Mark S.

Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israels Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic
Texts
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israels Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts
by MarkS. Smith
Review by: (N. Wyatt
Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 63, No. 4 (October 2004), pp. 291-295
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
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BOOK REVIEWS*

The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israels

Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic
Texts. By Mark S. Smith. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2001. Pp. xviii + 325. $60.
The problem of the origins and development
of biblical monotheism (or perhaps more broadly
Israelite-Jewish monotheism, since the Bible is
only one, if the most important, witness to it) has
been the subject of many studies in recent years.
This is the rst work to address it in an extended
fashion, directly and primarily with detailed reference to and comparison with the evidence of
the Ugaritic texts. In this respect, it is to be welcomed as a mature, sensitive, and perceptive treatment of both aspects of the discussion, shedding
considerable new light on both.
After a brief introductory section, the study is
divided into three main parts, addressing in turn
the structures of divinity and covering theriomorphic and anthropomorphic forms, the divine
council as organization of the pantheon, the divine family as an alternative model for representing the organization of the pantheon, and general
aspects such as dyadic forms and other close
associations of individual deities. Part 2, Characteristics of Divinity, begins with a general
survey of the traits of deities, such as body size,
gender, and immortality, following on to a fairly
detailed study of the theme of the dying and
rising god as a particular theological problem,
with Ugaritic Baal as the central gure for discussion, entailing an extended critique of Frazers
theories. Part 3, The Origins of Monotheism in
the Bible, begins with a study of Bronze Age El
and assesses the relationship of Yahweh to him
and of him to Israel, before considering the rhetoric of monotheism in the Bible, the formation
of monotheistic theologies, with particular attention to their sociology and contextual origins,

* Permission to reprint a book review in this section may be obtained only from the author.

concluding with a brief treatment of DeuteroIsaiahs conception of the deity.

This bald survey gives no hint of the riches of
the discussion pursued under each heading. Not
only is the text wide-ranging and insightful at
every turn, but it is greatly complemented by the
endnotes, which resume arguments, develop tangential aspects, and offer a massive bibliography
for further exploration.
The discussion on the early rhetorical language
of monotheism or something like it from p. 149
on is judicious. It is a pity that the careless use of
monistic should enter the discussion on p. 151,
however, since this essentially Indian concept is
entirely missing from any ancient Near Eastern
usage, with the possible exception of some cosmogonic language from Egypt, in which gods
such as Ptah, Atum, or Amun are identied with
Nu(n) and thus implicitly with the raw substance
of all being. Dualistic pressures elsewhere preclude the identication of any deity with the substance of his or her function (the celestial-stellar
deities being the nearest thing to such equivalences) or, at any rate, allowed no such drifting
monism through the identication of various
gods. (The common academic perception of the
deities of the ancient Near Eastern deities as
personications of natural forces or fertility
deities was always a crass caricature.) But
Smith is right in pointing to the difculty in formally dening monotheism and in recognizing
and criticizing slack usage among other scholars.
It really requires a number of models (p. 151)
from cultic exclusivity that recognizes the existence, but not the legitimacy for Israels cultic
observance, of other deities (cf. p. 156), to monarchism, in which the head of the pantheon (and
here Yahwehs continuing, as well as original,
identication with El is crucial for the historical
argument to hold water), to exclusive monotheism, in which the existence of other supernatural
realities is more or less formally, or at least rhetorically, denied. I express it thus, for only in

291

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Journal of Near Eastern Studies

