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Concept
Yahweh
Summary
Yahweh was an ancient Levantine deity, and national god of the Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Though no consensus exists regarding the deity's origins, scholars generally contend that Yahweh emerged as a "divine warrior" associated first with Seir, Edom, Paran and Teman, and later with Canaan. The origins of his worship reach at least to the early Iron Age, and likely to the Late Bronze Age, if not somewhat earlier.
In the oldest biblical literature he possesses attributes typically ascribed to weather and war deities, fructifying the land and leading the heavenly army against Israel's enemies. The early Israelites were polytheistic and worshipped Yahweh alongside a variety of Canaanite gods and goddesses, including El, Asherah and Baal. In later centuries, El and Yahweh became conflated and El-linked epithets such as El Shaddai came to be applied to Yahweh alone, and other gods and goddesses such as Baal and Asherah were absorbed into Yahwist religion.
Towards the end of the Babylonian captivity, the existence of other gods was denied, and Yahweh was proclaimed the creator deity and sole divinity to be worshipped. During the Second Temple period, speaking the name of Yahweh in public became regarded as taboo, and Jews instead began to substitute other words, primarily adonai (, "my Lord"). In Roman times, following the Siege of Jerusalem and destruction of its Temple, in , the original pronunciation of the god's name was forgotten entirely.
Yahweh is also invoked in Papyrus Amherst 63, and in Jewish or Jewish-influenced Greco-Egyptian magical texts from the 1st to 5th century CE.
The god's name was written in paleo-Hebrew as 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 ( in block script), transliterated as YHWH; modern scholarship has reached consensus to transcribe this as "Yahweh". The shortened forms "Yeho-", "Yahu-" and "Yo-" appear in personal names and in phrases such as "Hallelujah!" The sacrality of the name, as well as the Commandment against "taking the name 'in vain'", led to increasingly strict prohibitions on speaking or writing the term.
Official source
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