Yahweh before Israel: Glimpses of History in a Divine Name

by Daniel E. Fleming

Yahweh is the proper name of the biblical God. His early character is central to understanding the foundations of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic monotheism. As a deity, the name appears only in connection with the peoples of the Hebrew Bible, but long before Israel, the name is found in an Egyptian list as one group in the land of tent-dwellers, the Shasu. This is the starting-point for Daniel E. Fleming's sharply new approach to the god Yahweh. In his analysis, the Bible's 'people of Yahweh' serve as a clue to how one of the Bronze Age herding peoples of the inland Levant gave its name to a deity, initially outside of any relationship to Israel. For 150 years, the dominant paradigm for Yahweh's origin has envisioned borrowing from peoples of the desert south of Israel. Fleming argues in contrast that Yahweh was not taken from outsiders. Rather, this divine name is evidence for the diverse background of Israel itself.

Genres: History, Religion, Nonfiction, Judaism, Jewish

300 pages, Hardcover

Published December 3, 2020

About the author

Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. He has published three books on ancient Syria, as represented by the archives of Emar and Mari.

Reviews

[Kenneth Vaughan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An under appreciated gem. One of the most recent, if not the most recent, evaluations of the Shasu of Yahu inscription and its significant. Fleming makes a reasonable case that the Shasu were a proto-Israelite group and that the Yahu inscription is probably a toponym, derivative of a non-divine name, as I recall. My favorite part of the text was his revisiting of several speculations of the divine name appearing elsewhere in the ancient world. Fleming effectively argues against all of these.

I am not as convinced that the Shasu are an important people group in Israel’s history, and I have doubts that the Yahu in the inscription is Yahweh. Nonetheless, given these data points, Fleming does excellent work with them.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fleming's book takes issue with the Midianite thesis--the idea that Yahweh was a Southern God that was somehow adopted by early Israel as their God. He does a good job of raising lots of objections to this thesis, but doesn't exactly nail an alternative. He argues that the earliest Egyptian references to Yhw3 are references to a people/tribe in the highlands north of Ephraim that somehow gave its tribal name to the god Yahweh. And then the tribe was incorporated into a larger Israel. The book includes very comprehensive analysis of the Egyptian evidence, as well as the oldest narrative and poetic evidence usually evinced as support for the Midianite hypothesis. The book was a tough slog for me, given my rudimentary Hebrew. It also reminded me that Yahweh's origins are probably lost in time unless we come upon new archeological evidence like that of Ugarit.

[Sam Lasry · Rating 3 out of 5]

A title that dives deep into the subject matter and may prove a bit of a difficult read due to heavy academia references.

On the topic, it's more of a review of what's been presented on the origins of YHWH, rather than a groundbreaking new outlook.

In this revisionist analysis, perhaps the most interesting point of discussion is the concept of Yahweh originating as a people and progressing to a diety later on.

However, due to the lack of new archeological evidence, the true origins of the god of the Torah, Bible and Quran remain more of a mystery for now.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The idea that Yahweh was originally worshipped by tribes living in what became the kingdom of Israel would be unremarkable if it wasn't for various pieces of evidence -- Egyptian temple inscriptions, the inscriptions found at Kuntillet 'Ajrud in the Negev, poetry of great age in the Hebrew Bible and especially the Bible's own account of Moses' sojourn with his father-in-law, a priest in Midian. They all suggest that Yahweh began his career in the desert south of Palestine's central highlands, and was adopted by the Israelites via events now lost to us (unless you somehow take the account of the Exodus as history).

Fleming is modest, and doesn't claim to have overthrown the Midiante Hypothesis once and for all. But as he reevaluates the evidence, he finds reasons to believe it doesn't show what scholars since the 19th century have said it does. This involves painstaking readings of, among other things, the Song of Deborah in Judges 5, the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15, the tale of Jethro's visit to Moses at the "mountain of God" in Exodus 18 and the Mesha stele. And while he admits he's no Egyptologist, he explains how he sought help from specialists, and why it looks to him like the heiroglyphic evidence, usually taken to mean that a tribe with a name similar to "Yahweh" lived in the wilderness of Seir/Edom, in fact doesn't place them there until long after Egypt first noted their existence.

The logic of his argument against the Midianite Hypothesis is clear, although how a tribal name could have morphed into a divine one seemed more asserted than proven until late in the book, when Fleming brings in evidence from, among other sources, the Semitic tribes of ancient southern Arabia (something I haven't seen anyone do since Frank Cross' 1973 classic "Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic"). Whether any of this, or his view that Yahweh was not originally "a god or name taken from El" or a storm or warrior god, is persuasive I leave to those in the field. But it's always fun to see someone try to shoot down a longstanding consensus.

UPDATE: I randomly came upon https://www.thetorah.com/article/dati..., which argues (against pretty much everyone) that Judges 5 was written at a very late (Deuteronomistic) date. If true, that would be a serious problem for Fleming's analysis. One thing I like about OT studies is that nothing seems to be settled. EVER. Makes me feel less ignorant sometimes.