Yahweh

[4][5] Though no consensus exists regarding the deity's origins,[6] scholars generally contend that he is associated with Seir, Edom, Paran and Teman,[7] and later with Canaan.

[8] In the oldest examples of biblical literature, Yahweh possesses attributes that were typically ascribed to deities of weather and war, fructifying the Land of Israel and leading a heavenly army against the nation's enemies.

[9] The early Israelites may have leaned towards polytheistic practices that were otherwise common across ancient Semitic religion, as their worship apparently included a variety of Canaanite gods and goddesses, such as El, Asherah, and Baal.

During the Second Temple period, openly speaking the name of Yahweh in public became regarded as a religious taboo,[18] and Jews instead began to substitute other Hebrew words, primarily ăḏōnāy (אֲדֹנָי‬‎, lit.

By the time of the Jewish–Roman wars—namely following the Roman siege of Jerusalem and the concomitant destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE—the original pronunciation of Yahweh's name was forgotten entirely.

[19] Additionally, Yahweh is invoked in the Aramaic-language Papyrus Amherst 63 from ancient Egypt, and also in Jewish or Jewish-influenced Greco-Egyptian magical texts from the 1st to 5th centuries CE.

[20] The god's name was written in paleo-Hebrew as 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 (יהוה‎ in block script), transliterated as YHWH; modern scholarship has reached consensus to transcribe this as "Yahweh".

Rabbinic sources suggest that, by the Second Temple period, the name of God was officially pronounced only once a year, by the High Priest, on the Day of Atonement.

This conception of God was more popular among ancient Near Easterners but eventually, the Israelites removed the association of yahwi- to any human ancestor and combined it with other elements (e.g. Yahweh ṣəḇāʾōṯ).

[36] However, this phrase is nowhere attested either inside or outside the Bible, and the two gods are in any case quite dissimilar, with El being elderly and paternal and lacking Yahweh's association with the storm and battles.

[40] Although it is still uncertain whether a relationship exists between the toponym yhwꜣ and theonym YHWH,[41] the dominant view is that Yahweh was from the southern region associated with Seir, Edom, Paran and Teman.

[43] An answer many scholars consider plausible is the Kenite hypothesis, which holds that traders brought Yahweh to Israel along the caravan routes between Egypt and Canaan.

In the earliest Biblical literature, Yahweh has characteristics of a storm god typical of ancient Near Eastern myths, marching out from Edom or the Sinai desert with the heavenly host of stars and planets that make up his army to do battle with the enemies of his people Israel:[55] Yahweh, when you went out of Seir, when you marched out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, the sky also dropped.

[61] It has been argued that Yahweh was originally described as one of the sons of El in Deuteronomy 32:8–9,[63] and that this was removed by a later emendation to the text:[64] When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided up humankind, he set the boundaries of the peoples, according to the number of the heavenly assembly.

(Book of Deuteronomy 32:8-9, New English Translation, Song of Moses) Nonetheless, some scholars argue that El Elyon ("the Most High") and Yahweh are theonyms for the same deity in the text, based on contextual analysis.

[68][69] During the reign of Ahab, and particularly following his marriage to Jezebel, Baal may have briefly replaced Yahweh as the national god of Israel (but not Judah).

The earliest known portrayals of Yahweh as the principal deity to whom "one owed the powers of blessing the land" appear in the teachings of the prophet Elijah in the 9th century BCE.

[94] These probably pre-dated the arrival of the Yahweh religion,[94] but they became linked to events in the national mythos of Israel: Passover with the exodus from Egypt, Shavuot with the law-giving at Mount Sinai, and Sukkot with the wilderness wanderings.

[96] A number of scholars have also drawn the conclusion that infant sacrifice, whether to the underworld deity Molech or to Yahweh himself, was a part of Israelite/Judahite religion until the reforms of King Josiah in the late 7th century BCE.

[100] Shiloh, Bethel, Gilgal, Mizpah, Ramah and Dan were also major sites for festivals, sacrifices, the making of vows, private rituals, and the adjudication of legal disputes.

[20] The archangels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Ouriel and Jewish cultural heroes such as Abraham, Jacob, and Moses are also invoked frequently.

[106] The frequent occurrence of Yahweh's name was likely due to Greek and Roman folk magicians seeking to make their spells more powerful through the invocation of a prestigious foreign deity.

[113] In his Quaestiones Convivales, Plutarch further notes that the Jews hail their god with cries of "Euoi" and "Sabi", phrases associated with the worship of Dionysus.

[114][115][116] According to Sean M. McDonough, Greek speakers may have confused Aramaic words such as Sabbath, Alleluia, or even possibly some variant of the name Yahweh itself, for more familiar terms associated with Dionysus.