YAHWEH BEFORE MOSES GEORGE AARON BARTON Bryn Mawr College THERE is no more fascinating problem in the whole field of the history of religion than the origin and development of the worship of Yahweh. Within the last few years new facts concerning it have been brought to light, and various and somewhat conflicting theories have arisen to explain them. It is the purpose of the present paper to examine, sift, and coördinate the most important of these facts and theories. We may begin with a reference to the theory that Yahweh was of Kenite origin, though this view has been discussed so often of recent years that it is unnecessary to enter fully into it here. It was first suggested by Ghillany1 in 1862, was supported by Tiele,' strongly urged by Stade,3 more fully worked out by Budde, and has been accepted by Guthe, H. P. Smith, Wildeboer," Cheyne, Paton," and Burney.10 The present writer has twice expressed his adhesion to it," and Addis accepts it as a possibility.12 The reasons for accepting it have been succinctly stated by Budde, Paton, and the writer, and need not be repeated here. They follow from the prevailing Pentateuchal documentary theory, 1 Theologische Briefe an die Gebildeten der deutschen Nation, 1. 216, 408. * Vergelijkende Geschiedenis van de Egyptische en Mesopotamische Godsdiensten, p. 559. Geschichte des Volkes Israel, 1. 130 f.; Biblische Theologie, pp. 42 f. • Religion of Israel to the Exile, chapter i. 5 Geschichte des Volkes Israel, pp. 21, 29. • Old Testament History, p. 57. 'Jahvedienst en Volksreligie in Israel, pp. 15 f. 8 Encyclopædia Biblica, col. 3208. 10 Journal of Theological Studies, 9. 337 ff. Biblical World, 28. 116 f. "Semitic Origins, pp. 272 f., 275 f., and Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible in One Volume, p. 410. 12 Hebrew Religion to the Establishment of Judaism under Ezra, p. 70. so that from the Biblical evidence as thus understood this formerly seemed the only natural hypothesis. Several new theories have, however, been urged in recent years, two of which are based on facts outside the Old Testament. These have been thought to challenge or overthrow the Kenite hypothesis. If they really do so, that theory should be reëxamined or discarded. 13 The first of these theories is based upon the belief that the name Yahweh has been found on Babylonian tablets of the time of Hammurabi or earlier. The occurrence of such names was first announced by Professor Sayce, but the announcement did not attract attention until Professor Delitzsch delivered the famous lecture which started the 'Babel und Bibel' controversy.14 He brought into prominence two names, Yawa-ilu 15 and Yaum-ilu,16 claiming the first to be equal to Yahweh-el and the second to Joel. Many scholars accepted the latter name as probably representing Yahweh," but the first one was doubted, not only because the sign read wa might be read pi, but because in the hundreds of names in the Old Testament in which Yahweh is the first element, this element is always contracted to Yo or Y'ho.18 More recently it has been thought to be proved that Delitzsch misread the name Yawa-ilu and that it should be read Yapi-ilu.19 This view is based on the discovery of a name Ya-pa-ilu in a tablet of the same period.20 It is not, however, quite certain that this disproves the presence of the divine name Yahweh, for Johns has pointed out that if we take Iabe," the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton to which Theodoret testifies, as a starting point, the Babylonian divine name Ib may come into comparison. 13 Expository Times, 9. 522. Cf. Hommel, ibid. 10. 42. 14 See his Babel and Bible, translated by Johns, pp. 70 ff. 15 Spelled Ya-a-wa-ilu, in Cuneiform Texts, 8. 20. 3a, and Ya-wa-ilu, ibid. 34. 4a. In each case the sign read wa might be read pi, making Yapi-ilu. 16 See Cuneiform Texts, 4. 27. 3a. The m is apparently the well-known mimmation. 17 So, for example, A. T. Clay, Light on the Bible from Babel, pp. 236 f., and Rogers, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 92 ff. 18 See Clay, op. cit., pp. 236 and 239. 19 So Clay, Amurru, p. 207. 20 See Vorderasiatische Schriftdenkmäler, 8. no. 16. 39. " Labé was really pronounced Yahwe. This does not affect the fact that b, p. and m all may represent in Babylonian the Hebrew waw. One individual at Dilbat was named ilu-Ib-ilu-Iau, i.e. 'the god Ib is my god Yau.' 22 The god Ib was then identified with Yau, who was perhaps Yahu or Yahweh. It has been demonstrated that in Babylonian p, b, and m all interchanged with waw.23 If Iaba was, as Johns suggests, one of the Babylonian ways of expressing Yahweh, this may also have been expressed in Babylonian writing by Yapa. In that case the name of Yapa-ilu referred to above, so far from disproving Professor Delitzsch's contention that Yawa-ilu or Yapi-ilu contains the divine name Yahweh as its first element, would actually confirm it. It must be confessed, however, that this identity is very uncertain. While it may be that all three forms Yawa, Yaba, and Yapa represent an original Yahweh,24 that it really was so is not yet proven. When Yahweh as the first element of a personal name was written in cuneiform in the Persian period, it was sometimes written 'Ya-,' sometimes 'Yau-,' and sometimes 'Yahu.' 25 If we may reason that the same varieties of phonetic expression existed in the time of the first dynasty of Babylon, we should find the name Yahweh as the first element in the names Yaḥi-ilu 26 and Yauḥi-ilu 27 which occur in texts from Dilbat. This would add another group of occurrences of this name in Babylonian texts of this period and also another to the forms under which it appears. The fact that in tablets of the Kassite period the name Yau-bani 28 occurs, has been urged as a reason for supposing that these forms, or at least some of them, represent the Cambridge Biblical Essays, p. 49. E.g., Hebrew is turned into Assyrio-Babylonian as lamú, labû, and lapú (Talm., Syriac l'wă, Arabic lawa; in Ethiopic the form in the simple stem has become lawawa, but in the reflexive talaweya the original form of the root appears). Cf. Delitzsch, Assyrisches Handwörterbuch, pp. 368, 379, and Brockelmann, Vergleichende Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen, pp. 139, 140. 