I really enjoyed @digi_hammurabi and @DJHammurabi1’s interview with @ProfFrancesca, particularly the discussion about how Yahweh is shown to take over roles previously ascribed to other gods. Quite a lot of it however left my rather confused (THREAD)…

The main point of the interview seems to me to be that, when it comes to ancient Israelite religion, “there’s a difference between the Biblical portrayal of the past and the likely historical reality of that past.”

I think the reason I was left confused by the interview is that the thrust of the argument for this point pitted two types of evidence against each other that actually have nothing to do with each other…

Quite often in the interview, theological claims made in the Hebrew Bible about the nature of Yahweh and other gods are pitted against the archaeological evidence for what the ancient Israelites’ religious beliefs and practices were. Let me give some examples:

Prof. Stavrakopoulou says that certain biblical authors/redactors were “trying to insist that Yahweh is the only one true god … but the reality is massively different … in that we know that ancient Israelite religion was polytheistic.”

Later, we're told that the Hebrew Bible gives “a very biased, very slanted view that Yahweh was a god that always demanded exclusive worship, and that this was the way he ought to be worshipped, but the reality was massively different. The reality was polytheism, quite sensibly.”

Another example: “[Asherah] was clearly a hugely important deity, and yet if you were just to rely on the Bible you’d think that she was some awful foreign deity … some kind of awful superstition,

but actually she was, you know, really important, and her role was probably to act as the main mediator between worshippers and Yahweh himself.”

These sorts of arguments, on the surface, may sound convincing – but they don’t actually make much sense.

Statements like “Yahweh is the only one true god” is a theological truth claim. Yahweh either is or he isn’t the only one true god. Maybe he is, maybe he’s not but is instead one of many, or maybe there are no gods at all – but it’s a truth claim, it’s either true or false.

However, you can’t disprove the theological truth claim that there *is* one god, and that he alone *should* be worshipped, with archaeological or textual evidence that other people *worshipped* many gods.

Archaeological/textual evidence that Asherah, or any other deity, was a “hugely important deity” to the Israelites is not evidence that Asherah *was* a deity, nor is it evidence that Biblical writers were wrong to think Yahweh was the *only* deity.

It’s like if you were to tell a Muslim today: ’you are wrong to think that there is only one god, because in reality there are many hugely important gods, like the gods of the Hindus for example.’

This argument is clearly beside the point. The existence of competing opinions or truth claims is not evidence that one (or all) of those opinions or truth claims is wrong.

The primary argument being pushed in the interview – intentionally or not – seems to me to follow this same logic. Something along the lines of this:

*The authors/redactors of the Hebrew Bible believed that there was only one god, but they were wrong, because other people believed in many gods.*

But archaeological/textual evidence that the monotheistic *worship* of Yahweh evolved out of the polytheistic *worship* of a pantheon is not inconsistent with the claims of the Hebrew Bible that Yahweh and Yahweh alone *is* the only god, and that he alone *should* be worshipped.

Even if monotheistic *beliefs* never evolved, and the Hebrew Bible was never written, and no claim of *belief* in Yahweh was ever recorded, that would not in itself be evidence that Yahweh *was not* the only one true god.

Looking at the history of what people *believed* about gods will not tell you whether or not they were right to believe those things. If you want arguments about the objective existence of Yahweh or of any other god, you will have to look elsewhere.

You might have read this thread so far and thought, ‘don’t be silly George, you know what was meant: the main argument given was that the Bible’s description of Israelite religion is different from what Israelite religion was actually like.’

But is the Bible’s description of Israelite religion *really* at odds with what we know from primary archaeological and textual evidence?

Prof. Stavrakopoulou says that “the religious agenda [of the 6th – 5th century Biblical writers] was very much to present the religious past as having always been properly monotheistic.”

A bit later: “The biblical story as we read, particularly through the Torah and the so-called historical books … [is] that once the people got ... into the promised land, that their religion was corrupted by the indigenous ‘Canaanite’ polytheism,

and that this is the thing that causes all the problems, and so this is why Yahweh keeps kicking off and shouting at his people…”

But is that really what we read in the Hebrew Bible?

The Torah and historical books seem to me to be very clear that the Israelites on the whole were always polytheistic, before, during, and after the entry into the promised land, and that there was almost never a point at which the Israelites’ religion was not 'corrupt'.

The Israelites' polytheistic beliefs seem to me to be one of the main points of much of the HB – that throughout Israel/Judah's history, from the patriarchs to the Exile, Israel was at every point (to use Prof. Stavrakopoulou’s words) normatively and traditionally polytheistic.

Although they *should* have been worshipping Yahweh alone according to the authors/redactors, the Israelites basically never did.

(Side note - if there were certain individuals or groups of people in Israel who had genuine monotheistic beliefs, it is very unlikely that archaeological or other extra-biblical evidence would reveal that to us)

At least when it comes to Israelite polytheism, the evidence from archaeological and historical sources seems to agree with the Hebrew Bible’s description of Israelite religion.

Of course, the fact that the evidence agrees with the biblical description of Israelite religion is not evidence that the biblical authors were right to think that Yahweh and Yahweh alone was god and should be worshipped, but neither is it evidence against it.

When it comes to these sorts of questions, our presuppositions will shape our understanding.

Dr. Josh is very keen to get people, especially ‘fundamentalist evangelical Christians’, when thinking about arguments for/against biblical things, to stop starting with what they believe, and instead start with the evidence.

While I think starting with the evidence is a brilliant idea, often, whether we start with the evidence or not, our conclusions will still inevitably be formed by our presuppositions, whether theistic or atheistic.

A ‘fundamentalist Christian’ or Jew will look at the evidence for Israelite religion and come away affirmed in their beliefs, knowing that, just as the Hebrew Bible says, the Israelites never worshipped Yahweh as they should have done.

An atheist (at least with respect to the god of the Hebrew Bible) will look at the same evidence and come away affirmed in their beliefs, knowing that, just as they already knew, Yahweh doesn’t really exist, but was the invented and changeable construct of an ancient culture.

But the Christian or Jew has one up on the atheist in this particular discussion.

‘Fundamentalist’ Jews and Christians do actually have in the archaeological and historical record of Israelite polytheism some evidence to support one aspect of what they believe theologically: *The Hebrew Bible is reliable*.

Of course, it’s not proof of this belief by a long stretch, but it’s something they can put in their folder of evidence for it.

The atheist however does not find in the archaeological or historical evidence for Israelite polytheism anything to put in their folder of evidence to support their claim that *The Hebrew Bible is unreliable*. (END OF THREAD)

What about parts of the Hebrew Bible itself which suggest its writers were polytheistic? – A thread for another day, or for another person perhaps, but equally unproblematic.

I hope no one feels misrepresented by this thread – if the arguments I’ve put in your mouths were not the arguments you intended to make, please do let me know.