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Updated: June 18, 2025
The so-called Babylonian exile brought Hebrews and Babylonians once more side by side. Under the stimulus of this direct contact, the final shape was given by Hebrew writers to their cosmological speculations. Yahwe is assigned the rôle of Bel-Marduk, the division of the work of creation into six days is definitely made, and some further modifications introduced.
Elijah's restoration of the widow's child to life is an instance of this power, and Jonah, who praises Yahwe for having delivered him when the gates of Sheol already seemed bolted, may not have had anything more in mind than what the Babylonians meant; but when the Psalmist, to indicate the universal rule of Yahwe, exclaims
Naturally, it was impossible to inscribe the whole story on a little tablet, just as it was impossible to place the entire law of Yahwe on the doorposts. In both cases a significant extract served as a part, representative of the whole.
Subsequent excavations may, of course, change the present aspect; but one gains the impression from the most ancient inscriptions found at Nippur that at an early period Bel was a god much like the Hebrew Yahwe, "jealous" of having others at his side.
As long as Yahwe was merely one god among many, no exception was made of the rule that the concern of the gods was with the living; but Yahwe as the one and only god, could not be pictured as limited in his scope. He was a god for the dead, as well as for the living.
The dead are designated by a name that indicates their weak condition. They can only talk in whispers or they chirp like birds. Their gait is unsteady. In general, they are pictured as lying quiet, doomed to inactivity. Death is lamented as an evil. The dead have passed out of the control of Yahwe, whose concern is with the living. Yahwe's blessings are meted out in this world, but not in Sheol.
If I mount to heaven, thou art there, If I make Sheol my couch, thou art there, the departure from the old Hebrew and Babylonian views of the limitation of divine power is clearly marked. The inconsistency between the view held of Yahwe and the limitation of his power was not, however, always recognized.
The pressing need of constructing a national polity for the present on the only basis then possible Yahwe worship FORCED them into falsifying the past. The question was one of life and death for the Jewish nationality.
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