The biblical editors did not create a record of the entire spectrum of ancient Israel's religious beliefs and practices. Theirs was by necessity a selective and biased account. It is left to modern scholarship to sift through all the evidence to create a more complete picture of ancient Israelite piety. This paper explores the available artifactual, inscriptional, literary and iconographic evidence in order to reconstruct what ancient Israelites and Judaeans believed about the heavenly realm, and not simply what the editors of the Hebrew Bible wanted people to believe or what they deemed appropriate to record.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AlbrightWilliam F.1957From the Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and the Historical Process (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 2nd edn).
2.
BingerTilde1997Asherah: Goddesses in Ugarit, Israel and the Old Testament (JSOTSup, 232; Copenhagen International Seminar, 2; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press).
3.
BrettlerMarc Z.1989God is King: Understanding an Israelite Metaphor (JSOTSup, 76; Sheffield: JSOT Press).
4.
CorneliusIzak1988‘Paradise Motifs in the “Eschatology” of the Minor Prophets and the Iconography of the Ancient Near East: The Concepts of Fertility, Water, Trees, and “Tierfrieden” and Gen 2–3’, JNSL14: 41–83.
5.
CorneliusIzak1994‘The Visual Representation of the World in the Ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible’, JNSL20: 193–218.
6.
CrenshawJames L.1971Prophetic Conflict: Its Effect Upon Israelite Religion (BZAW, 124; Berlin: W. de Gruyter).
7.
CrossFrank Moore1973Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
8.
DaviesPhilip R.1995 In Search of ‘Ancient Israel’ (JSOTSup, 148; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2nd edn).
9.
DeistF.E.1987‘Genesis 1:1–2:4a: World View and World Picture’, Scriptura22: 1–17.
10.
DeverWilliam G.1969–70‘Iron Age Epigraphic Material from the Area of Khirbet el-Kôm’, HUCA40–41: 139–204.
11.
DeverWilliam G.1984‘Asherah, Consort of Yahweh? New Evidence from Kuntillet 'Ajrûd’, BASOR255: 21–39.
12.
Eilberg-SchwartzHoward1994God's Phallus and Other Problems for Men and Monotheism (Boston: Beacon Press).
13.
GasterTheodor H.1962‘Cosmology’, in IDB, I: 702–709.
14.
HawkingStephen W.1988A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes (New York: Bantam Books).
15.
HoutmanCornelius1993Der Himmel im Alten Testament: Israels Weltbild und Weltanschauung (OS, 30; Leiden: E.J. Brill).
16.
KeelOthmar1977aJahwe-Visionen und Siegelkunst: Eine neue Deutung der Majestäts-schilderungen in Jes 6, Ez 1 und Sach 4 (SBS, 84/85; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk).
17.
KeelOthmar1977bThe Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms (trans. HalletTimothy J.; New York: Seabury).
18.
KeelOthmar1985‘Das sogenannte altorientalische Weltbild’, Bibel und Kirche40. 4: 157–61.
19.
KeelOthmar, and UehlingerChristoph1990Altorientalische Miniaturkunst: Die ältesten visuellen Massenkommunikationsmittel (Mainz am Rhein: P. von Zabern).
20.
KingLeonard W.1912Babylonian Boundary-Stones and Memorial-Tablets in the British Museum (London: British Museum).
21.
KletterRaz1996The Judean Pillar-Figurines and the Archaeology of Asherah (British Archaeological Reports International Series, 636; Oxford: Tempus Reparatum).
22.
McDannellColleen, and LangBernhard1988Heaven: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press).
23.
MeshelZeev1978‘Kuntillet 'Ajrud: An Israelite Religious Center in Northern Sinai’, Expedition20. 4: 50–54.
24.
MeshelZeev1979‘Did Yahweh Have a Consort?’, BARev5. 2: 24–36.
25.
MettingerTryggve N.D.1995No Graven Image? Israelite Aniconism in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context (ConBOT, 42; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell).
26.
MetzgerMartin1970‘Himmlische und irdische Wohnstatt Jahwes’, UF2: 139–58.
27.
MetzgerMartin1985Königsthron und Gottesthron: Thronformen und Throndarstellungen in Ägypten und im Vorderen Orient im dritten und zweiten Jahrtausend vor Christus und deren Bedeutung für das Verständnis von Aussagen über den Thron im Alten Testament (AOAT, 15.1–2; 2 vols.; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen—Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag).
28.
OlyanSaul M.1988Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel (SBLMS, 34; Atlanta: Scholars Press).
29.
OlyanSaul M.1993A Thousand Thousands Served Him: Exegesis and the Naming of Angels in Ancient Judaism (Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum, 36; Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck]).
30.
PopeMarvin H.1955El in the Ugaritic Texts (VTSup, 2; Leiden: E.J. Brill).
31.
SarnaNahum1966Understanding Genesis: The Heritage of Biblical Israel (New York: Schocken Books).
SchaefferClaude F.-A.1966‘Nouveaux témoinages du culte de El et de Baal à Ras Shamra-Ugarit et ailleurs en Syrie-Palestine’, Syria43: 1–19.
34.
SchroerSilvia1987In Israel Gab es Bilder: Nachrichten von darstellender Kunst im alten Testament (OBO, 74; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag).
35.
SchweglerTheodor1960Die biblische Urgeschichte im Lichte der Forschung (Munich: A. Pustet).
36.
SmithMorton1971Palestinian Parties and Politics That Shaped the Old Testament (New York: Columbia University Press).
37.
SmithMark S.1990The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (San Francisco: Harper & Row).