Second Isaiah is such language really found: elsewhere the pure monotheism is always qualied
by the presence of multitudes of angelic powers.
It should not be forgotten that their formal ontological status, as creatures, does not belong to
the biblical perception, which leaves undiscussed
the certainty that they are in origin the nowreduced other multitudes of deities of the ancient
pantheon, their numbers swelling exponentially
in order to glorify the monarchism of Yahweh.
In his discussion on p. 152, Smith observes that
monotheism here [in Psalm 86:10] belongs to
the rhetoric of praise. It is a pity not to make
use of that very helpful term henotheism, particularly useful in comparative discussion, a kind
of contextual monotheistic language belonging to the cult, in which the highest praise is
offered in cultic address to the greatest gods,
while not actually confusing or identifying different deities, though perhaps serving in some
instances in the long-term process of syncrasia.
As to the problem of dating the development of
monotheism in Judah, Smith recognizes the complexity of the problem but evidently wishes to
think of the seventhsixth centuries b.c.e. as the
likely context. Why, given the difculty of the
absolute dating of any texts, he can write (p. 155)
that biblical critiques of polytheism preserve
some vestiges of information about polytheism
into the late monarchical period, is not clear,
given that the survival of any such vestiges down
into the era of the canonization of the text means
that no absolute dating is possible. Indeed, the
plurality of textual witnesses indicates that at no
time was there a consensus on the matter. This is
in fact an important argument against any absolute categorization of biblical monotheism, since
there are always surviving texts that contradict
others and allow nothing better than a glimpse
of competing, or coexisting, alternatives.
A number of instances of disagreement between author and reviewer, or instances where
the latters work complements the formers, are
worth citing to indicate to the reader that some
issues remain contentious and allow alternative
explanations.
In the extensive discussion of dying and rising gods, a much disputed category, Smith cites
(p. 104) J. Days view that the formula elohm
hayym used of Yahweh is part of the debt of
Yahwism to the cult of Baal. Since the issue is

Vol. 63 No. 4

not revisited, I assume that Smith agrees with

Day on this issue, subject of course to the ensuing discussion. It would arguably be better explained as polemic against the Baal cult. Not
only is this dubious if Baals status as dying
and rising god is problematic, however, as
Smith goes on to demonstrate, with reference
above all to J. Z. Smiths analysis of the theme,
but the reference to Hosea 6:23 cited as illustrating Days point, offers a more plausible alternative, to wit that Yahweh probably has a
lunar ancestry, so that the rising on the third
day motif originates as an allusion to the beginning of a new lunation. (In support of such a
contention may be cited the toponym Sinai, epithetal on the divine name Sn, the description of
the theophany in Exod. 24:911, and the bull
imagery of El, with whom Yahweh was identied, or of whom he was a local form. A hint of
Els own lunar ancestry may be preserved in
KTU 1.12, where the handmaid brides of the
god, analogous to the solar avatars of KTU 1.23,
are said to be respectively the handmaids of Yarihu and Athirat. This makes most sense if Yarihu
and El are regarded as equivalent.)
To Smiths observation (p. 131) that the BaalMot conict may be a secondary growth in the
tradition, cf. my proposal that it is essentially a
composition of Ilimilku himself, in his nal adaptation of the old Chaoskampf narrative into an
epithalamion (see my article Ilimilku the Theologian: The Ideological Roles of Athtar and Baal
in KTU 1.1 and 1.6, in O. Loretz, K. Metzler,
and H. Schaudig, eds., Ex Mesopotamia et Syria
Lux: Festschrift fr Manfried Dietrich zu seinem
65. Geburtstag am 6.11.2000, Alter Orient und
Altes Testament, vol. 281 [Mnster, 2002], pp.
84556).
The suggestion (p. 136) that the marzea motif points to the funerary aspect of El is based on
the false premise that it is an aspect of the cult of
the dead, a category disproved by T. J. Lewis, in
Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit
(Atlanta, 1989), pp. 8094. All that the language
of death (ll. 2122) points to is the degree of the
deitys intoxication. Cf. my Religious Texts from
Ugarit, Biblical Seminar 53 (London and New
York, 2002), p. 412, n. 43. The supposition (pp.
137, 140) that incubation-rituals formed part of
the religious life of Ugarit and Israel was refuted
by J.-M. Husser, Le songe et la parole, Beihefte

