Karen Armstrong - A History of God--The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam

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Exodus were related. Finally Joshua stipulated the terms of the agreement and demanded the formal assent of the assembled
people of Israel:
So now, fear Yahweh and serve him perfectly and sincerely; put away the gods that you once served beyond
the River (Jordan] and in Egypt and serve Yahweh. But if you will not serve Yahweh, choose today whom
you wish to serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in
whose land you are now living. {22}
The people had a choice between Yahweh and the traditional gods of Canaan. They did not hesitate. There was no other
god like Yahweh; no other deity had ever been so effective on behalf of his worshippers. His powerful intervention in their
affairs had demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that Yahweh was up to the job of being their elohim: they would
worship him alone and cast away the other gods. Joshua warned them that Yahweh was exceedingly jealous. If they
neglected the terms of the covenant, he would destroy them. The people stood firm: they chose Yahweh alone as their
elohim. Then cast away the alien gods from among you!' Josuah cried, 'and give your hearts to Yahweh, the God of Israel!'
{23}
The Bible shows that the people were not true to the covenant. They remembered it in times of war, when they needed
Yahweh's skilled military protection, but when times were easy they worshipped Baal, Anat and Asherah in the old way.
Although Yahweh's cult was fundamentally different in its historical bias, it often expressed itself in terms of the old
paganism. When King Solomon built a Temple for Yahweh in Jerusalem, the city that his father David had captured from
the Jebusites, it was similar to the Temples of the Canaanite gods. It consisted of three square areas, which culminated in the
small, cube-shaped room known as the Holy of Holies which contained the Ark of the Covenant, the portable altar which
the Israelites had with them during their years in the wilderness. Inside the Temple was a huge bronze basin, representing
Yam, the primeval sea of Canaanite myth, and two forty-foot free-standing pillars, indicating the fertility cult of Asherah.
The Israelites continued to worship Yahweh in the ancient shrines which they had inherited from the Canaanites at Beth-El,
Shiloh, Hebron, Bethlehem and Dan, where there were frequently pagan ceremonies. The Temple soon became special,
however, even though, as we shall see, there were some remarkably unorthodox activities there too. The Israelites began to
see the Temple as the replica of Yahweh's heavenly court. They had their own New Year Festival in the autumn, beginning
with the scapegoat ceremony on the Day of Atonement, followed five days later by the harvest festival of the Feast of
Tabernacles, which celebrated the beginning of the agricultural year. It has been suggested that some of the psalms
celebrated the enthronement of Yahweh in his Temple on the Feast of Tabernacles, which, like the enthronement of
Marduk, re-enacted his primal subjugation of chaos. {24} King Solomon himself was a great syncretist: he had many pagan
wives, who worshipped their own gods, and had friendly dealings with his pagan neighbours.
There was always a danger that the cult of Yahweh would eventually be submerged by the popular paganism. This became
particularly acute during the latter half of the ninth century. In 869 King Ahab had succeeded to the throne of the northern
Kingdom of Israel. His wife Jezebel, daughter of the King of Tyre and Sidon in what is now Lebanon, was an ardent pagan,
intent upon converting the country to the religion of Baal and Asherah. She imported priests of Baal, who quickly acquired a
following among the northerners, who had been conquered by King David and were lukewarm Yahwists. Ahab remained
true to Yahweh but did not try to curb Jezebel's proselytism. When a severe drought struck the land towards the end of his
reign, however, a prophet named Eli-Jah ('Yahweh is my god!') began to wander through the land, clad in a hairy mantle
and a leather loincloth, fulminating against the disloyalty to Yahweh. He summoned King Ahab and the people to a contest
on Mount Carmel between Yahweh and Baal. There, in the presence of 450 prophets of Baal, he harangued the people:
how long would they dither between the two deities? Then he called for two bulls, one for himself and one for the prophets
of Baal, to be placed on two altars. They would call upon their gods and see which one sent down fire from heaven to
consume the holocaust. 'Agreed!' cried the people. The prophets of Baal shouted his name for the whole morning,
performing their hobbling dance round their altar, yelling and gashing themselves with swords and spears. But 'there was no
voice, no answer'. Elijah jeered: 'Call louder!' he cried, 'for he is a god: he is preoccupied or he is busy, or he has gone on a
journey; perhaps he is asleep and he will wake up.' Nothing happened: 'there was no voice, no answer, no attention given
them.'
Then it was Elijah's turn. The people crowded round the altar of Yahweh while he dug a trench around it which he filled with
water, to make it even more difficult to ignite. Then Elijah called upon Yahweh. Immediately, of course, fire fell from heaven
and consumed the altar and the bull, licking up all the water in the trench. The people fell upon their faces: 'Yahweh is God,'
they cried, 'Yahweh is God.' Elijah was not a generous victor. 'Seize the prophets of Baal!' he ordered. Not one was to be
spared: he took them to a nearby valley and slaughtered the lot. {25} Paganism did not usually seek to impose itself on