24 Daiches, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, 22. 126, declares that the Tetragrammaton is never found in the cuneiform. 25 See Clay, Light on the Old Testament from Babel, pp. 236 ff., and Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania, 9. no. 25. l. 19; no. 28. l. 15; nɔ. 45. 1. 1; no. 55. lines 1, 14; 10. no. 77. l. 3. 26 Vorderasiatische Schriftdenkmäler, 7. no. 5. 27. 27 Ibid. no. 8. 3, 5, 8; no. 9. 39. 28 Cf. Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania, 15. no. 184. 1. 7; no. 200. col. i. l. 37; col. ii. lines 16, 25. divine name Yahweh. This name (Yau-bani) is parallel to Bel-bani, in which 'Bel' is certainly a divine element. The natural inference is therefore that Yau represents a divine name. If such a god was known in Babylonia in the Kassite period, this would strengthen the presumption that the names which we have passed in review from the time of Hammurabi's dynasty contain it also. It has been contended that the name Yahweh as an element in a proper name occurs in Babylonia still earlier. In a text published by Thureau-Dangin, a granddaughter of the king Naram-Sin bears a name which may be read LipushIaum,29 May Iaum make.' Radau,30 Burney," and Clay 32 all regard this as an occurrence of Yahweh. Rogers 33 with more caution holds that it is doubtful, and that possibly Ea is referred to. It would certainly be rash to assert that this name is proof that Yahweh as a divine name was known among the immediate descendants of Naram-Sin, but it is clearly possible that such may be the case. As Zimmern has noted (Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament, p. 468, ed. 3), these names in which Yahweh appears to occur in Babylonia are all borne by foreigners. In reality we cannot be sure that these Babylonian names refer to a god at all until we find such names as Arad-Ya, Arad-Yau, Arad-Yama, AradYaba, Arad-Yapa, in which the last element is preceded by the determinative for god.34 In the absence of decisive evidence, however, a presumption that they contain a divine name has been established, and some probability that that divine element is identical with the divine name which we know as Yahweh. In addition to these Babylonian occurrences, it is thought that the name Yahweh occurs in the name Akhi-yami, which is, as the Murashu texts show, the Babylonian way of writing Ahijah. The name occurs on a tablet found at 29 See the Comptes Rendus of the Paris Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, 1899, p. 348, pl. 1. The reading Iaum is not altogether certain. I is expressed by an unusual sign. 30 Early Babylonian History, p. 178. 32 Amurru, p. 90. 31 Journal of Theological Studies, 9. 342. "Such names as Arad-ya-um (Babylonian Expedition, 15. no. 120. 1. 2) and Arad-ya-u (ibid. 17. no. 48. l. 9) do not fulfil this condition, as they lack the determinative. Taanach which was written between 1400 and 1300 B.C.35 It has long been supposed that Yahweh is the first element in the name of Yau-bi'di, a king of Hamath 36 who was overthrown by Sargon II., and it has been supposed that the presence of these names in Palestine and Syria as well as in Babylonia is proof that the divine name Yahweh was not the peculiar possession of Israel, but belonged also to widely scattered Semites. Of course the same uncertainty attaches to the names Yau-bi'di and Akhi-yama as to the names previously discussed; but in case the name Yahweh is really represented in these forms, how are we to account for its presence? The analogy of the use of other divine names among the Semites would lead us to look for the explanation in the use of some common epithet, rather than in the worship of the same deity. Thus it has long been recognized that the names Ishtar, Ashtar, Attar, Athtar, Astar, Ashtart, and Ashtoreth found in the various parts of the Semitic world are the same name, and that they are applied to deities so nearly alike that the epithet in which the name originated was appropriate, but that the deities were not identical.38 Athtar, worshipped in South Arabia, had no relationship to Ashtart, worshipped at Sidon, except the kinship due to a common, though far-away, origin. Similarly the term Baal, applied so often to Canaanite gods, is kindred to Bel, which was applied to Babylonian deities. The deities were not, however, identical. Thus also Shamash, worshipped at Agade, Shamash, worshipped at Larsa, Shemesh, worshipped at BethShemesh, and Shams, a goddess worshipped in South Arabia,39 all bear the same name, but are clearly not identical. Analogy would accordingly lead us to suppose that a divine name which apparently was used in Babylonia in the time of Hammurabi, in the Kassite period, and possibly in the family of Naram-Sin, also at Taanach, at Hamath, and among the Kenites of the peninsula of Sinai, as well as by the Hebrews, was, like these other names, an epithet that 35 See Sellin's Tell Ta'annek, p. 115, no. 2. 2 and p. 121. no. 2. 2. * See e.g. Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament, p. 66 (3d ed.). 17 So Rogers, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 95. 38 See e.g. Hebraica, 10. 68, and the writer's Semitic Origins, chapter iii. |