History of ancient Israel and Judah Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Iron Age Yahwism=== {{Main|Yahwism}} [[File:Baal Ugarit Louvre AO17330.jpg|thumb|The [[Canaanites|Canaanite]] god [[Baal]], 14thβ12th century BCE ([[Louvre]] museum, Paris)]] The religion of the Israelites of Iron Age I, like the [[Ancient Canaanite religion]] from which it evolved and other [[religions of the ancient Near East]], was based on a cult of ancestors and worship of family gods (the "gods of the fathers").<ref>Tubbs, Jonathan (2006) "The Canaanites" (BBC Books)</ref><ref>Van der Toorn 1996, p. 4.</ref> With the emergence of the monarchy at the beginning of Iron Age II the kings promoted their family god, Yahweh, as the god of the kingdom, but beyond the royal court, religion continued to be both polytheistic and family-centred.<ref>Van der Toorn 1996, pp. 181β82.</ref> The major deities were not numerous{{snd}}El, [[Asherah]], and Yahweh, with [[Baal]] as a fourth god, and perhaps [[Shamash]] (the sun) in the early period.<ref name=Smith57>Smith (2002), p. 57.</ref> At an early stage El and Yahweh became fused and Asherah did not continue as a separate state cult,<ref name=Smith57/> although she continued to be popular at a community level until Persian times.<ref>Dever (2005), p.</ref> Yahweh, the [[national god]] of both Israel and Judah, seems to have originated in [[Edom]] and [[Midian]] in southern Canaan and may have been brought to Israel by the [[Kenites]] and [[Midianites]] at an early stage.<ref>Van der Toorn 1999, pp. 911β13.</ref> There is a general consensus among scholars that the first formative event in the emergence of the distinctive religion described in the Bible was triggered by the destruction of Israel by Assyria in {{circa|{{BCE|722}}}}. Refugees from the northern kingdom fled to Judah, bringing with them laws and a prophetic tradition of Yahweh. This religion was subsequently adopted by the landowners of Judah, who in 640 BCE placed the eight-year-old [[Josiah]] on the throne. Judah at this time was a vassal state of Assyria, but Assyrian power collapsed in the 630s, and around 622 Josiah and his supporters launched a bid for independence expressed as loyalty to "Yahweh alone".<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zFhvECwNQD0C&q=josiah%2C+book+of+kings%2C+assyria&pg=RA1-PA261|title=The Oxford History of the Biblical World|first1=Michael David|last1=Coogan|first2=Michael D.|last2=Coogan|date=January 8, 2001|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780195139372|via=Google Books}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page