Whilst breadth is certainly needed, some framework and a methodological springboard for this discussion is helpful when engaging such a large data set. In order to gain some of these anchoring points, we need to understand what has and has not been effective. Because much of this study engages the comparison of YHWH with deities from the wider cultural matrix, the complications and difficulties experienced by the field of comparative ancient Near East study with the Hebrew Bible is a helpful place to find some of those anchoring points. We need to understand the history of the comparative approach and how it has influenced the questions that we ask about YHWH, as many of the questions raised in past scholarship still permeate aspects of the discipline today. Let us explore some of that history to clarify our approach here, while guiding such a large data set and explorative study.
Understanding the roots of contemporary questions
Ever since the unlocking of Akkadian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs in the 19th century, there have been numerous approaches to the comparative endeavour in biblical studies that have inevitably dragged the Hebrew Bible into comparative study. So it is no surprise that the very basic questions originating in a 19th-century context arising from the uncertainty, perceived threats, and possibilities are still operative today in the field when it comes to understanding YHWH. For example, the following questions are asked: What did YHWH have in common with other deities? What is original in the Hebrew Bible if YHWH has a back story that was lost to history and is now recovered? How do we trace the movements between the two and make informed proposals and decisions about what we claim of divinity in Ancient Israel?
The discoveries of Egyptian and Mesopotamian materials in the 19th century forced the question of how the Hebrew Bible was unique, if at all, and what the authors of its texts knew and did not know. Most modern explorations still have assumptions from the discoveries of the 19th century and constructions of “Orientalism.” While this involved British, French, German, and other contributions and interests, the British empire provides one example of how orientalism developed. Explorers of the ancient Near East pursued what was east of them but “nearer” than the Far East of China. The nearness thus referred to the centre, constructed as the British empire in their self-understanding of the time. Because the biblical text was prominent in British culture and these other cultures (both modern and ancient) were foreign to them, the original home of the Hebrew Bible was both threatening and magnetic. New discoveries were also made possible by British occupation and easy access to ancient sites under the Ottoman Turks, all fuelling the Victorian appetite for this area.
It is well documented that the British interest in the Orient and in its ancient history was in part motivated by possible connections of this “new land” to the Bible. Thus, we see support for ancient Near Eastern studies increase at major universities leading into the Enlightenment period. For example, multiple chairs of Arabic studies were established in the 1500–1600s.5 Political and cultural interest in the region led to the teaching of additional languages at the École des langues orientales vivantes in 1795, teaching Turkish and Armenian. This was often rooted in biblical study and the search to illuminate the biblical text through a newly discovered culture. Likewise, in 1650 the Jesuit priest Athanasis Kirker realized connections between Coptic and Egyptian hieroglyphs. Then, in 1799, Napoleon’s army found the Rosetta stone, preserving a single text in three languages, one of them being Greek, as well as demotic and Egyptian hieroglyphs. This finally led to Jean-Francois Champollion unlocking Egyptian hieroglyphs in 1824, while in 1850 Georg F. Grotefend broke further ground in the fields of Assyriology and Egyptology. Also in this period, between 1848 and 1853, Akkadian was deciphered.
Following this was another important discovery. In 1928, as a Syrian farmer was tilling his field, the plough struck a stone, leading to the discovery of the ancient city of Ugarit, populated from 1400 to 1200 bce. As a port city, Ugarit held many treasures, some of which were clay tablets written in cuneiform script resembling Akkadian but in an alphabetic language similar to Ancient Hebrew. The accounting of the gods and myths from Ugarit includes various deities mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, both similar to and distinct from YHWH. Again, this motivated scholarship in the following years and often played with questions of how and if YHWH was unique in relation to these other deities.
Thus, during the Enlightenment, the dominant languages of the ancient world during the time and formation of the Hebrew Bible were being unlocked. This was indeed unique and included a series of coincidences rarely found in other historical/academic fields. Those texts were now available for comparison with the Hebrew Bible. The flood story, multiple creation stories of the ancient world, and the cultures and ideas of the Mesopotamians and Egyptians which the Bible claimed to represent accurately given the many assumptions about inspiration during this time—each challenged, illuminated, and broadened the biblical representation of events, figures, and ideas such as the uniqueness of divinity. The Bible was experiencing the greatest change in the ways that it could be approached, at a time when scientific and industrial revolutions were shifting ideas about the soul and the human being. For some, the newness was exciting, whereas for others it was disorientating.
One illustrative, albeit humorous, example captures both the motivation to explore these ancient cultures as well as a demonstration of what was at stake. In 1872, George Smith was an English Assyriologist and one of the first to work with the ancient Akkadian story with strong similarities to the biblical flood story, the Gilgamesh epic. The first written account of Smith’s reaction was documented in 1925 by E. A. Budge:
Irving Finkel, the current curator of the cuneiform inscriptions in the British Library, also vividly describes this story. Finkel describes how Smith, upon realizing the significance of its content, dropped a cuneiform tablet in anxiety and ran around the room making squeaking noises and frantically removing his clothing. Finkel, with some creative flare and additions, interprets this event as an epileptic anxiety attack when Smith realized the impact of discovering a Genesis-like text.7
The discoveries of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian monuments and inscriptions, and the beginnings of deciphering these scripts, thus led amateurs to travel around the Middle East searching for such treasures. In addition, donors lined up to fund such travel. As a result, during this time early scholarly societies and journals, many still functioning today, were established.8 Interest increased with the Victorian appetite for the foreign and the fantastical which, combined with a political interest in the region, fuelled and funded “research” travel to the Middle East. These discoveries and their impact on the British/Victorian mind were then captured in poetry and in illustrated bibles at the time representing the ancient Near East.9 Public and scholarly communities were exposed increasingly not only to the Bible but also to all of the questions raised by the ancient contexts in which the Bible was born. For example, in 1847, A. H. Layard was working at Kalhu and sketches of his excavations were being published in the Illustrated London News. This was meant not just for scholarly audiences but for wider audiences as wel...
