Is exclusive Yahwehism even plausible prior to the Hasmonaeans?

[rgprice]

But describing an ideal state is not the same thing as "advocating" for or "realistically calling out for and garnering support for". Again, we return to the ideological nature of what are classified as ancient "law codes". Josephus, for instance, accused the independence fighters of having a totally wrong idea of the Torah. Most Jewish leaders seem to have not considered the Pentateuch as a call for an activist political program.

Josephus is a Roman apologist. Come now. Clearly, by an abundance of evidence, the Hasmonaeans took the Torah quite seriously and implemented many of its guidelines.

[rgprice]

If we think of the Pentateuch as something more like the Communist Manifesto, then, IMO, things start to make a lot more sense.

The Persian empire is overtaken. Palestine goes into disarray, with the region going back and fourth between Ptolemaic and Seleucid "control".

People of the region want autonomy.

Some Jewish figures write the Pentateuch as a sort of aspirational founding doctrine for a new movement for Jewish autonomy.

The Hasmonaeans buy into this movement, much like Leninists going in with Marxism.

They opportunistically take advantage of a situation when they see it to bring about a revolution inspired by the Pentateuch, just as Lenin was inspired by Marx, or indeed as Americans were inspired by Thomas Paine.

We aren't talking about actual deeply rooted ancient culture here, we are talking about a new revolutionary movement, cloaking itself, as many of this era did, in the guise of ancient wisdom.

Then, when the Hasmonaeans come to power, they act about like the Communists did in Russia or China. They've go their Little Red Book that they try to follow and implement, but like all such revolutionary propaganda, it runs up against practical reality and falls short. The system proposed in the Little Red Book isn't something tried and true through centuries cultural refinement, no, its ideological and revolutionary. As such, its not really very practical and thus much infighting ensues trying to make sense of it and figure out how to make it all work, again, just like the Communists splintering and creating factions over Marxism.

Like literally, we can see how the this so closely mirrors how the the Communist movement played out. An ideological, revolutionary movement, launched through the creation and dissemination of a manifesto. In this case, no doubt the Pentateuch was pitched as a "return to" the long lost traditions of the Israelites.

[neilgodfrey]

But describing an ideal state is not the same thing as "advocating" for or "realistically calling out for and garnering support for". Again, we return to the ideological nature of what are classified as ancient "law codes". Josephus, for instance, accused the independence fighters of having a totally wrong idea of the Torah. Most Jewish leaders seem to have not considered the Pentateuch as a call for an activist political program.

Josephus is a Roman apologist. Come now. Clearly, by an abundance of evidence, the Hasmonaeans took the Torah quite seriously and implemented many of its guidelines.

We cannot dismiss the picture Josephus gives simply because he is biased. We make allowances for his bias. The Hasmoneans represent but one period of history and are not obviously representative of all devotees of the Torah --- Before the Hasmoneans we have the Book of Sirach addressing the Law, and after the Hasmoneans we have devotees of the Law who do not appear to be the least interested in following them. Rather, the Hasmonean program has been explained well in terms of the specific conditions they faced at a particular time.

Have you read Steve Mason's history of the Jewish war and the motivations of the zealots? **

Again --- there are strong arguments that ancient "law codes" such as we are talking about had no relationship with a desire to be literally put into practice in the real world.

----
Added later:

** I ask because Mason demonstrates -- I think he succeeds very well -- that the zealot rebellion is best explained by non-religious factors.

[neilgodfrey]

If we think of the Pentateuch as something more like the Communist Manifesto, then, IMO, things start to make a lot more sense.

Or we can be misled by anachronism.

The Persian empire is overtaken. Palestine goes into disarray, with the region going back and fourth between Ptolemaic and Seleucid "control".

But Palestine did not go into disarray. Its ultimate authority was exchanged from Persians to Greeks-Macedonians. They changed rulers but did not go into disarray.

People of the region want autonomy.

Samaria rebelled but Jerusalem cooperated with the ruling powers. So the people were not all of one mind. The Samarian rebellion was quickly suppressed and did not spread.

