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Concept
Yahwism
Summary
Yahwism is the name given by modern scholars to the regional practices of ancient Israel derived from Canaanite Religion. Yahwism was essentially polytheistic, with a plethora of gods and goddesses. Heading the pantheon was Yahweh, the national god of the Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah, with his consort, the goddess Asherah, and second-tier gods and goddesses such as Baal, Shamash, Yarikh, Mot, and Astarte, each of whom had their own priests and prophets and numbered royalty among their devotees.
The practices of Yahwism included festivals, sacrifices, vow-making, private rituals, and the adjudication of legal disputes. Contrary to the picture presented in the Hebrew Bible, the Temple in Jerusalem was not the sole, or even central, temple of Yahweh, but the king was the head of the national religion and thus the viceroy on Earth of the national god, a role reflected each year when he presided over a ceremony enthroning Yahweh in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.
Yahwism underwent several redevelopments and recontextualizations, as the notion of divinities aside from or comparable to Yahweh was gradually degraded by new religious currents and ideas. During the monarchic period ( 10th to 6th centuries BCE) of the mid-Iron Age, the religion of Israel moved towards the sole worship of Yahweh alone; however, these theological changes initially remained largely confined to small groups, only spreading to the population at large during the widespread political turbulence of the 7th and 6th centuries BCE. The progressive evolution towards monotheism had ultimately culminated by the end of the Babylonian exile in the late 6th century BCE, and by the 4th century BCE, Yahwism had coalesced into what is now known as Second Temple Judaism. Yahwism also gave rise to Samaritanism.
The centre of ancient Israel's religion through most of the monarchic period was the worship of a god named Yahweh, and for this reason the religion of Israel is often referred to as Yahwism.
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