I think so, from what I have read of the archaeology of the period -- scant though it is.rgprice wrote: ↑Thu Aug 25, 2022 12:16 pm I see that Gmrikin states:
gods. It appears certain that Yah (Yahweh) was worshipped alongside other gods in a prosaic polytheistic cultural environment in Babylonia,9 Egypt,10 Idumea,11 Samaria,12 and, arguably, Judah,13 especially on evidence of the Elephantine papyri.14 The old idea that monotheism emerged as a result of Persian influences thus lacks credible contemporary evidence and should be abandoned (cf. the critique by Mark Smith [2001: 165–6]).
Gmirkin, Russell E.. Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts (p. 248)
Is the evidence really so decisive?
I have added the notes here. I know you have them, but for a more general interest.... (There are other works also addressing the archaeological evidence for the religious practices in "Jehud" in the Persian era.)
Note 9:
Note 10:An analysis of theophoric elements in names from the Judahite exilic community in Babylonia documents polytheism in the Jewish exilic community where Yah was worshipped alongside the chief Babylonian gods (Granerød 2019: 357-62, especially 361-2, drawing on Pearce and Wunsch 2014) and demonstrates the prosaic worship of Babylonian deities alongside Yahweh throughout the Neo- Babylonian and Persian periods.
- Granerød, Gard. “Canon and Archive: Yahwism in Elephantine and Äl-Yähüdu as a Challenge to the Canonical History of Judean Religion in the Persian Period.” JBL 138 (2019): 345-364. https://sci-hub.se/10.1353/jbl.2019.0018
It's probably a bit much for me to add the full quotation from pages 324-40, 244-56 or even pages 351-7 from the 2019 title. The 2016 article is linked above.The Elephantine Papyri of ca. 450-400 bce reflect a casual polytheism in which z ׳ Yah was worshipped alongside various other Babylonian and Syrian gods such as Herembethel, Eshembethel and Anathbethel (TAD B7.2-3; C3:127-28; Granerod 2016: 31, 244-56,2019: 352-3, 357). There is no indication in the corpus of papyri and ostraca from Elephantine, Syene and Memphis that the polytheistic culture that thrived in the Jewish-Aramean military colonies of Egypt was in any way unusual or unorthodox (Granerod 2016: 324—40, 2019: 351-7).
page 31:
- Granerød, Gard. Dimensions of Yahwism in the Persian Period: Studies in the Religion and Society of the Judaean Community at Elephantine. BZAW 488. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2016.
An individual who calls himself “Malchiah son of Jashobiah, an Aramaean, hereditary property holder in Elephantine” (B7.2:2-3) had been accused of an unlawful entry/acquisition of a house by someone called Artafrada who was a member of another detachment. In the document, Malchiah, who clearly has a theophoric name with YHW as the divine element, expressed his willingness to declare loudly in the presence of Herembethel that he was not guilty of the accusation (B7.2:7). Moreover, the so-called Collection Account (C3.15) lists the “names of the Judaean garrison who gave silver to YHW the god” (C3.15:l). What continues to perplex scholars is that the list also accounts for the contributions to Eshembethel and Anathbethel (who probably are gods, C3.15:127-128). Furthermore, the servant Giddel blessed his lord Micaiah (cf. the element YHW) “by YHH and Khnum” (D7.21:3). Therefore, also the worship and veneration of YHW did not function alone as the main criteria for defining the Judaean community.
Note 11
A fourth century bce ostraca from Idumea mentions temples both of Yaho and the Arabian god ‘Uzza, suggesting Yahwism thrived within a polytheistic en- vironment in Judah’s southern neighbor (Lemaire 2004, 2006).
- Lemaire, André. “Another Temple to the Israelite God: Aramaic Hoard Documents Life in Fourth Century B.C.” BAR 30 (2004): 38-44, 60.
- Lemaire, André. “New Aramaic Ostraca from Idumea and their Historical Interpretation,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period. Oded Lipschits and Manfred Oeming (eds.), 413-456. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006.
Note 12
Note 13Iconography on Persian Era coinage from Samaria shows a remarkable continuity with that of the polytheistic cultic installation at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud (ca. 750 bce), demonstrating a strong continuity with Samaria’s polytheistic heritage (Leith 2014: 275-84) and incidentally showing that Samaria’s religious culture was by no means aniconic.
- Leith, Mary Joan Winn. “Religious Continuity in Israel/Samaria: Numismatic Evidence,” in A ״Religious Revolution” in Yehud? The Material Culture of the Persian Period as a Test Case. Christian Frevel, Katharina Pyschny and Izak Cornelius (eds.), 267-304. Gottingen: Academic Press, 2014.
Note 14Ephraim Stem (1999, 2001, 2006) argued that archaeological remains from Persian Era Judah demonstrate a remarkable aniconography and absence of pagan cultic objects, in contrast with regional neighbors, but his analysis was disputed in the collection of articles in Frevel, Psychny and Cornelius (2014). See Grabbe 2014, Wyssmann 2014 and Leith 2014 on imagery, including foreign gods, on Samarian and Judean coins. A bearded god seated on a throne on Samarian coinage and on a winged chariot on a “Yehud” coin (Wyssmann 2014: 230-2, 246-7) is sometimes interpreted as representations of Yahweh; cf. Smith 1990: 9; Shenkar 2007-2008; de Hulster 2009. See Grabbe 2014: 34 on Persian Era incense altars and figurines in Judah, contra Stem 1999: 250-5 2001: 478-9, 488.
