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The Origins of Biblical Monotheism

Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts

Mark S. Smith

"Brilliant, well-documented, well-organized, and very discomforting. Biblical scholars now recognize that in the pre-exilic era Asherah worship, infant sacrifice, solar veneration, and other religious practices attacked by biblical authors represented normal Israelite worship, while monotheism was a late development in the Babylonian Exile and subsequent years. Smith and others led the charge in this new scholarly perception of Israelite religion. But with this volume Smith has thrown down a gauntlet to challenge our understandings even more. Smith has produced a seminal work with which scholars must come to grips for years."
- Journal of Hebrew Scriptures

As the Bible tells us, ancient Israel's neighbors worshipped a wide variety of gods. It is now widely accepted that the Israelites' God, Yahweh, must have originated as one among these many, before assuming the role of the one true God of monotheism. In recent years, many scholars have sought a better understanding of this early polytheistic milieu and its relation to the God of Isreal.

Here, Mark S. Smith seeks to discover more precisely what was meant by "divinity" in the ancient near-East, and explores how these concepts apply to Yahweh. Part One of the book offers a detailed examination of the deities of ancient Ugarit, known to us from the largest surviving groep of relevant extra-biblical texts. Smith examines the Ugaritic idea of a divine "family" and notes the correspondence between the four tiers of the Ugaritic pantheon and the four levels of a family household in Ugaritic society. In the society, he contends, the polytheism of a divine family would have been far more intelligible than any notion of monotheism. In Part Two, Smith explores four classic problems associated with Ugaritic deities, considering how they affect our understanding of Yahweh. In conclusion, he returns to the question of Israelite monotheism, seeking to discover what religious issues it addressed, and why it made sense at the time of its emergence. True monotheism emerged only in the latter half of Isreal's history, concludes Smith, and was heir and reaction to a long tradition of Israelite polytheism.

Mark S. Smith is Skirball Professor of Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at New York University. His publications include The Pilgrimage Pattern in Exodus (1997), The Ugaritic Baal Cycle (1994), The Early History of God (1990), as well as several other books on the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and West Semitic mythology and literature.