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October 2004

Book Reviews

zur Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 210 (Berlin and New York, 1994), pp. 29
62; cf. B. Margalit, The Ugaritic Poem of Aqhat,
Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche
Wissenschaft 182 (Berlin and New York, 1989),
pp. 26066 and my comments in W. G. E. Watson and N. Wyatt, eds., Handbook of Ugaritic
Studies, Handbuch der Orientalistik 1/39 (Leiden
and Boston, 1999), pp. 24748.
The comments on the problem of Els survival as an object of cult into the rst millennium b.c.e. (p. 137) are confused. The scarcity
of evidence is hardly an important factor in the
discussion, since evidence one way or the other
is extremely sparse during the entire period. It is
too easily forgotten that the evidence from Ugarit
regarding West Semitic religion outside Israel far
outweighs all other evidence, including that of
the Bible, taken together. In the same context,
the view that because the Deir Alla inscriptions
are probably secondary, they cannot be taken as
evidence of a Transjordanian cult of El, invites
the response, why else should such a tradition be
copied? Smiths concluding remarks in s3 on
p. 139 may in fact be reinforced, regarding the
South Arabian cult of El in the rst millennium,
if it be conceded that the lunar divine names
Ab, Amm, and Wadd probably began specically
as epithets of South Arabian El. The observation that the word el usually occurs as an appel[l]ative designating a foreign deity (p. 139)
points to an unresolved issue concerning transnational deities, into which category many West
Semitic deities fall, Yahweh not excluded, with
his central Syrian Iron Age cult. It is perhaps incautious to write without qualication of foreign gods, given that the whole region tends to
attest them, albeit no doubt with local theological and cultic variations. Thus the allusions to
the El of Tyre in Ezekiel 28 surely reect a similar conceptual frame as Israelite and Judahite El,
as the allusion to the Garden of Eden indicates.
As to the relationship between El and Yahweh,
the discussion is at times somewhat convoluted.
On pp. 143 44 we read of the widely held view
that in Deut. 32:89 Yahweh is a subordinate of
El, one of his sons among whom the oversight
of the kingdoms of the world is organized. It
makes far better sense of this passage, and consequently offers a better explanation of the historical relation of the two gods, if it be agreed

293

that Yahweh and El Elyon are here one and the

same. They are formally identied in Gen. 14:22
Hebrew, omitted from LXX and therefore the
precise point of the passage is the election of
Israel and its exclusion from the goym, among
whom the other gods of the pantheon, seventy as
supported by KTU 1.4 vi 46, are distributed. The
point is not the rough equivalence of Israel with
the goym, as the conventional view must conclude, but its sharp distinction from them. The
discussion at this point also picks up earlier treatment at p. 49, where Deut. 32:89 and Psalm 82
are compared. This other text is also open to a
quite different interpretation than that offered by
Smith, to wit that the demoted deities of the
psalm are not in fact the gods of the pantheon
leading into a monotheistic worldview, but rather
the kings of Judah (and presumably Israel),
whose divinity is shown by their evil works to
be spurious, so that they die like men (cf. my
treatment in my Myths of Power, Ugaritischbiblische Literatur 13 (Mnster, 1996), pp. 357
65). Another aspect of the discussion at this
point (p. 146) is the view of Mettinger that the
language of Yahwehs origin ts a storm-god,
preferred by Smith to the views of a range of
scholars that he is linked to El from primitive
times. This is perhaps to confuse the language
of theophany for that of function. Over against
all the language of storm-clouds in theophany
accounts is that of earthquakes, apparent volcanic activity, with smoke and re, which suggests
that we have a broad repertoire of such language,
not specic to individual divine functions. Having
said this, there is much to be said for J. Days
view that Yahweh does indeed inherit a number
of Baals characteristics and mythical associations. The warrior function of Yahweh (noted in
the argument on p. 146), however, is shared not
only with Baal, but also with El (cf. P. D.
Millers essay, Harvard Theological Review
60:41131), so that the force of Smiths distinction is weakened.
The later discussion of monotheism (pp. 163
66) focuses on the sociological and historical
factors that contributed to the distinctive biblical developments. And here the probability that
the experiences of the seventh and sixth centuries played an important part in the process is
not to be denied. The treatment here is particularly nuanced and perceptive, drawing on the best

