You Shall Have Other Gods: An Analysis of the Ancient Israelite Pantheon

Sammanfattning

In this project, I explore the ancient Israelite pantheon and its tiers (excluding the third tier) by looking at specific deities which represent those tiers. The gods analyzed include El, Yahweh, Asherah, Yamm, Mot, Baal, Anat, and angel deities. Using a predominantly traditio-historical approach, I try to reconstruct historical realities about ancient Israel’s pantheon of gods. To help us with this, we use Hebrew Bible texts and Ugaritic material to better understand those deities. Another part of our exploration consists of studying scribal reactions to these deities, and to do so, we likewise turn to the Hebrew Bible. Our result shows that ancient Israel, throughout various periods, knew of the above-mentioned divinities, and that the biblical scribes openly acknowledge their status and power. At the same time, we see a biblical resistance to most of these deities except for Yahweh, El, Anat, and the angel deities, and what I have concluded from these results is that further research about the relationship between the figure of the angel of Yahweh and the angel-like deity Resheph, as well as the position of the goddess Anat in ancient Israel, would provide exciting discussions and results.