The Illustrated Guide to Law

Constitutional Law

Part 2: “What Were They Thinking?”

Digression: “A History of Government in 6 Revolutions: From the Paleolithic to Philadelphia”

108. Inventing God and Law: Yahweh Takes Over

 

Title: Part B: Yahweh Takes Over

 

Panel 1: A bearded young man in a striped tunic raises his hand in prayer at an open-air hilltop shrine. On a pedestal to his left, an offering of something vegetable is smoldering in a terracotta platter. An arrow points to the offering from the caption “Burning offerings of incense and cannabis. When they said “high places,” they weren’t kidding!” In front of him is a very rudimentary stone altar, on top of which are a simple bullet-shaped stone and another terracotta platter of some sort of offering. Semi-arid hills range off in the distance.

 

NARRATION:

On hilltops from Sinai to Samaria, you started to find open-air shrines to Yahweh.

The practice of divination at these shrines offered people a primitive form of justice.

 

INSET: A black stone with white stripes, and an identical white stone with black stripes. They are captioned “Black rock NO” and “White rock YES.”

 

NARRATION:

And as we’ve seen, if folks think you’re giving them justice, they’re also going to agree that you’ve got some authority.

 

-=-

 

Panel 2: A map of the region around the Sinai Peninsula, including land that is now part of Egypt, northwestern Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, and Syria. The land to the west of the Dead Sea is colored dull orange, and does not extend to the Mediterranean. An irregular shape directly to the north is shaded dull pink, and encompasses the Jordan River, the Sea of Galilee, and the little panhandle in the north of modern Israel and Jordan. To the north of the pink zone are the words “Ba’al came from up there” and an arrow pointing off the map to the north. A dotted line encircles the plain between Al Bad’ and Gayal in northwestern Saudi Arabia just west of the Gulf of Aqaba, and inside the dotted line are the words “Yahweh came from here. The city of Samaria is marked with a black dot in the pink zone, and the city of Jerusalem is marked with a black dot in the orange zone.

 

NARRATION:

As Yahweh grew in importance, he was adopted into the Semitic pantheon as one of the sons of El and Asherah. (Along with another storm/war god, “Ba’al,” from up north.)

Politically, the region north of Jerusalem coalesced into a kingdom called “Isra-El,” or “El prevails.”

 

INSET: An arrow leads from that last sentence to the pink zone.

 

VOICE FROM SAMARIA:

It’s “Isra-EL,” not “Isra-Yahweh.”

 

NARRATION:

The region to the south remained more loosely organized, but Jerusalem grew in importance as a cult center of the worship of Yahweh.

 

INSET: An arrow leads from that last sentence to the orange zone.

 

VOICE FROM JERUSALEM:

Yahweh may be a lesser god, but he’s our lesser god!

 

-=-

 

Panel 3: Two male figures shiver into one with the sound effect MERGE!, as a figure of Asherah watches with one hand on her hip and raising one arm in reaction.

 

NARRATION:

Gradually, and at different rates in different places, Yahweh took on attributes associated with El—to the point that Yahweh eventually replaced El as head of the pantheon.

 

YAHWEH AND EL (merging):

We are one!

 

NARRATION:

Which meant that Asherah was no longer El’s wife. She was Yahweh’s wife.

 

ASHERAH:

Sometimes it feels like you’re not the same man I married.

 

-=-

 

Panel 4: A copper-colored snake with ruby eyes is draped around a Y-shaped staff.

 

NARRATION:

[Side note: Asherah was often represented by a stylized tree of wisdom/life, frequently draped with a serpent.

Snakes were a common symbol of birth, rebirth, and healing in the ancient world, from India to the Aegean. I have no idea why.]

 

-=-

 

Panel 5: Narration boxes.

 

NARRATION:

But it would be a mistake to say this was nothing more than El changing his name.

The merger of Yahweh into El proved to be a very big deal.