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294

Journal of Near Eastern Studies

of recent discussion. Smith recognizes the difculty in detecting any overall causation, writing
more cautiously of detecting possible historical
corollaries. He offers a number of working hypotheses. Firstly, the old language of the divine
family is progressively superseded in favor of
that of the divine council, which persists into the
postexilic era. (The fact that both models are already present in the Ugaritic tradition suggests
that the supersession of one by another was a
long time happening, and they were evidently
held quite happily in tandem for over half a millennium.) He wisely writes cautiously of this
(p. 164) as a sort of monotheism, since it obviously has to be a qualied usage. The reason
is the detectable erosion of the old patrimonial
social forms and emphasis on inheritance, as the
expansion of a centralized royal power eclipsed
older elements of relative social independence.
Smith sees evidence for the process in the replacement of the older formula bt ab by the
younger bt abt, and the development in laws
of legal liability reected in passages such as
Ezek. 14:1223 and Jer. 31:2930, Ezek. 18 and
33:1220, and Deut. 24:16. Smith sums this up
thus (p. 164):
A culture with a diminished lineage system, one less
embedded in traditional family patrimonies due to
societal changes in the eighth through sixth centuries, might be more predisposed both to hold to individual human accountability for behavior and to see
an individual deity accountable for the cosmos (emphasis mine).

An important aspect of the changing world that

formed the backdrop to these developments led
to the anachronism of national deities in a world
crushed by great imperial powers. Looming empires made the model of the national god obsolete (p. 165). Smith rather perceptively notes
(same page) the inverse relationship between
the diminution in the states autonomy and the
growth in the majesty and status of Yahweh: As
Judahs situation on the mundane level deteriorated in history, the cosmic status of its deity
soared in its literature. This has also been noted
as a principle in mythological thinking by
S. Guthrie (Faces in the Clouds [New York,
1993] p. 13, cited in my article The Mythic
Mind, Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament [SJOT] 15 [2001]: 356):

Vol. 63 No. 4

Religion attempts not to explain experience, but to

contradict it. Empiricism and logic are not merely irrelevant, but inimical.

Smiths view of myth is on the whole a useful

and eirenic one; yet he does fall into the old trap
of distinguishing Canaanite myth from the biblically mythic, in what appears to be an attempt
to avoid conceding that the Bible contains myth
or at any rate diminishes its signicance. (Cf. my
extended views in SJOT 15 [2001]). He introduces the discussion with some useful observations on such false dichotomies as myth vs.
history (p. 21) and a gentle critique of Oden
(pp. 2122). In turning to a classic instance of
a myth, the Baal cycle from Ugarit, he writes
(p. 23):
If there is one text that all scholars can agree is a
myth [they cannot, but that is by the by], it is the Baal
cycle. And if the Baal Cycle is a myth, then biblical
narratives about the storm-god Yahweh are mythic.

I detect here a hesitation to state the obvious,

that such narratives are myth. In the term
mythic there seems to be a reluctance to concede the same genre in the Bible as in the Ugaritic literature. It reminds me of the views of B.
Otzen (see SJOT 15:4, n. 4), which appear to
want to have it both ways, acknowledging consanguinity, yet denying fraternity. Of course the
real problem here lies in the mechanical application of literary form (genre) to extremely diverse kinds of material. As I see it, we should
more usefully withdraw myth from the literary
eld altogether and understand it in broader psychological terms. The issue of myth is resumed
on pp. 173 ff., and the same ambivalence appears to determine Smiths strategy. Section s4
is entitled From Canaanite Myth to Biblical
Monotheism?, as though anticipating a developmental process (I am reminded of F. M. Crosss
Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic). The point I
raised above on the suspicious nature of the term
mythic is now borne out, for on p. 174 Smith
writes
. . . Why is mythic imagery so prevalent in biblical
literature whereas the amount of attested myth is, properly speaking, relatively minimal?

