Yahweh's Story
Before the development of agriculture, the tribes were "hunter-gatherers", travelling nomads who depended for their food on the Earth's bounty and their animal prey.
Most of the hunting-gathering tribes worshipped animal spirits (clan divinities) and female gods - and in those days women held high, respected positions in their tribes. The woman's creative power in childbirth was held in awe by men. But as men and their macho-gods came to power, the old myths and old gods waned in power. The old gentler, female gods slipped gracefully into the past as new warrior-gods came to the forefront. Mythologists and anthropologists agree that this huge shift from the feminine to the masculine culture took place across a wide area of the globe in a known period of history.
We know that the Moon was particularly worshipped as feminine, perhaps because of its cycle through various phases, closely matching the women's menstrual cycle. Alongside the Moon, the snake was also worshipped, again because it changed on a cyclic basis, shedding its skin and being renewed. It was a feminine symbol of rebirth and renewal.
The new agricultural ways brought advantages - and disadvantages. In the past, hunter- gatherers had always wandered nomadically, spending a lot of energy searching for the next meal. Now though, agriculture allowed people to settle down into communities that grew more prosperous and allowed some leisure time for thinking and inventing..
With the new lifestyle, though, came a serious threat. The farming towns became targets for organised bandits. The first wars occurred. Hence, the first proper armies began to be formed. Now, the men became glorious warriors in an organised sense. It was probably around this time that the myths and stories used to inspire and motivate the people became much more warlike - more macho and aggressive.
Whenever two nations (or towns) came to war, the leaders used their gods to motivate the people, to raise their morale, to justify the conflict. "With god on our side..."; "Kill the unbelievers..."
When we study these old myths we find that sometimes the towns would merge without too much bloodshed - in these cases the myths often tell of a marriage between the god of one town and the goddess of another. However, when battles resulted in victory for one side and surrender by the other, the myths speak of one god vanquishing another god or goddess. The losing god is usually mocked or vilified, then killed or exiled in these stories.
Interestingly, archaeologists have found inscriptions and carvings showing the marriage of two gods: "Yahweh and His Asherah". So it is likely that the tribe of Yahweh merged with the worshippers of Asherah in a peaceable way. Yahweh was just one of hundreds of tribal gods.
The relic of another of these stories has been passed down to us today - via the Jews - in the first chapters of Genesis. It speaks of great changes in the peoples' beliefs. Yahweh - the new imagined warrior-god - beat down the old imagined Snake God, humiliated and exiled it. "Women caused the problem! Let men control all of nature. Don't worship the snake any longer; worship Yahweh our warrior-god! Give power to the male warriors. Our god is male. Let women be subjugated!" And the snake was no longer worshipped but was depicted crawling out of Eden on its belly, eating dust. "Woman" was similarly humiliated and cursed.
Yahweh was one of the new gods in town, a mythical being whose worshippers happened to survive long enough to write down a few stories.
Most of the old gods were derived from "clan-divinities" - usually animal-spirits: the Snake, the Bull, the Lion, the Bear etc. We can still see traces of the original Yahweh in Genesis.
The poor theologians are now stuck with too wide a range of Beings; they must claim that the ancient clan divinity: the "Bull of Jacob" is one and the same being as the God of modern believers. (In order to conceal the embarrassing truth, there is a convention that the phrase "Bull of Jacob" is to be translated "Mighty One of Jacob" in Genesis 49:24). Don Cupitt: "After God".
Geoff Mather 2007
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