The_Early_History_of_God
The Early History of God
Book by Mark S. Smith
The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities in Ancient Israel [1] is a book on the history of ancient Israelite religion by Mark S. Smith, Skirball Professor of Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at New York University. The revised 2002 edition contains revisions to the original 1990 edition in light of intervening archaeological finds and studies.
The history of the emergence of Judaism and monotheism has been the subject of study since at least the 19th century and Julius Wellhausen's Prolegomena to the History of Israel; in the 20th century a work was William F. Albright's Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan (1968), which insisted on the essential otherness of Yahweh from the Canaanite gods from the very beginning of Israel's history. Smith and others believe that Israel and its religion emerged gradually from a West Semitic and Canaanite background.