This is in my view to fail to recognize the amount

of mythological material (in the genre sense) that

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October 2004

Book Reviews

not only survives, but actively shapes the biblical narratives, particularly in the Pentateuch. The
royal psalms, too, perpetuate and even develop
the older Ugaritic themes of theogony and the
Chaoskampf. The latter motif is an important if
now largely implicit aspect of the Pentateuch.
Its adaptation in Exodus 15 needs no comment.
Its presence in the background of Genesis 1 perhaps needs emphasis, given Smiths insistence
(in which he is not quite consistent) on the reduction to invisibility of the conictual aspect
of the narrative. He is not entirely clear how to
put it, for he writes that it points beyond conict . . . , but a moment later, in omitting the
divine conict . . . (both p. 168). On the following pages, he again temporizes: creation is no
longer primarily a conict . . . (p. 169, emphasis mine) and not only is the conict role eliminated in Genesis 1 . . . (p. 170). The term bara
as analyzed by Danthine (Le Muson 74: 44151)
could usefully have informed this discussion
and perhaps resolved some of Smiths apparent
doubts. In spite of my criticisms here, I nd
Smiths marriage of this motif, however inadequately resolved, and W. Houstons view on kasrt as reecting priestly cosmology, a powerful
model for understanding the ambiguities of the
text (pp. 17071).
Again Smith notes (p. 176) that later biblical
literature shows fewer mythic characterizations
of Yahweh than early biblical tradition. This
argument might hold more force if we could detect an attempt to suppress the mythological materials now apparently regarded as pass. But the
older material lived on (if it had not done so, we
would have lost it forever), and so in a sense
later materials may be seen as complementing it
and continuing to allow it to speak for itself. It
is this survival of the older (to say nothing of its
vigorous resurgence in the postbiblical literature) that requires a qualied assent to Smiths
undoubtedly perspicacious treatment (p. 177) of
those presentations of Yahweh as sexless and
deathless as a reex of priestly concerns in these
areas of human experience.
This review is by no means intended as a
slighting of Smiths achievement. He has undertaken a massive and perhaps ultimately inconclusive task, since so many currents of thought,
both ancient and modern, are abroad, and the
targets appear to move as each new insight is

295

offered or each new generation addresses the

problem.
One or two misprints have survived proofreading. Perhaps the most entertaining is immorality for immortality on pp. 83 and 243
(spelled correctly on p. 97). As a nal criticism,
I deplore in so potentially useful a book the absence of an author index, and even more of a
bibliography, with the references scattered over
180 pages of endnotes. These factors somewhat
reduce the utility of the study for use by other
scholars. But these can safely be laid at the door
of a careless publisher rather than a careless
author.
N. Wyatt
New College, Edinburgh

The Hebrew God: Portrait of an Ancient Deity.

By Bernard Lang. New Haven and London:
Yale University Press, 2002. Pp. x + 246.
$32.40.
This book addresses ve personas of what it
calls the Hebrew God. The introduction announces the books intention to produce a comprehensive and convincing account of the Hebrew
God, one that sums up and completes previous
research. The present book is intended to ll this
gap (pp. viiviii). The introduction is guided
in part by Georges Dumzils work on IndoEuropean religion that identies three functions
of divinity to provide wisdom, victory, and life.
The book expands these three to the ve images
that serve as rubrics for the chapters: lord of
wisdom (including lawgiver and scribe), lord of
war, lord of animals, lord of the individual, and
lord of the harvest. Conceptual synthesis is partially seen in how the gure of the king combines
most of these images. One scarcely needed Dumzil to arrive at the images of divinity, since
they have all been discussed previously in works
on religion in the ancient Near East. It is also
unclear what the references to Dumzil really
add to the discussion, and one would never
know from reading this work that Dumzils
ideas had received substantial criticism within
Indo-European studies. Dumzil is hardly indispensable for understanding that views of divinity are related to human experience, including

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