVaH. This is how YHVH is written in the Ben Asher manuscripts (Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex b) which preserve the most accurate complete text of Scripture. In these photographs it is clear that the name YHVH is written repeatedly as YeHVaH and not with the vowels of Adonai as YaHoVaH. http://www.slideshare.net/davehome/yeho ... ounciation