- de Hulster, Izaak J. “A Yehud Coin with a Representation of a Sun Deity and Iconic Practice in Persian Period Palestine. An Elaboration on TC 242.5” / BMC Palestine XIX 29,” in Unity and Diversity in Early Jewish Monotheisms. 1-16. Göttingen: Georg-August-Universität, 2009. http://www.monotheism.uni-goettingen.de ... _tc242.pdf (last accessed on 27th Nov. 2012).
- Frevel, Christian, Katharina Pyschny and Izak Cornelius (eds.). A "Religious Revolution’’ in Yehiid? The Material Culture of the Persian Period as a Test Case. Göttingen: Academic Press, 2014.
- Grabbe, Lester L. “Religious and Cultural Boundaries from the Neo-Babylonian to the Early Greek Period: A Context for Iconographie Interpretation,” in A ״Religious Revolution” in Yehud? The Material Culture of the Persian Period as a Test Case. Christian Frevel, Katharina Pyschny and Izak Cornelius (eds.), 23-42. Göttingen: Academic Press, 2014.
- Shenkar, Michael. “The Coin of the »God on the Winged Wheel«.” Boreas 30/31 (2007-2008): 13-23 https://www.academia.edu/380126/The_Coi ... ged_Wheel_.
- Smith, Mark S. The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1990. https://archive.org/details/earlyhistoryofgo0000smit
- Stem, Ephraim. Material Culture of the Land of the Bible in the Persian Period 538-332 B.C. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1982.
- Stem, Ephraim. “Religion in Palestine in the Assyrian and Persian Periods,” in The Crisis of Israelite Religion: Transformation of Religious Tradition in Exilic and Post-Exilic Times. Bob Becking and Marjo Korpel (eds.), 245-255. Oudtestamentische Studien 42. Leiden: Brill, 1999.
- Stem, Ephraim. Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, Volume II. The Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian Periods (732-332 B.C.E.). New York: Doubleday, 2001.
- Wyssmann, Patrick. “The Coinage Imagery of Samaria and Judah in the Late Persian Period,” in A ״Religious Revolution” in Yehud? The Material Culture of the Persian Period as a Test Case. Christian Frevel, Katharina Pyschny and Izak Cornelius (eds.), 221-266. Göttingen: Academic Press, 2014.
The evidence from the Elephantine Papyri shows that the religious authorities in Jerusalem accommodated the existence of other temples servicing polytheistic Jewish communities abroad. The priests of Elephantine were in close communication with the priests in Jerusalem and the Samarian authorities, both of whom sanctioned the rebuilding of their temple of Yah: not only was there no Deuteronomistic backlash from Jerusalem, there is no indication of the existence of any biblical writings that discouraged any of the historical practices at Elephantine that scholars once discounted as heterodox (Granerod 2016: 17, 204-6, 340).
- Granerod, Gard. Dimensions of Yahwism in the Persian Period: Studies in the Religion and Society of the Judaean Community at Elephantine. BZAW 488. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2016.
On the links:rgprice wrote: ↑Thu Aug 25, 2022 12:16 pmWithin the Hebrew Bible, a true monotheism that denied the existence of other gods is found only in Second Isaiah (Smith 2001: 179–94), written sometime in the period ca. 270–185 BCE. 15
Gmirkin, Russell E.. Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts (p. 249).
Gmirkin's note on this claim:15 The extensive use of the Pentateuch, especially Exodus imagery in Second Isaiah, indicates a date after ca. 270 BCE.
Evidence? Firstly, this reasoning is circular. Even if there is commonality between Second Isaiah and the Torah, how does one show that the borrowing went from Torah to Isaiah and not the other way around? Secondly, what are these supposed examples of links between the Torah and Second Isaiah?
Isaiah 40:13, 21, 22 -- God is the creator as per Genesis 1
Isaiah 43:16-17 is a reference to the destruction of Pharaoh's armies in the Red Sea at the Exodus of Israel
Isaiah 48:21 has all the appearance of a reference to Moses bringing forth water for Israel in the wilderness by striking a rock.
Isaiah 51:2 refers to the parents of Israel, Abraham and Sarah
Isaiah 51:3 references Eden, presumably only meaningful to those who knew the story of Genesis 2.
Isaiah 51:10 refers to the parting of the Red Sea so Israel could cross on dry land
Isaiah 54:9 refers to Noah and to God's promise never to send another flood to destroy everything
Rikki Watts has written a detailed account of how Isaiah's theme of a new exodus is built on the Pentateuchal account and used by the author of the Gospel of Mark: Isaiah's New Exodus in Mark. Second Isaiah's theme of a new exodus is built on the story of the first exodus, as some of the above links show.
As for the direction of the influence, given that Isaiah makes scattered references to names and events in the Pentateuch it appears that the author presumed his readers knew of the narrative to which he was referring. References to Noah, the rock yielding water, the Egyptian enemies of Israel and their armies drowned in the sea, crossing the sea as the waters parted, the reference to Abraham and Sarah --- none of those would have made any sense or meant anything to readers who were ignorant of the stories in Genesis and Exodus. So I think there can be little doubt that Second Isaiah knew and drew from the Pentateuch.
There are differences, too. Isaiah belonged to the "tradition" that opposed the polytheistic friendly narrative of Genesis 1-11. In Isaiah El/Elohim and Yahweh are no longer separated but are one and the same god. The idea that there was a chaotic mess prior to creation is also rejected by Isaiah who insists that everything was perfect from the very beginning.