I don't think we should be projecting modern views of nationalism and independence into the ancients. "Desires for independence" arose with the growth of national consciousnesses in relatively modern times. Most people accepted the status quo. Rulers from outside could even be a "good thing" for keeping ethnic and other local conflicts under control. We are talking about people who had grown up for generations under the rule of outside powers. They knew nothing different. Their identities were more directed to their local village or city or temple.

Something would have to initiate a desire for independence such as the Hasmonean revolt. Would reading/hearing the Pentateuch for the first time be enough to explain why Hasmoneans decided to revolt?

Some Jewish figures write the Pentateuch as a sort of aspirational founding doctrine for a new movement for Jewish autonomy.

That is a sticking point between us. I have tried to point to other studies that say no such intent was ever part of what we call those kinds of law codes.

[neilgodfrey]

I should add that I think you are correct insofar as the motivation that led to the creation of the Pentateuch was -- at least for some of the authors -- a desire to resist Hellenism. The Macedonians introduced dramatically in-your-face foreign ideas and customs to the peoples of Palestine. My conservative instincts won't let me take it further than that, however.

[neilgodfrey]

If we think of the Pentateuch as something more like the Communist Manifesto, then, IMO, things start to make a lot more sense.

Just one more then I'll (really) finish ....

I think you are right insofar as the result of the creation of the Torah was an emergent consciousness that was motivated to fight against Seleucids interfering in internal politics in a way that offended certain Torah-beliefs/identities. But to say that that was the intent of the Pentateuch is going way too far -- it is nothing at all like the revolutionary writings you mention. It is not a call to resistance or a call to target a particular enemy in the sense that those documents are. The longer history of the Judeans and Samaritans demonstrates that the Pentateuch was never seen as such a document. If it had been, surely the authorities would have long since burned it and we would know nothing about it.

[Jair]

If we think of the Pentateuch as something more like the Communist Manifesto, then, IMO, things start to make a lot more sense.

The Persian empire is overtaken. Palestine goes into disarray, with the region going back and fourth between Ptolemaic and Seleucid "control".

People of the region want autonomy.

Some Jewish figures write the Pentateuch as a sort of aspirational founding doctrine for a new movement for Jewish autonomy.

The Hasmonaeans buy into this movement, much like Leninists going in with Marxism.

They opportunistically take advantage of a situation when they see it to bring about a revolution inspired by the Pentateuch, just as Lenin was inspired by Marx, or indeed as Americans were inspired by Thomas Paine.

We aren't talking about actual deeply rooted ancient culture here, we are talking about a new revolutionary movement, cloaking itself, as many of this era did, in the guise of ancient wisdom.

Then, when the Hasmonaeans come to power, they act about like the Communists did in Russia or China. They've go their Little Red Book that they try to follow and implement, but like all such revolutionary propaganda, it runs up against practical reality and falls short. The system proposed in the Little Red Book isn't something tried and true through centuries cultural refinement, no, its ideological and revolutionary. As such, its not really very practical and thus much infighting ensues trying to make sense of it and figure out how to make it all work, again, just like the Communists splintering and creating factions over Marxism.

Like literally, we can see how the this so closely mirrors how the the Communist movement played out. An ideological, revolutionary movement, launched through the creation and dissemination of a manifesto. In this case, no doubt the Pentateuch was pitched as a "return to" the long lost traditions of the Israelites.

This whole hypothesis in the OP is very interesting. I am curious about how the documentary hypothesis, supplementary hypothesis, and other redaction criticisms of the Torah apply in all this? Because the Pentateuch as we have it is almost universally accepted as having been penned by multiple hands, sometimes with conflicting views.

The priestly source, for instance, doesn’t seem to have any issues with Asherim. The Deuteronomist, however, deeply dislikes the Asherim. We also have multiple origin stories knitted together, not only for Israel’s foundation, but for more detailed things like who the Levites were. How does all of this contextually work as developments in the post Persian period?